Work Text:
Year 851 Hanna (16), Elwin (32)
She watches him undress as she sinks in the soft mattress. Silent and observant as her eyes travel along the hard-won muscles of his body. Hanna, herself, has no muscles, her skin almost pale as the moon as if it was translucent but she has rough hands from all of that mending, tearing and polishing and from the taking and taking and taking. The wars that ravaged both of their lives were extended and bloody. For so long there was only emptiness, sadness, and anger that she could not fully process for she had no time to - only compounded by the feeling of being a bird, with her wings clipped and being caged in so tightly by marriage that she could barely breathe.
But Hanna had always been a survivor, the daughter of a once happy home and the wife of a tired Lord Commander. She is more kinder, and ever more resilient than anyone ever credited her for.
She calls the Archduke by his name, a secret turned oath on her lips; she reaches her hand to him, and he collapses onto the bed with her.
She half expects that he will immediately lay his head on her thighs, half expects that she will be combing through his ebony hair, half expects that she will be soothing his pained mind with her touch and her words. That he will be taking and taking and taking.
But he takes nothing from her.
Instead, it is her head pressing light against his chest, close enough for her to hear his heartbeat, and instead, it is his hands that are combing through her blonde curls, instead, it is him asking her how her day was, what made her feel happy today, what made her feel sad. He is giving and giving and giving.
In everything that has been taken from her, Elwin gives back, once, tenths, a hundred, a thousand times over.
When she softly whispers to him after a night of gentle kisses that before the blight had taken most of Eastpool’s lush and grand soil, she used to work and arrange flowers found among every corner of Rosaria, before trying her best to make ends meet in the gear shop. Her fingers trace along his arm, weaving patterns on his skin in hopes that those nonsensical lines bring them closer and closer still as she starts telling him about the vivid tapestry of colors, bright and welcoming: pewter, cerulean, celadon, fuschia - recounting the customers that she used to work with, smiling to the nobility from the high houses wanting to purchase bouquets for their wives to the little children running about wishing to use them for garland making.
A lifetime was taken away from her as she continues to murmur the pain and the confusion brewing in her. The shift to the armor and swords that reduced all colors that she was once surrounded with to grey, reduced to only meeting shields and commanders and captains.
It’s a small miracle she thinks that he is still listening to her, that he is still asking questions about her, and that he is still wanting to get to know her - that she is sleeping in his arms for that night and finds herself awake, still in them.
When he quietly comes into her chambers once more in the following twilights, in his hands are the most delicate saint’s bonnets and snow daisies that she has ever seen - as if they were like an apology, a thank you, a promise, an offering.
She softly kisses each and every single soft petal under his warm gaze.