Chapter Text
For reasons Adrienne would be hard-pressed to explain even to herself, roaming the countryside throwing herself into the claws of danger no longer holds much appeal. She returns to Ishgard shortly after parting ways with X’rhun Tia, and she sets about trying to move forward from all that has transpired of late.
She is kept busy, as ever, and she is seldom alone. It is passing strange, the way the entirety of house Fortemps treats her like she belongs there even now that Haurchefant is gone. But it is much better than before she left—perfectly manageable, in fact—and Adrienne would never admit to a single soul the thoughts that now keep her from a restful slumber.
She misses him.
It is….profoundly stupid. Adrienne will not stand for such folly. To miss a person like that is to accept unto oneself a lifetime of dissatisfaction. Why, it would be akin to someone pining after her! What is she to do about it? Drop everything? To what end?
Even if she had the time, tracking X’rhun Tia down might well end in a very embarrassing sort of heartbreak. Surpassingly kind though he may have been, Adrienne has no reason to believe their tryst was to be any more than a one-night affair. And if, in the dead of night, Adrienne entertains fool notions of X’rhun Tia tracking her down and coming to call on her, well, then, she is even more hopeless than she’d thought.
Ignoring her feelings on the matter should not be so valiant a task. There are Scions to locate and dragons to contend with. At any given moment, there are a hundred other things she could be doing, should be thinking about.
So she tells herself, repeatedly.
If left to her own devices, Adrienne might well have kept her peace forever. She was taught by a harsh truth of her childhood to be cautious with her affections, and thus has never been one to indulge anything even distantly reminiscent of chasing after the affections of others. It is perhaps good fortune, then, that the winds of fate choose this time to intervene.
Sometime after the proper end to the Dragonsong War, it occurs to Adrienne that there is a fair bit of untended business waiting for her in Ul’dah, now that she is no longer a wanted criminal there. She moves through the city slowly, not a little hampered by the sweltering afternoon heat, and she has half a thought to call it an early day when, perhaps predictably, she hears the telltale sounds of a scuffle.
Even a year ago, Adrienne might have turned a blind eye, considered it most assuredly none of her business and made her way elsewhere. Perhaps something deep and fundamental has changed within her, or more likely, she has simply grown so accustomed to being dragged into other people’s problems that she has begun to consider it inevitable.
At any rate, before Adrienne can reach the city’s gate, from whence the commotion had come, a well-dressed little girl is tugging at her sleeve, begging her for the help she had already intended to offer. She and her sister were almost kidnapped just outside the city, she says, but she managed to get away.
“A traveler stopped to help us,“ the girl continues, glancing nervously over her shoulder. “He’s some sort of mage, I think. But it was one against six or so, miss!”
And so it is that Adrienne races through the city’s gate, expecting to come to the aid of some well-meaning thaumaturge. The realization that her assumption has been wholly mistaken hits her just as soon as she spies the flourish of a cape, and an unmistakable bright red coat.
Adrienne freezes in her tracks. Another little girl, presumably the sister of the first, says something in her periphery, but she barely hears it. She is transfixed, with half a thought to turn and run away.
X’rhun Tia stands not a yalm away, facing off against three staff wielders. It seems a few others have already fallen or retreated. With a flourish, he flings a burst of colourful magic at his opponents, after which only one among them keeps his footing. Before the thaumaturge can so much as balance his staff, however, X’rhun charges in with his blade drawn and performs an inscrutable combination of thrusts and slashes laced with magic.
The thaumaturge staggers and drops his staff, but Adrienne is sure he will recover. While he is scrambling for his staff, however, X’rhun jumps away from him and fires off one last spell, something that hisses and crackles and lights up the sky like fireworks.
The thaumaturge yields at last, and X’rhun lets out a soft huff of satisfaction before tossing his blade into the air, catching it, and swinging it around himself in a flourish befitting his victory. His task thus accomplished, he sheathes his weapon and turns away, only to freeze in turn when he sees Adrienne.
Adrienne considers that if his display hadn’t been half so impressive, she might well have turned and run away. She wonders, fancifully, whether it is still an option.
