Amira blinked, dark eyes focusing in on him curiously. “You-alright. That might be best, that way I’m not bugging people who are getting ready for bed.” She said softly, nodding. Her cheeks were dusted with red, the thought of wearing his clothes slightly flustering. He was, in most ways, a stranger.
The male didn’t seem to mind that he was giving away his clothes so freely to a woman he had just met. Either that or he was ignorant to the entire thing.
Nordali ducked past the curtain and returned moments later with a small crate. Inside we’re various articles of clothing that obviously belonged to him. The smell of sage was heavy on the clothing, and they were each folded nicely. “Pick whatever you’d like.”
Amira looked through the clothing with a grateful smile, blowing her hair back out of her face. The mouse was curled up in the crook of her neck, sandy white against her bronze skin. “Thanks.” She said, picking out a shirt and pants that would definitely be big on her.
Nordali’s fashion taste was rather… expensive so to say. Years of growing up privileged and dressed by maids had stuck with him in little ways he couldn’t quite shake. Some of the shirts were made from high quality fabric and moved like silk. They were clean and well kept, quite like the man who wore them. The sage scent seemed to vary by article of clothing, some smelling more of his cedar and mint than the sage.
He smiled when she picked out what she wanted and blushed lightly. “Ah! I’ll leave you to it, then. If you need anything else with the clothes let me know and I can send someone to grab you it.” He said, ducking behind the curtain. The sound of a book closing from his desk told that he was far from the curtain.
Amira watched him go, the room suddenly feeling a tad colder without him there. Shaking her head, she carefully set the clothes down on the cot, letting the mouse join them before she began to change. First her pants, prolonging taking off her shirt. After rolling up the legs of the pants to keep them from trailing and tripping her, she hesitantly removed her shirt, ignoring the darkly stained bandages on her side to instead look at the other side, fingers tracing over the shimmery golden ink along her side. It was script, an unfinished story in her home’s ancient language, accompanied by small drawings of sorts. It was tradition for princesses in her kingdom. The princes got the ink on their chest, whereas the princesses primarily had the ink on their sides and back. And Amira had only gotten the beginning of her story and fate tattooed, leaving her with an open ending full of possibilities.
Nordali busied himself with the plans for their next raid, biting his lip at the size of the manor they had chosen. It was heavily guarded but placed away from any main towns. The servants weren’t treated kindly by their masters and lords and that was what lead Nordali to picking the place. He couldn’t stand to hear the tales of servant bodies heaved from the basement and thrown into a large ditch to be burned. It infuriated him that someone could be so cruel as to hire servants and kill them off if they disobeyed.
His hands shook as he traced a room in red, marking the master bedroom. There, Nordali would decide what he wanted to do.
He brushed a strand of his long hair from his face, blinking his silver eyes slowly. Something wasn’t quite right about the way the manor was set up, with empty spaces where rooms should be and servant passages that made no sense.
Amira finished changing rather quickly after her pause, using the hair tie she usually used for her hair to instead knot the shirt up somewhat to make it less baggy. Slipping out with the mouse once again on her shoulders, her steps were silent as she came around Zar’s side, looking curiously down at the map.
And then she frowned. “This is…the place you’re planning on raiding?” She asked, brows furrowing in thought as she moved around the table, eyes never leaving the map.
He jumped lightly when she spoke, his hand moving immediately to the hilt of a sword at his hip. He relaxed when he realized it was only her and nodded gently.
“Yes… this is the place.” He replied with a tired sigh, his whole body tense as he stared at the paper below his hands. He was standing over it, not quite feeling the urge to sit down yet.
“I don’t like how it’s designed… we have quite a few of the servants on our side and they provided a fairly detailed map of their routes but… some of it doesn’t make sense.”
“I’ve seen something similar to this a few times.” Amira mused, setting the mouse down on the table. It skittered about curiously, pausing in certain spots. “Once, I planned to rob the house of a man I’d heard had a history of laying off employees. It turned out-he was taking in immigrants and then selling them and their families. The police refused to believe me until I got them to the manor by blowing up the sheds. Another time, it was a man who just had a thing for escape rooms. And-“ She paused, something flickering across her face. “The palace was built with empty rooms and hidden passages. Some of the other servant girls and I used to explore them. Why do you think this place is like that?”
Nordali held out his hand for the mouse, smiling at the small thing. When Amira spoke he listened intently, a slight frown upon his face. “There are places where rooms are supposed to be, and the passages don’t make sense.” He murmured, a little distressed.
“This man kills off the servants who don’t listen.”
The mouse nosed his palm, climbing up his arm to sit on his shoulder and look down.
