A flicker of a smile, widening before she glances up and away to study the landscape for a moment.
The directness of the question provokes a very specific kind of anxiety. She can feel it fluttering against her ribs, nervousness that has everything to do with how much she cares about Marcus.
Were Marcus anyone else, the directness of the question after something so singularly good would have been easily answered. Of course she would like to repeat it. That's hardly the question.
Shifting in the saddle, she shifts more fully towards him, fingers folding the reins back and forth as she meets his gaze.
"I think so," she tells him. Doesn't ask if he wants to repeat it, because she knows him well enough. Marcus wouldn't ask to trap her into admitting this for his own amusement.
"Is that alright?" she asks instead, which seems to be the more important question. Is it alright to want this?
The road is long ahead of them, so Marcus can keep his eyes off it for a while. In favour of watching her, meeting her eyes when she looks back at him, an attempt at discerning whatever there is there to read.
Quietly receptive for a tentative answer, and then faintly amused for the next question.
"I don't see anyone here who could say otherwise," he responds, quiet, more deliberate than flippant. Like perhaps the concern for the alrightness of what they've done and may continue to do is external, and a given, between them. Shifts reins his holding in his hands, betraying himself in a fidget for some of his own uncertainty.
It doesn't prevent him from asking, "Why might it not be?"
It does strike her first as a joke, before Marcus follows it with a question.
She moderates her expression accordingly, smile fading as she turns thoughtful. Gives the question due consideration, weighing the reasons why they might veer away from establishing something between them. From coming together with some kind of regularity, when it pleases them.
"Does it scare you?" she asks. "That it could change things between us too much?"
Or has the potential to do so. Inspires worry, concern. Rather than simply saying no, remembering his own caution when he'd first slipped his hand further up her back, Marcus pauses over the question, considers whether that easy answer is true. Lets his focus cast back out to this ragged edge of Free Marches, more stone than earth.
"I think there are ways I feel for you that couldn't change for anything," eventually. "The parts that matter most."
Attraction would be simple. Easy to manage. Just like all of this would be easier were they not so familiar, if she didn't care so deeply for him already. If she could forget the way he sounded when he'd told her I've wanted you.
"You're so important to me," she tells him. Straightforward, unhesitating. "I love you."
Uncomplicated by how he'd looked when he'd pressed her into the wall, when she'd unfastened her necklace. She loves him. It had never needed anything more, but now there is. There is all this between them, this newly formed affection.
Marcus might have said he'd been secure in that knowledge, if not for the way the words themselves feel like a dash of heat through his chest. He might have thought about it as a statement of fact, of course she loves him as he loves her, and as he reserves some amount of love for any mage, a love which can develop and take on its own forms in its own ways,
but no, it's different. How fierce it feels, how clear a path it had created that evening. But also this other thing, to be loved, which is almost as arresting as the feeling itself.
"I love you too," he says, without much in the way of pause between her words and his, focus returned fully. "And what I wouldn't want is for that to," and more of a pause, now, considering his words. It would be easy to say what he's thinking in a way that would evoke undue sympathy and assurance, and it isn't what he's after.
He starts again. "We have different functions, you and me. Mine is not to win hearts and minds. I wouldn't wish any further closeness we could have to diminish your prospects."
No, they aren't just talking about sex, now. That would be simple, done in the dark, in secret, the way they had at the party. But perhaps it's true, that it would be a difficult thing to keep so compartmented, at least not without discussion.
Here is a kind of answer to a question Derrica hadn't asked: when Marcus proposes how they might slip away from a party together, he does not offer it as a frivolous, meaningless thing.
It would matter. It would be something, though he hasn't named it.
I don't care is the first, mulish response that comes to mind. It is true. She doesn't care what people think of him, or what they might think of her for being close to him. He has survived much. He is devoted to protecting other mages. She could never feel shame for standing beside him.
But he invokes that utility, and she knows it cannot be shrugged off so easily. Her voice is the only one that could speak in many instances, carry certain stories forth.