“Well,” says X’rhun at last, expression unreadable. “We meet again, Warrior of Light.”
Adrienne inhales as though to speak, but no words come. If she weren’t ashamed already, she can feel her face flush beneath his scrutiny now. It would be easier if he were cold and disparaging, irritated that she had withheld the truth from him, or by her mere presence here. But there is that unmistakable kindness about him still, an unshakable air of good humour that has haunted her every waking moment for months on end.
She is granted a brief respite by the little girl X’rhun has just rescued, tugging at his sleeve to offer her thanks.
“My pleasure, child.” X’rhun turns his gaze away, and Adrienne struggles to catch her breath in the wake of such…intensity. “You are unharmed, yes?”
He looks up. Adrienne cannot find it within herself to move. “Good,” he says. “Shall we escort this brave lass back to her sister, then?”
“Yes,” Adrienne stammers. “Yes, of course.”
The girls chatter nervously when they are reunited, the mystery of what sort of person would mean them harm a thing mercifully beyond them, as well it should be. But something one of the girls says catches Adrienne’s attention. “The man in red defeated them all,” she tells her sister. “He’s one of those heroes Papa told us about, a Crimson Duelist.”
She hesitates, uncertain, and turns her gaze upon X’rhun. “Aren’t you?”
X’rhun is bashful and reserved in his response. “I did not expect to hear that name so far south in Eorzea,” he says simply. “If your papa is telling his daughters tales of red mages, then he must be from Ala Mhigo, yes?”
The girls nod.
“Well,” says X’rhun, and his tone indicates that that is to be the end of it, “that would explain his choice of bedtime stories.”
Once the girls are on their way, X’rhun affords her a sidelong glance. “So!” he begins brightly. “What brings the storied saviour of Eorzea into my orbit once more?”
Adrienne ducks her head and rubs her wrist awkwardly. “How long have you known?” she wonders. “If I had to guess, I’d say from the very start.”
X’rhun inclines his head playfully. “Not from the very start,” he says pleasantly. “But I confess I did remember rather quickly where I’d heard your name. Rumours of your appearance vary rather widely, as you may well know, but a pale-eyed Elezen who wields a staff circulates as often as any other.”
Adrienne averts her eyes, feeling nothing short of bashful beneath his gaze. It would almost be easier if he were irritated by her deception, or didn’t seem so happy to be in her company again. “Well,” she deflects, “it seems I wasn’t the only one who underplayed my noteworthiness. Crimson Duelist?”
She recalls now the way he flustered briefly under her flattery before, and how quickly that flash of modesty had endeared him to her. His ears are covered by a striking red hat now, but his face is no less expressive for it. He averts his gaze, a certain melancholy about his soft chuckle. “That was a long time ago,” he says simply.
His tone does not invite further inquiry. “It was good of you to keep up the pretense,” says Adrienne instead, and X’rhun looks up to meet her gaze once more, sharp-eyed and smiling.
“I daresay I can understand,” he says, “at least to some extent. I hope you won’t think me presumptuous when I say that I had high hopes our paths might cross again. It’s merely that I’ve found that those who…defy the tides of destiny, shall we say, are drawn together more often than not.”
“Not presumptuous,” says Adrienne. “It’s a nice thought, actually.” She thinks briefly upon an ever-growing list of people she’d dearly like to see again, but quickly decides that such wishful thinking is best kept from the forefront of her mind.
X’rhun considers her with a subtle tilt of his head. “’Tis the adventurer’s lot to love and lose, I’m afraid,” he says gently. “But I expect you’ll find that people return to you more often than you’d imagine, if perhaps not in exactly the way you’d prefer.”
Adrienne thinks of the vision she saw when she and Alphinaud labored to free Estinien of Nidhogg’s influence, the way she’d privately resented Estinien for remaining alive when Haurchefant and Ysale were gone, the unexpected humility he showed when he woke, and how relieved Alphinaud and Aymeric were to see him still alive. She swallows hard and averts her eyes.
“I expect you’re quite right about that,” she says simply. But before she can scramble to find a change of subject, X’rhun draws near to her with a hand at her elbow. She looks up into his eyes, stunned.
