Halsin and Cella: Just Enough Spoons

[Super short one! Just a reminder that this particular series is usually written as random warm-ups so it will be something that is forever erratic. I love Halsin and Cella, never fear, I just have limited time and funnily enough limited spoons. ♥ If they ever seem to have disappeared trust me, they’ll be back!]

He looked so peaceful when he rested, bare chested and half curled on his side upon their bed. The fire in the hearth was low, just enough to cast a soft glow across his skin and accent every scar and ridge. She sat crouched by the hearth with one of their blankets wrapped around her like a cloak as she studied her lover in contemplative silence. He had known so much and still led with kindness backed by strength. It was a manner she desperately sought to understand. 

The half-drow rose from her crouch and padded to the far side of the bed as she shed her blanket. He’d be sad to miss the sight of her with only the firelight to adorn her twilight colored skin. He found such beauty and bliss in what she found so ordinary and so plain. It was another of his many wonders, she thought as she crawled onto the bed behind him. She tucked herself close and slid an arm around him, just under his, so her hand could rest against his broad chest as she kissed his shoulder softly.

He stiffened unexpectedly, startled and strangely uncertain as he felt her against his back. “Cella…?”

”Have I done something wrong?”, she asked as she went to draw back her arm. He held it there, his hand over her own as it rested against his chest. 

“No, love. You.. you startled me, that’s all,” he answered slowly. Deliberately. His usually seductive, drowsy drawl was missing entirely. 

“What’s wrong?” She whispered the words as she pressed her cheek to the back of his shoulder and held him a little bit more snugly.

He shuddered and closed his eyes, slow to relax in the embrace. He focused on his breathing as his heart thudded under her splayed fingers. This was not the flush of yearning he usually felt at her touch and shame filled him. He sucked in a breath slowly and let it out in a long, soft sigh. “The last time I was held like this I must have been but a boy, my heart. I thought you were a ghost.”

She let silence settle over them like a familiar blanket, her small frame pressed warmly to his back and her breathing soon rising and falling in time with his own in a familiar, comforting cadence. 

“I have always been the protector,” he began in slow, thoughtful words. “And given my size it seemed a natural role. I do the holding and shielding. I am embraced, but I cannot remember arms having held me like this in so many years. It’s… unusually vulnerable to be the protected not the protector.”

”Do you think I will keep you safe?” Her words rang with wonder as she asked the question.

”Always, beloved,” he answered without hesitation, his fingers tangled with hers against his chest. 

“I am half-drow.”

”You are.”

”The drow hurt you. You do not see them when you see me?”

He marveled at the concern in her words. Few would guess the path she’d walked to hear her speaking thus now. Once a child of Bhaal she now worked so hard on learning the natural boundaries of empathy like a treasured second language. “If I held every drow accountable for those years I would lose my life to anger and misery. I carve my own peace and they are allowed no place in it. You, Cella, are not them.”

She let out a soft, unwitting sigh of relief at the comfort he spoke so confidently, so steadfastly. Her shoulders eased and she closed her eyes as she curled against his back, the flutter of her lashes against his skin enough to draw a smile from the druid.

”Maybe I should be the small spoon more,” he pondered aloud. She answered with a soft grunt that made him chuckle. 

Halsin laid in his beloved’s arms while she dozed, his fingers entwined with hers against his chest as he basked in the warmth of her body and peace her proximity gave him. When she woke he’d revel in the taste of her lips and heat of their coupling once more. For now all he had to do was rest and revel in these moments. What a precious gift a spoon could be.


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Halsin and Cella: A Little Silence

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Halsin and Cella: Too Many Beds