“Then there’s a bunch of things that could be.” Amira murmured, fingers tapping a restless and almost anxious beat on the table. “Think I can tag along on this raid? I’m curious now, and any man who kills his servants deserves to watch his life fall apart. I want to watch that.”
Nordali let a small smile grace his features when the mouse climbed his shoulder. He looked over at Amira for the first time since she had changed and faltered. He stared at her for a moment, eyes traveling across the way the clothes fell from her shoulders, blinking for a moment.
“Oh! Yes! Of course! You may come. We have it planned for next week,” Nordali flushed and shifted his gaze back to the map. “You look good, by the way.”
“I…do?” Amira tilted her head in slight confusion, both at his words and the way his eyes had swept over her. The look didn’t leave bad feelings. Weird, for sure, but not…bad. She tugged the hem of the shirt down a bit, attempting to keep the dirtied bandages hidden, the bandages on her arms just seeming to point them out a bit more. “Thank you, I think. And definitely thank you for letting me borrow them.”
The male turned away slightly to hide the red in his face, nodding. “You do. It looks really good…” he murmured, stealing another glance at her. Nordali’s eyes found the bandages. He sighed deeply and stood up straight, the map completely abandoned.
“I’ll work out the building later. Right now I want to know about what happened here,” he gently took her arm and studied the bandages he could see. “Are you hurt? You should have told me. We could have visited the medical tent…” his thumb gently ran across the edge of the bandages, silver eyes soft and concerned.
For a moment, Amira was worried he had seen the bandages on her side. But then he was taking her arm, thumb running along the bandages so lightly it made her shiver, and she shook her head. “These? No, they’re not for an injury. They, um, cover scars?” Sort of. Not quite the kind of scars he would think she was referring to, done by a blade or flames or something else painful, but these were done by something else entirely.
“Scars?” He asked gently, his eyes flickering up to her face. His cheeks were still faintly dusted pink but that was the only indicator of his previous fluster. “I understand that… we all have scars we’d rather be left hidden.”
Slowly, he gave her back her arm, his fingertips buzzing from where he had touched her soft skin. He couldn’t figure out what he was feeling, nor why she made him feel such strange emotions. He wasn’t complaining. They felt good.
“I was a little concerned, please forgive me for that unneeded touch.”
She glanced down at her arm, fingers trailing over where his had as she looked back up at him. “You do not need to apologize. I just find it surprising, that anyone would worry about me at all.” She admitted softly, shifting half a step closer to him. “Those bandages are just to cover the scars. Sadly, I’m a fan of short sleeves, so they’re kind of necessary. It’s lucky I don’t wear short shirts too often, though.”
“You are cared for here. I do not turn away anyone who is harmed, noble or not.” His eyes flickered across her face for a moment, an unreadable emotion in them. “Wouldn’t you be cold in a short skirt?” He asked, willing his face not to heat up. Amira might not have realized it but she was really testing his ability to look put together.
“I assume the looks you’d get wouldn’t be too fun either… I wouldn’t want anyone staring at me.” Nordali leaned over to brush a strand of her hair out of the way of her face. “Would you like something to tie your hair back with?”
“Right now? Maybe a bit chilly. I don’t usually get cold though.” Amira said, shrugging a shoulder. She smiled up at him as he brushed her hair back, biting her bottom lip for a moment and willing the blush from her cheeks. Attempting to at least. “I don’t mind the looks. People tend to stare, for a variety of reasons, and apparently my appearance is one of them.” She sounded dubious but resigned to that fact, like she couldn’t see what they saw but knew they saw it. “I was considering attempting to braid it, but I figured it might be easier to leave it down. I’m not the best at braiding.”
He took another glance over her and nodded gently. “I would think you’re a little cold. I forgot I am a little bigger than you.” He admitted with a sheepish grin. “Well, you are quite fair, and beautiful.” He told her with a curt nod. “Very much so.”
His face lit up at the mentioning of braiding. “You know, Shah taught me how to braid. I could braid your hair if you would like,” he offered with a kind smile. When he had first found Shah, she had been working as a servant. She offered him a place to stay and a meal to eat, hidden away in the barn with the horses and cattle. He had hated it at first, his rich and pampered blood not knowing the pain of a simple man’s life.
Oh but how had he grown to love it with her. She taught him how to braid his hair correctly so it stayed out of his face, how to scavenge for food when need be, how to survive out in the world.
Shah was the first person he asked to join his guild. She and a few of the other servants agreed and they, together, stole what they needed from the house and left in the night.
“It wouldn’t be too much of a hassle. I usually have Shah help me when I can’t quite get mine to listen but I’m good enough at it.”