“Forgive me,” he says quietly, but as ever there is an easy smile about his handsome features. “I did not mean to speak of such difficult matters. Though—“
He moves away to reestablish a more respectable distance, but Adrienne grabs his hand before he can go, and his smile turns decidedly playful as he continues, “—in my defense, I did ask you what brought you to Ul’dah this day, and you neglected to answer me.”
“Nothing terribly exciting,” Adrienne tells him, though his high spirits are catching, and she is glad to be swayed towards a lighter mood. “Taking care of a few things I’ve left undone these last few months. As you may or may not be aware, I and my comrades were but recently declared enemies of the state for a time.”
It isn’t funny, not really, but she imagines X’rhun is the sort to understand that one must sometimes make light of things that are unbearably heavy.
“I fear the intricacies of Ul’dahn politics shall ever elude me,” X’rhun waves his free hand dismissively. “I had heard something to that effect, but I should dearly like to hear the tale from your lips, if you would indulge me?”
X’rhun frees his hand only to offer his arm, and Adrienne leans in close as they walk together through the streets of Ul’dah, keeping her voice low lest anyone should overhear. She finds, with some small degree of surprise, that she does want to tell the tale. For some while now, Adrienne realizes, she has only ever been surrounded by people who knew all too well what had brought her to Ishgard, or people who didn’t know and didn’t care. It is oddly refreshing to be able to share a bit of her life on her own terms.
“And now everything is all well and good again?” X’rhun scoffs quietly. “Ul’dah is a fine city to visit, but I don’t think I could stay for very long. Not least because of the heat.”
Adrienne hums thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t trade my time here as a green adventurer, but I think I agree with you. I don’t imagine I could go back now.”
X’rhun chuckles lightly. “Your time as a green adventurer can’t have been so long ago, can it?”
Adrienne stops a moment, considers this. “Well, no,” she says at last. “No, I suppose it wasn’t.”
“I meant no offense,” says X’rhun good-naturedly, a gentle nudge of his elbow urging her to continue walking. “You’ve endured much in a very short while. But it doesn’t hurt to remember your youth.”
Adrienne lets out a little huff of something like laughter. “No, I suppose not,” she agrees quietly. His words are…comforting, in a way, though perhaps that’s to be expected. It is the thing about him that has drawn her back to his side, is it not? That he seemed to understand her so easily?
She affords him a tentative sidelong glance. He returns her gaze unabashedly, with an easy smile, and she very nearly stops and kisses him right there, in the middle of the street. Indeed, the urge is so strong that she has to look away, and she feels her cheeks burning. “So,” she tries, in the general direction of the city walls, “a story for a story, X’rhun Tia. Who were these Crimson Duelists of which our young heroines spoke?”
X’rhun inhales, hesitates.
“Only if you want to tell me, of course,” Adrienne amends hastily.
X’rhun thinks for what seems a long and heavy moment before he speaks. “I joined the Ala Mhigan resistance some twenty years ago,” he begins slowly. “And together with some like-minded companions, we formed the Crimson Duelists. The creed of red mages past spoke to our cause: every generation has been part of an unending battle, soldiers who fought for those enduring violence and subjugation…”
X’rhun sighs, and he places his free hand over Adrienne’s at the crook of his elbow as they walk. “It is not out of shame for the Crimson Duelists that I am reluctant to speak of them,” he continues quietly, his head bowed. “Those were some of the finest days of my life. But war is a terrible business. And of all my brilliant and talented comrades, I am the only one left alive.”
“X’rhun, I’m so sorry,” Adrienne squeezes his arm, draws a little closer against him. Perhaps this, she realizes, is why he seemed to understand the state in which he found her so well. Would that she could ease a fraction of his burden, the way he’d done for her.
But he looks up at her with another smile, decidedly melancholy, but somehow even sweeter than before. “And why should you be sorry?” he wonders lightly. “You merely asked a question, and in truth there is some comfort in telling the tale to a sympathetic ear.”
