#wol x marsak

[kalina-moonbride]

Alternate Universe

Context: Gunnhildr's Blades quest line, post Delubrum Reginae. Follows the continuity of my two-shot fic “How (Not) to Return to the Source.” Spoilers: Incidental references to elements of Bozja duties. Warnings: Sexual language. Challenge: @ffxivpolyamoryweek! Details here.

Kalina Moonbride lay in the tent at Utya's Aegis, breathing hard. Her throat felt ragged; she had a number of smarting wounds from fangs and claws; and her womb… well. She wouldn't say full, that had a different implication. Satisfied. She'd go with that.

On her left, Marsak Apella shook his head and chuckled, his chest heaving as well. “And so Blade Moonbride claims her conquests, even off the battlefield.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “It's not like that. Don't you need this too? When you've witnessed so much death, to throw yourself into the creation of life instead?” Distantly, Imperial artillery thumped against the Ironworks barriers.

On her other side, Zlatan made a choking sound and turned to stare at her, his lack of spectacles giving him an unconscious squint. “Excuse me? Are you trying to become pregnant?”

“What? I think a couple of camp brats would brighten this place up quite a bit.” She swatted his nose in affectionate rebuke. “Pff, come on. I wouldn't do that to you.”

“All joking aside,” Marsak rumbled, “I sometimes wonder, why us? The Blades are but new comrades in arms, to you. Why make your bed here, and not with those who joined you to fell primals, and Ascians, and stranger creatures yet? You speak so fondly of them when telling war stories.”

“Perhaps she misses the company of her own kind?” guessed Zlatan.

“It is good to be among Hrothgar,” Moonbride agreed. “You're right-sized, gods. But that's not it.” She sighed, staring up at the slope of the tent's roof. “The Scions… they don't like to look at me, lately. And it's hard to meet their eyes even when they do.”

Marsak looked across at Zlatan, sharing a puzzled expression with him. “Why so strained?”

“I made a hard decision. In an urgent moment, without their counsel. And to a one they think it was the wrong call, that something else could have been done.” She put a hand to her face, ran a claw through short fur dark with war paint. “And as many times as I've lain awake remembering, or fallen asleep dreaming of it? I can't even say they're mistaken.”

Marsak nodded gravely. “Then you're among your own kind in more ways than one. There's not a soldier among us who hasn't wept wondering if they've taken one life too many, or saved one too few.”

Zlatan put a hand over hers. “We won't avert our gaze, Kalina. We carry these burdens together, lest we collapse beneath them.”

“Ha.” A dry, sad, coughing sort of laugh. “Come here, you two.” She drew them down close, letting them surround her, and closed her stinging eyes.