"It wouldn't matter in the Gallows," is practicality, first to hand even as Derrica feels her chest seizing in a kind of detached anxiety at what she is considering. "It would matter at parties, like the one we only recently attended. Then it would matter, if you reached too openly for me."
And she isn't certain whether he could tolerate that.
They have not even broached Derrica's own shortcomings, her habit of flinching from the kind of commitment they are speaking of.
It's assuring, actually, that she says this thing. How he feels about it in practice will come later, but in the moment, Marcus can instead feel a little less burdened by something he would have to carry on his own if she were to deny it. He nods, silent first, agreeing.
The meditative sound of horse hooves, as their two horses blithely continue on their steady way, slightly off-timed. Margaret's ears twitch away a fly, and Marcus feels moved to lean down, pat her neck.
"I don't attend many parties," finally. Wry, but true. He'll live.
A little teasing, though Derrica isn't certain that either of them would let this thing between them interfere should Marcus be requested, or needed, in another ballroom.
In the space after, Derrica turns the reins back and forth in her hand. Dulcinea huffs in response, head tossing, but no other expression of objection to Derrica's fidgeting.
"I've other partners," is how she apparently chooses to broach this topic. Carefully, but watching his face as she does. They have never had occasion to discuss this aspect of her life.
It's unexpected, the thing she says. There's a pause over it that hints at some immediate twinge of feeling, Marcus resettling in his saddle.
But, of course she has other partners; he has intuited as such before, in the scarcely conscious way that a Circle mage is particularly adept at intuiting the various connections within a shared living space. And it would make even less sense for her to phrase it in some kind of past tense fashion, he thinks, only moments into existing in this state. This is all reasonable and sensible.
"I don't," is what he lands on. "I mean. I have had, but. It's alright, that you do."
And for the best, maybe, although he doesn't say that, or find satisfaction in the thought.
As direct as he is, as little tendency towards guile or sugar-coating as he has displayed in all the time they've known each other, Derrica still feels some sort of doubt about his answer.
Whether or not he can truly be alright with the idea of it, whether he would mind if she were to spend nights away from him. If someone else were to take her hand, especially in moments when he could not.
"Would it bother you?" she asks, so gently.
They are not quite close enough for her to catch hold of him. She could reach his shoulder, but her impulse is to take his hand. It culminates in a shuffle of her fingers on the reins, a sideways lean quickly corrected before her balance suffers unduly.
Marcus senses her shift in the moment it happens, and instinctively lifts a hand. Takes hers when she reaches for his, and whatever had started to shift restlessly in him at this change of topic eases, for the moment. Envelops her hand warmly in his own, looking at that interlinking before looking back to her face.
He is not given to lying, but in Riftwatch, has known some instinct towards at least concealing thought or feeling. (Had known it even longer, in the Circles, but that's another sort of concealment entirely.) Freed of it, for a moment. He had meant it when he said that how he feels for her is unchanging.
Thinks the same is true in return. "Maybe," he admits, in light of that. "And maybe not. But I think it'd disturb me more to ask differently of you, or to not try at all."
And anyway, she is beautiful, young, and deserves much. It brings him no satisfaction to think that she deserves more than only he, but it does feel true.
The touch is good. Reassuring, even if some of the doubt persists. That it's all well and good to agree here, alone on a quiet road in the light of day. Will it be different in the future?
She does love him. The depths of it have always been clear to her, even before Marcus put his fingers to her bare skin beneath the drape of her shawl.
There's quiet in the wake of his admission. A few moments of absorbing the lacing of their fingers, the warmth of his hand and the roughness of his palm and the certainty of his grip. Weighing out what she wants, all the different aspects of it set against each other.
Where 'everything' is simply a misalignment, a discomfort, more a herald of what stronger feelings may persist in the future than a live and present problem. But it does feel like a balm, that she loves him and wants to try, an immediate lifting of spirit that feels like clarity. The satisfaction of finding the simple thing in something complicated.
Practiced in his saddle, he leans over without compromising his balance too badly so that he can lift her hand without compromising hers and press a kiss to the back of it.