“I’m glad to hear that,’ Adrienne tells him, though she finds she struggles to measure her words against the desire to hold him closer. “You’ve given me the same comfort already, after all.”
It is X’rhun who stops, then, and turns so that he stands in her path. She is still half-clutching onto his sleeve, unwilling to let him go entirely. “Will you think me terribly presumptuous,” he begins, “if I tell you I…”
“What?” Adrienne prompts him, distantly aware that she is leaning in far too close to be considered polite in public, painfully aware that she very nearly told him before he had finished that no, hardly anything he said or did in this moment would be presumptuous.
“I sense a kindred spirit in you,” says X’rhun at last, his lips curling into a small and hesitant smile as he inclines his head in a question. “Am I wrong?”
Adrienne knows not upon what depths of self-restraint she draws in that moment. Her tongue darts across her lips as she scrambles for something coherent to say. “If you’re right,” she manages, each word a labour unto itself, “then you’ll understand my desire for privacy, as soon as possible.”
As before, his expression betrays but a moment’s discomposure, glorious in its transience. She finds herself dearly wishing his ears weren’t concealed beneath his hat, so that she might know whether they had folded back against his head the way they had before.
But she has quickly learned that X’rhun Tia is not one to be kept off-balance for long. As soon as surprise flashed across his features, it is gone. He leans into her in kind, his lips just shy of her jaw as he whispers in her ear, “Privacy? Then I take it some secluded corner of this fine city would not be sufficient?”
Adrienne grasps onto his arms as though she might faint, a full-body shudder rendering her weak-kneed and gasping. Under different circumstances, she’d have been mortified by how strongly mere words could affect her. X’rhun, damn him, chuckles quietly, and she feels the sound reverberating through her, as though it came from her own body.
“Perhaps another time, then,” he breathes. “Assuming you think you can make it to Black Brush.”
And much as she’d like to snap at him for teasing her, she feels acutely that she is in no state to be defensive. “I’m sure I’ll manage somehow,” she says, intending sarcasm, but her voice comes out thin and breathy, and she rather doubts the half-hearted glare she affords X’rhun as an addendum does anything but encourage his amusement at her expense.
Still, he withdraws to a respectable distance, draws himself up to his full height, and offers his arm to her, the dashing gentleman once more, and Adrienne finds herself smiling as she falls into step at his side, even despite the way her cheeks burn.
She has half a thought to pull X’rhun against her and drag the both of them through the aethernet with the sheer force of her will, but in truth, the intensity of her feelings unsettles her, and she imagines the walk might serve as an opportunity to re-center herself, if only momentarily.
“I never asked what brought you to Ul’dah,” she says as they pass through the gates and out into Central Thanalan. There’s an eerie beauty about the desert at night, not least for the scars of the Calamity painted in vibrant orange against the darkening sky.
“Nothing in particular,” X’rhun tells her pleasantly, his eyes upon the stars taking shape above them. “A need for a change of scenery. Perhaps even a misguided sense of nostalgia for the weather.” He inhales to continue, then hesitates, but only for a moment. “I…hope you’ll forgive me,” he continues gently, “when I say that now, I cannot help but feel it was a generous whim of fate that led me here.”
Adrienne turns her head abruptly, not a little stunned. “My,’ she very nearly stammers, “but how many of your fellow travelers have you beguiled with such honeyed words?”
X’rhun laughs. “As I believe I told you during our last meeting, I would never—without just cause, at least—say anything I did not mean.”
She believes him, and yet, this does not make his words any easier to take in. Perhaps she’s spent a bit too long convincing herself that their previous night together meant nothing to him, and that she’d do well to stay away lest she get her heart broken over nothing. Perhaps she labours to guard her heart against him even still, sure that the moment she allows herself to believe he might hold some fondness for her, he will be gone, his cruel game accomplished at last.
“I…feel I ought to confess that I very nearly turned and fled when I saw you again,” says Adrienne, casting her gaze steadfastly downward.
X’rhun hesitates a moment. When she doesn’t continue, he says, with rather charitable gentleness, “Forgive me for saying so, but it was written all over your face. In fact, I thought perhaps you regretted the events of our last meeting and was considering composing an apology.”