((I just realized I fucked up. she wears bandages over her arms but her sCAR. im changing my mind ig, only one arm is bandaged that way, the other is half bandaged, mostly on the hand))
Her cheeks flamed as he called her beautiful, a deep red against bronze, but her eyes belied just how happy that compliment made her. "You can absolutely braid my hair." Especially if it makes you glow like that. She nodded, returning his smile with an added dash of brightness that lit up her face. "I've never been very good at braiding. My-one of the other servant girls tried to teach me, but I was hopeless. My hands are better built for bombs."
She lifted her hands, waggling her fingers before shaking her hands. Her fingers were long and sort of slender, almost but not quite like a pianist's. They were covered in callouses and bits of burned skin and scars, obviously built well. She was a string player, after all. "Who's Shah?"
(Ooohhh thank you for the information!!!!!)))
He gave her a genuine smile and laughed softly. “Wonderful! I can braid it whenever you’d like.” He gestured at his desk chair and hummed lightly. “If you’d like to sit you may. And don’t worry too much about braiding. It’s surprisingly difficult, I found.” He chuckled lightly and stole her fingers away in his hands, smiling lightly at them as he studied every callous and scar.
“Shah was the older woman in here when we first met. The one who requested some fabric. She’s a wonderful women, feels like a grandmother to me.”
She blinked as he took her hands, watching him study them with a curious and confused furrow to her brows. It was strange, the attention he payed to her scars. And such kind attention, too, something they had never seen before. “She sounds lovely.” She said, smiling softly at him. Taking his momentary distraction to study his features herself, she found the same butterfly wings trapped in her stomach. “And She was great when I met her.”
His soft facial features curved gracefully, his entire body the same way. There seemed to be a certain malnourishment to him, however, almost as if he had eaten well for most of his life and was suddenly thrown into a chaotic eating schedule. Which he was.
His eyes were more narrow than many of the other’s around, and his nose hooked slightly at the end. Overall he was well built and would probably look regal if he wasn’t so tense and slouched all the time.
“Oh she was always lovely. Still is. I would gladly die to protect her and everyone here. This is my family. They treat me well and I do my best to lead them.”
Positively beautiful. Hunched and scowling or not, he was still ethereal to Amira, who was used to the tall and solid build of her people. They had been warriors and nomads once upon a time, thin but built well, until they began to settle and farm and build, gaining muscle mass that was passed on. Amira had ended up with some recessive gene that left her shorter than all her family, and rounder, until she had left and become more the wiry muscle of her ancestors.
“That must be nice.” She said quietly, her smile slightly wistful and sad. “To have built a family like this.”
As for Nordali, he found her absolutely breathtaking. Such a strong and steady woman was perfect in his mind. Her beauty and shape was soft and welcoming. He found it warm and comforting. Everything he really ever had wanted.
Up until that moment, Nordali had never considered finding himself a partner. He wanted to be a lone wolf, someone who wouldn’t be bound I something he once thought so silly. But looking at Amira made him think twice.
“It took me awhile to build this, in full honesty. I’m glad they trust me.” He sighed deeply. “They trust ‘Zar’ to lead them. And I’m doing the best I can to do so, but sometimes I wish I could just be myself,”
“They trust you, hallaski. If you were to be yourself around them, they should be completely alright with that.” Amira said softly, ducking her head slightly to try and get him to look at her.
“And besides. You will always have a place to be yourself around me.” She said, smiling sweetly at him. Her dark eyes were warm, that brown that was usually black lighter in the lamplight inside the tent, though still dark.
“They would kill me the second I came out as myself, Amira.” Murmured the half-breed, meeting her gaze with a soft sigh. “And I’m sure you wouldn’t like me much either. Besides, I like Zar much better than I liked my old self.” He chuckled lightly to try and lighten the mood.
Nordali stared into her gorgeous eyes, reaching out to gently cup her face with one hand, turning her head slightly so he could see that ring around her eye. “You have such a beautiful eye color.”
“Oh.” Her voice was soft as she frowned slightly, his joking not quite enough to get rid of the worry tangling in her gut. But when his hand found her cheek, all thoughts were forgotten, and she leaned into his touch, letting him move her head.
Her cheeks flamed at the compliment, and she bit her lip. “They’re hardly as pretty as yours. Just strange. I was told I was somewhat of an abomination for not getting the full eye colors, but instead only parts of them.”
He didn’t let her be down for long. His hands slid to push her hair away from her face, studying each pretty curve and line that made up her facial features. “I think they’re lovely. They make you unique.” He murmured gently. “Mine mark me as a traitor to those who understand.” He leaned a little closer, his breath hot against her skin.
“What kingdom did you come from? You have to be some sort of goddess. There’s no way you’re mortal with this beauty.” He flirted, his lips curving into a smile.