The sensation of his mouth on her skin sends prickling warmth racing up her arm. Derrica's hand turns in his, briefly cupping his cheek. Her thumb stroking there, while she balances carefully in the saddle.
It will not always be so easy. But this is the truth: she loves him, and she wants him. They can reconcile all number of things around that truth.
"I love you," she says again, without any qualifications following it. Just this sentiment, so well-worn that the only novelty to it is saying it aloud rather than taking it for granted that it's known between them.
Likewise, Marcus knows a stirring of stupid interest at the feeling of her fingers at his cheek, recalling a little how they'd held each other. He allows his hand to skim down the length of her inner arm before in the moment before he straightens back up again.
"And I, you," he says, where there is pleasure to be had in the simple call and respond.
And they have this whole trip of Ostwick ahead of them, and her to himself, for all that it isn't something he feels a great need to voice out loud.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
The directness of the question provokes a very specific kind of anxiety. She can feel it fluttering against her ribs, nervousness that has everything to do with how much she cares about Marcus.
Were Marcus anyone else, the directness of the question after something so singularly good would have been easily answered. Of course she would like to repeat it. That's hardly the question.
Shifting in the saddle, she shifts more fully towards him, fingers folding the reins back and forth as she meets his gaze.
"I think so," she tells him. Doesn't ask if he wants to repeat it, because she knows him well enough. Marcus wouldn't ask to trap her into admitting this for his own amusement.
"Is that alright?" she asks instead, which seems to be the more important question. Is it alright to want this?
no subject
Quietly receptive for a tentative answer, and then faintly amused for the next question.
"I don't see anyone here who could say otherwise," he responds, quiet, more deliberate than flippant. Like perhaps the concern for the alrightness of what they've done and may continue to do is external, and a given, between them. Shifts reins his holding in his hands, betraying himself in a fidget for some of his own uncertainty.
It doesn't prevent him from asking, "Why might it not be?"
no subject
She moderates her expression accordingly, smile fading as she turns thoughtful. Gives the question due consideration, weighing the reasons why they might veer away from establishing something between them. From coming together with some kind of regularity, when it pleases them.
"Does it scare you?" she asks. "That it could change things between us too much?"
no subject
Or has the potential to do so. Inspires worry, concern. Rather than simply saying no, remembering his own caution when he'd first slipped his hand further up her back, Marcus pauses over the question, considers whether that easy answer is true. Lets his focus cast back out to this ragged edge of Free Marches, more stone than earth.
"I think there are ways I feel for you that couldn't change for anything," eventually. "The parts that matter most."
no subject
Attraction would be simple. Easy to manage. Just like all of this would be easier were they not so familiar, if she didn't care so deeply for him already. If she could forget the way he sounded when he'd told her I've wanted you.
"You're so important to me," she tells him. Straightforward, unhesitating. "I love you."
Uncomplicated by how he'd looked when he'd pressed her into the wall, when she'd unfastened her necklace. She loves him. It had never needed anything more, but now there is. There is all this between them, this newly formed affection.
"I love you," she repeats, softer.
no subject
but no, it's different. How fierce it feels, how clear a path it had created that evening. But also this other thing, to be loved, which is almost as arresting as the feeling itself.
"I love you too," he says, without much in the way of pause between her words and his, focus returned fully. "And what I wouldn't want is for that to," and more of a pause, now, considering his words. It would be easy to say what he's thinking in a way that would evoke undue sympathy and assurance, and it isn't what he's after.
He starts again. "We have different functions, you and me. Mine is not to win hearts and minds. I wouldn't wish any further closeness we could have to diminish your prospects."
No, they aren't just talking about sex, now. That would be simple, done in the dark, in secret, the way they had at the party. But perhaps it's true, that it would be a difficult thing to keep so compartmented, at least not without discussion.
no subject
It would matter. It would be something, though he hasn't named it.
I don't care is the first, mulish response that comes to mind. It is true. She doesn't care what people think of him, or what they might think of her for being close to him. He has survived much. He is devoted to protecting other mages. She could never feel shame for standing beside him.