Adrienne looks up, stunned. “No!” she assures him, although perhaps her near-desperation not a few moments prior was assurance enough. “In truth, I…gods, it’s so embarrassing.”
She turns her gaze up into the darkening sky, takes in a deep breath before she continues. “In truth, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you,” she confesses, and even closes her eyes against the painful honesty of it. “I kept telling myself there were more important matters, that you’d likely already forgotten all about me, but…well.”
She opens her eyes just a fraction, dares a glance at X’rhun only in her periphery. “What I mean to say is that I can’t help but to thank a merciful whim of fate, myself.”
X’rhun considers her words in contemplative silence for what feels like a long moment. They’re approaching the edge of Black Brush, a small settlement she’s visited many times, but only in passing. When the silence between them stretches on overlong, doubt begins to creep in. Perhaps she was a fool to be so candid. Perhaps she’d have done better to remain aloof. It is easy to dismiss words spoken in the throes of intimacy, or even in the pursuit of it. Less so, words that needn’t have been given voice at all.
“Am I to understand, then,” says X’rhun at last, “that each of us, despite our own wishes, would gladly have assumed the other never wished to see us again, but for this happy accident?” He scoffs quietly, almost a sound of amusement. “I think I shall have to bear that in mind, in the future.”
It is a difficult thing to imagine, X’rhun thinking of her the same way she thought of him, replaying the events of their night together in his mind, or entertaining foolish daydreams that she might seek him out. But his admission does much to bolster her confidence, and still more to quiet the lingering doubts in the back of her mind.
“Does that mean you thought of me?” Adrienne presses, moving closer to take his arm with both hands. “Imagined seeing me again?”
“Of course I did,” X’rhun says, but to Adrienne’s delight, he does not quite manage his usual easy confidence. Again she laments the presence of his hat, and resolves to relieve him of it at the earliest opportunity.
“What did you imagine?” Adrienne presses, daring one of her hands across his back, drawing so close she almost throws the both of them off-balance.
“I’ll remind you,” says X’rhun thinly, but not without his ever-present air of good humour, “that I am not the one who requested privacy.”
“Oh?” Adrienne is undeterred. In fact, this sudden and surprising show of discomposure is nothing if not highly encouraging. She leans in closer, her lips brushing his temple as she speaks. “Do you like that idea?” she wonders. “Of taking me out in the open, where anyone could—“
“Gods above!” X’rhun is laughing, but it is a choked, breathy sound. He quickens his pace decisively, all but pulling her along as she begins to laugh in turn. She hardly pays any mind to the people they pass as they head for the inn, nor the knowing looks of the people sitting in the bar as they make their way to the stairs. Let someone recognize her, she thinks, and whisper about what she is up to, to anyone who’ll listen, for all she cares.
X’rhun fumbles for the key to his room, and Adrienne does not help in the slightest. She takes the opportunity to settle her hands at the subtle angle of his waist and press her lips to what little of his neck is exposed to her. It’s a dashing outfit, to be certain, but the sooner he is rid of it, the better.
“What would the people of Eorzea think,” X’rhun wonders, pronouncing each word with care, “to learn that their champion cannot keep her composure long enough to allow a poor, wretched soul to open a door?”
“My composure?” Adrienne teases as the door yields at last, and X’rhun puts a bit of distance between them to hold it open for her. “And what of the man who cannot wield a key under a bit of well-intentioned pressure?”
“Yes,” X’rhun manages with a strangled chuckle, “I’ve no doubt your intentions are as pure as they come.”
Caught up in the heady joy of the moment, and with no more concern for public impropriety, Adrienne is left with no further reason to play at coyness. She pushes the door closed behind her and turns the lock, and then she pulls X’rhun against her and kisses him soundly. He makes a soft noise of surprise against her lips, catching her by the waist and steadying himself before he can return her affections properly.
And, oh, when he does, the tides are turned rather quickly. If she had perhaps wondered whether her teasing fell upon an uncommonly good-natured but ultimately disinterested party, the way he kisses her puts any lingering doubts she might have firmly to rest. He’d been almost passive before, mostly allowing her to set the pace, but now his hands rove over her body with intent, and the sheer force of his kisses make her feel as though she might fall if he weren’t holding onto her.
