#timeline: post-7.0 due to Dawntrail people-mention

[theblackestnight-ffxiv]

[ffxivwrite2024] prompt 8: free day

Prompt 8: free day

When she was concentrating, Airraim got a particular furrow in her brow. D’zinhla found it desperately endearing. She also found it endearing that Airraim would scowl if attention was drawn to it, a scowl which only deepened the furrow. 

Right now, she stayed silent, merely watching her beloved over the rim of her glasses. D’zinhla had been working on more transcriptions, work that was very pleasant to do with Airraim also present in the room. Airraim’s own work was at her botany workbench, where she was examining the growth of the plants she tended. It was while she was doing this that D’zinhla had taken note of that furrow of concentration, and paused her own work to admire her.

Airraim hadn’t noticed her regard, putting all her focus into the seedling she was examining. She tilted her head, delicately brushed the newly formed leaves aside, then frowned in consideration, and all the while D’zinhla watched, her heart swelling with warmth for the person who had stolen it.

Whatever it was that had so captured Airraim’s attention seemed to have instilled a low-level frustration in her, because she set the seedling back down and sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Zinhla, next time we go to the market, I’ll-” She broke off as she looked at her, and found her already watching. A wry smile twisted her lips. “How long have you been staring?”

D’zinhla couldn’t help but grin. “Long enough.” She pushed her chair back from her desk, crossing over to slide her arm across Airraim’s shoulders. “I adore you.”

Airraim chuckled, her tail swishing as she leaned into the half-embrace. “You make this quite obvious, my heart. Not that I’ll ever tire of hearing it.” She lifted her hand to where D’zinhla’s rested on her shoulder, brushing her fingertips over her knuckles.

“Mm.” She leaned down to rest her head against Airraim’s, inhaling her scent, mixed as it was with the loam of potting soil, the green of her plants, and the soft floral fragrance that clung to her. She could easily get distracted by this. “But you were saying?”

“I was saying, the next time we go to the market, I think I’ll need to try something different for these new seedlings.” Airraim gestured with her free hand at the dozen or so, in small cups of soil. “I think they need soil that drains better. Or containers that do. They’re showing signs of retaining too much water.”

“I see. Easily accomplished, I’ll make sure we spend time there.” The climate of Ishgard made gardens a very difficult matter, but the proliferation of greenhouses and conservatories proved that its people were still quite willing to try. Clever things could be done with arrangements of crystals, for instance. Airraim had no few contacts among Ishgard’s green thumbs, and was starting to gain a name for herself, mostly for the exotic plants from far-off places that she provided to them in exchange for their support and advice with her own plants. It was a nice arrangement, and one that made D’zinhla delighted, for it meant that Airraim had her own connections at a remove from herself. Certainly the reason she went to those far-off places was because of D’zinhla, but the work with the plants was all Airraim, and her botanical colleagues here in the city were her connections first and foremost. It gave her joy and relief to see Airraim at work within those connections.

“Thank you,” Airraim murmured, looking up at her with a soft smile. “I do apologize for distracting you from your own work.”

“Oh,” and she waved her own free hand dismissively at her desk. “Nothing terribly interesting. Just transcribing a few more copies of that Pelupelu alpaca-herd song. It’s astonishingly similar in structure to a La Noscean shepherd song, so I have some inquiries of my own to make. But nothing I regret setting aside for some moments of admiration.”

“Careful, or one might think you’re utterly besotted.” Behind the teasing words there was a softness, the softness that told her that Airraim still quietly marveled that she was the focus of D’zinhla’s affections. She could recognize it, because she had the mirror of it herself. 

So she smiled. “Of course I am. How could I not be?” And she pressed a kiss to Airraim’s cheek, rewarded with the soft flush of her skin.

Airraim was silent for a few more moments, then sighed softly, the hint of a purr in her exhalation. “My heart,” she murmured, and D’zinhla knew that this time, at least, she had won, with Airraim having no further comeback but her favorite term of endearment.

With her heart full to bursting, she said, “I love you too.”