But he invokes that utility, and she knows it cannot be shrugged off so easily. Her voice is the only one that could speak in many instances, carry certain stories forth.
"It wouldn't matter in the Gallows," is practicality, first to hand even as Derrica feels her chest seizing in a kind of detached anxiety at what she is considering. "It would matter at parties, like the one we only recently attended. Then it would matter, if you reached too openly for me."
And she isn't certain whether he could tolerate that.
They have not even broached Derrica's own shortcomings, her habit of flinching from the kind of commitment they are speaking of.
no subject
The meditative sound of horse hooves, as their two horses blithely continue on their steady way, slightly off-timed. Margaret's ears twitch away a fly, and Marcus feels moved to lean down, pat her neck.
"I don't attend many parties," finally. Wry, but true. He'll live.
no subject
A little teasing, though Derrica isn't certain that either of them would let this thing between them interfere should Marcus be requested, or needed, in another ballroom.
In the space after, Derrica turns the reins back and forth in her hand. Dulcinea huffs in response, head tossing, but no other expression of objection to Derrica's fidgeting.
"I've other partners," is how she apparently chooses to broach this topic. Carefully, but watching his face as she does. They have never had occasion to discuss this aspect of her life.
no subject
But, of course she has other partners; he has intuited as such before, in the scarcely conscious way that a Circle mage is particularly adept at intuiting the various connections within a shared living space. And it would make even less sense for her to phrase it in some kind of past tense fashion, he thinks, only moments into existing in this state. This is all reasonable and sensible.
"I don't," is what he lands on. "I mean. I have had, but. It's alright, that you do."
And for the best, maybe, although he doesn't say that, or find satisfaction in the thought.
no subject
Whether or not he can truly be alright with the idea of it, whether he would mind if she were to spend nights away from him. If someone else were to take her hand, especially in moments when he could not.
"Would it bother you?" she asks, so gently.
They are not quite close enough for her to catch hold of him. She could reach his shoulder, but her impulse is to take his hand. It culminates in a shuffle of her fingers on the reins, a sideways lean quickly corrected before her balance suffers unduly.
no subject
He is not given to lying, but in Riftwatch, has known some instinct towards at least concealing thought or feeling. (Had known it even longer, in the Circles, but that's another sort of concealment entirely.) Freed of it, for a moment. He had meant it when he said that how he feels for her is unchanging.
Thinks the same is true in return. "Maybe," he admits, in light of that. "And maybe not. But I think it'd disturb me more to ask differently of you, or to not try at all."
And anyway, she is beautiful, young, and deserves much. It brings him no satisfaction to think that she deserves more than only he, but it does feel true.
no subject
She does love him. The depths of it have always been clear to her, even before Marcus put his fingers to her bare skin beneath the drape of her shawl.
There's quiet in the wake of his admission. A few moments of absorbing the lacing of their fingers, the warmth of his hand and the roughness of his palm and the certainty of his grip. Weighing out what she wants, all the different aspects of it set against each other.
"I love you," she says again. "I want to try."
no subject
Where 'everything' is simply a misalignment, a discomfort, more a herald of what stronger feelings may persist in the future than a live and present problem. But it does feel like a balm, that she loves him and wants to try, an immediate lifting of spirit that feels like clarity. The satisfaction of finding the simple thing in something complicated.
Practiced in his saddle, he leans over without compromising his balance too badly so that he can lift her hand without compromising hers and press a kiss to the back of it.
no subject
It will not always be so easy. But this is the truth: she loves him, and she wants him. They can reconcile all number of things around that truth.
"I love you," she says again, without any qualifications following it. Just this sentiment, so well-worn that the only novelty to it is saying it aloud rather than taking it for granted that it's known between them.
no subject
"And I, you," he says, where there is pleasure to be had in the simple call and respond.
And they have this whole trip of Ostwick ahead of them, and her to himself, for all that it isn't something he feels a great need to voice out loud.