He urges her backward, and she falls onto a bed she has not seen, and does not bother to examine. X’rhun undoes the fastenings on her robes as though he’d done it a million times before, teeth grazing the skin of her neck as he helps her out of them. “You would know,” he breathes against her skin, “what I imagined, when I thought of you?”
“Yes,” she gasps, but before she can fumble for the fastenings on his coat, he catches her hands and pins them to the bed.
Adrienne opens her eyes fully, taking him in, and notes that he hasn’t yet done away with the hat. Damn.
“Tell me,” she entreats him. He’ll have to let her go soon enough—she’s still got her underclothes to get out of. But he does not seem to be in any hurry, pressing lingering kisses to the curve of her jaw, the crook of her neck, the subtle swell of her breast just above where the fabric of her chemise begins.
“I had intended,” he tells her between kisses, “to return the favour you so graciously bestowed upon me during our last meeting, but as it turned out—“ and damn him, he shifts so that he can pin both her hands with only one of his, and sets about removing her chemise without her contribution “—you had other designs upon my person.”
“Imagine that,” Adrienne manages, but his words surprise and unsettle her. Perhaps Adrienne herself is not especially well-versed in such matters, but she has come to think of the act to which he alludes as some secret and special thing, its pleasures whispered amongst friends but ever unknown to her.
Indeed, the only times she has ever experienced it before, she has asked. The results were not only disappointing but embarrassing—the act felt perfunctory, and Adrienne felt as though she was meant to be grateful that it was occurring at all.
As was perhaps to be expected, X’rhun senses almost immediately that her mind is elsewhere. She had nearly forgotten this aspect of him, how jarring it is to be seen, how she’d almost prefer to suffer unnoticed.
He lets go of her hands and smoothes her hair from her face, brow furrowed with concern. “Is something amiss?”
“No,” Adrienne hedges. Then, for want of anything suitable to do with her hands, she reaches up and removes X’rhun’s hat. “Is that really what you thought of?” she wonders, using the activity of setting his hat aside to disguise how she is reluctant to meet his gaze.
X’rhun’s ears flick subtly as he watches her, perhaps merely readjusting to being exposed. “Have I offended?” he wonders. “Pray, allow me to—“
“You haven’t offended,” Adrienne almost laughs. “What I meant was…is that really what you thought of, or are you only saying that because you think it’s what I want to hear?”
She is really rather glad to be treated to the sight of his ears once more—for as expressive as his face is, his ears give away at least twice as much. The set of his ears assures her somehow that his surprise at her question is genuine.
X’rhun considers her for what feels like a long moment, and Adrienne hardly knows what to do with herself. She feels unbearably scrutinized, and wonders fleetingly if she should perhaps have lied and told him nothing was amiss, that he was seeing things.
The moment she thinks it, though, she knows it isn’t what she’d prefer. This is better. Difficult, frightening, but better.
“Do I detect,” X’rhun speaks at last, an aching gentleness poorly masked by the light singsong of a familiar jest, “that you may have had some misfortune with your previous lovers?”
Adrienne’s tongue darts across her lips, and she lets out a nervous ghost of a chuckle. “Perhaps,” she says. “Perhaps I’d like to believe so.”
If it could be different with anyone, she thinks, daring a glance up into his icy blue eyes, it would be him.
X’rhun gazes at her a moment longer, brow furrowed in thought. “First,” he murmurs, but it’s as though he’s talking more to himself than to her. Then he shifts and urges her to move further up onto the bed, arranging the pillows with care beneath her head. He removes his gloves and sets them aside with his hat, and then quickly and efficiently undoes the complex clasps on his red coat.
He stands then, and removes his boots, and then each of Adrienne’s boots, with the same care and precision. Adrienne watches him, unsure of how to proceed, mostly caught up in wondering fruitlessly what X’rhun must be thinking.
Does he—oh, gods, does he pity her? The thought turns her stomach. She is halfway to telling him that he needn’t bother, that she has led a perfectly happy life without particularly enjoying the act of a stranger’s tongue between her legs, thank you very much, and if he thinks—
“Forgive me a moment’s preparation,” says X’rhun, with his usual easy smile, and Adrienne’s misguided indignation dies down as quickly as it arose. “The heat of the moment is all well and good, but lends itself to haste and clumsiness.” He puts a hand to his heart, as though indicating that he means to say that he could ever be unduly hasty, or remotely clumsy.
Adrienne feels herself smiling. The thought of it, of X’rhun rendered hasty and clumsy in his fervor, is really rather charming.
X’rhun returns to the bed, and Adrienne reaches out for him hesitantly, still uncertain of what to expect. But he takes her up in his arms as he leans in to capture her lips, and much of her hesitation, much of her defensiveness feels suddenly quite unimportant. Adrienne wraps her arms around X’rhun’s shoulders and pulls him impossibly closer with a soft sigh of contentment.
These kisses are rather different from the ones that came before, but they are no less all-consuming. Before they had been fiery, almost desperate. Now they are slow and sensual, drowning out all that preceded them in steady, surging waves.
“I spoke true, before,” says X’rhun when they come apart at last, his lips at the angle of her jaw. “I thought almost daily of seeing you again, of exactly what I would do.” He nips at her ear before he descends upon the sensitive flesh of her neck, bestows upon her kisses with so much bite they will surely leave a mark, and Adrienne finds that she is already struggling to focus on what he is telling her.
“I confess,” X’rhun murmurs, low and rich into the crook of her neck, “I took myself in hand at the thought of it, my head between your lovely legs, your hand in my hair, my name upon your lips…”
Again he draws the tender flesh of her neck between his teeth. He shifts so that his thigh is positioned just so between her legs, and his hands settle at her hips, moving her against him—it is almost too much to bear, and yet it is not nearly enough.
“If the act is simply not to your liking,” X’rhun continues, fingers teasing at the waistband of her trousers, “then I shall beg your leave to make amends a thousand times over. I am nothing more than an eager student, and you shall have to advise me on how best to please you.”
He makes his descent with aching slowness, lavishing kisses upon the tops of her breasts, tracing the line of where her chemise would have lain as though she were not already bared beneath him. She arches up into him, willing him just that tiniest bit lower, but her impatience is met with little more than a warm chuckle and a glance upward, teasing but unmistakably fond.
Adrienne’s heart flutters. She takes his face between her hands, runs her fingers through his hair—feels her hands falter when she remembers what he’d whispered against her skin.
X’rhun’s smile widens mischievously, as though he knows exactly what she is thinking, and when next he bows his head, Adrienne’s hands fist in his hair and she cries out, a mixture of surprise and delicious relief as he takes her nipple into his mouth at last.
She is oversensitive and jumpy from the anticipation alone. She can feel herself shivering as X’rhun divests her of her trousers, though the room is far from cold. She wonders idly at what seems to be X’rhun’s preference for undressing her whilst he remains fully clothed, but she cannot deny that he cuts a fine figure in the white shirt he wears beneath his fancy coat.
X’rhun takes a moment to observe her before he continues his descent, and she has no doubt that he finds her wholly at ease and amenable to whatever he has planned. He trails kisses down her sternum and over her belly, along the band of her smallclothes and the curve of her hipbone before he hooks his fingers beneath the fabric, looking up to gauge her reaction as he bares her fully at last.
Adrienne feels a shiver course through her all afresh. His eyes can hold such intensity sometimes, and he does not look away as he moves lower, pressing his lips against the tender flesh of her thigh before he draws the skin between his teeth, a sensation so powerful it almost aches.
“I would correct,” says X’rhun, his voice rough and muffled against her thigh, “a grave injustice. If anything—“ he punctuates the word with another kiss, closer, agonizingly close now “—is not to your liking, pray tell me at once.”
Adrienne thinks at first that she could not bear to look away from him now, even if the intensity of his gaze threatens to overwhelm her. But as soon as she feels the first swipe of his tongue, she is lost. She cannot see, cannot think, cannot do anything but to cry out in pleasure. She never knew it could be like this, an act so clearly performed for her pleasure that did not feel like an obligation or a burden to be borne.
She reaches her peak so quickly that her head spins, but X’rhun shows no sign of relenting. Indeed, he wraps his arms around her thighs and holds her close as he continues, her orgasm only urging him onward.
Now that she can grasp onto some wispy tendrils of conscious thought, Adrienne calls to mind that curious fantasy X’rhun had whispered into her skin, that the mere idea of doing this for her had brought him his own pleasure. And indeed, his enthusiasm lends credence to his claims—his fervor is nigh-unbearable, and yet she is certain she could not possibly suffer him to relent, even for an instant.
X’rhun draws her clit between his lips and flicks his tongue against it, and Adrienne positively keens. Her hands, previously well beyond her control, grab fistfuls of his hair, but by the gods, she cannot even bring herself to form a coherent syllable as her climax builds yet again.
She hopes he knows that she thinks his name, tries to speak it, whether or not she succeeds. She hopes he’ll indulge her with some fantasy that revolves around his pleasure, so that she might give him a fraction of what he has given her. More than that, she hopes he will never, ever stop, that they might stay here in this moment for all eternity.
This orgasm is longer, a cresting wave that threatens to drag her under some unknowable threshold, and though X’rhun’s kisses grow soft and sweet as little aftershocks course through her, he does not release her, nor even hint at stopping.
“Rhun,” she manages at last, and delights in the way his ears swivel, hearkening to the sound.
“Hm?” he murmurs against her.
She runs her fingers through his hair, measuring her words. It’s not that it isn’t…well, it’s surpassingly lovely, and she doesn’t want him to think she wants him to stop, exactly, but if he truly intends what she thinks—
“You’ve…more than proven your point,” Adrienne tries. Her voice comes out hoarse—gods, has she been that loud?
“Hmmm…” Another long and lingering kiss. He nuzzles his cheek against her thigh before he looks up properly at last. Oh, but it’s a sight to behold—his face is noticeably wet, his lazy smile positively intoxicating. And whatever Adrienne had expected him to say in response, nothing could have prepared her for what follows.
“One more?” X’rhun inclines his head, playful, cheeky. “For me?”
The words send a shudder rolling through her, so powerful she falls back against her pillow with a noise that can only be described as a moan. “I’m not sure I’ll survive,” she murmurs, but she is mercifully too overwrought with pleasure to feel particularly embarrassed.
Evidently satisfied with her response, X’rhun ducks his head once more. His kisses are slow and gentle still, the strokes of his tongue light and teasing, lacking the single-mindedness that drove her over the edge the second time. He kisses along the insides of her thighs, taking his time now, as though he intends to press his lips to every last ilm of her. Adrienne continues running her fingers through his hair, contented in the knowledge that he is enjoying himself.
Indeed, she notes suddenly, she can see the silhouette of his tail lashing lazily behind him as he indulges himself. She imagines it’s no secret that she has a fondness for thumbing at his ears, but would it be rude, she wonders, to tell him how very charming she finds his tail?
Adrienne reaches out to pay his ears their due attention, and if the low noise of approval she receives weren’t enough to send her reeling, what she had deemed a simple touch seems to reignite a sense of purpose in X’rhun.
Somehow, impossibly, the feeling is just as overwhelming, just as surprising as it was the first time. One would think Adrienne had never known such attentions in all her days for the way her back arches clear off the bed, the way she grasps blindly at him, desperate to keep him close even knowing he has no intention of moving.
She tries to focus on him, tries to take in the sight of him, the soft, contented set of his features and the way his mouth moves against her, and commit it to memory. Again she thinks of what he told her before, how he had touched himself thinking of this, and it is this image in the end that drives her over the edge, the idea that he could glean such pleasure from something that has always felt too embarrassing, too much to want for herself.
X’rhun holds her thighs steady, never relents even as her body trembles all over. She succumbs to wave after wave of pleasure, sobs his given name over and over, prays he understands a fraction of the gift he has given her. It is well and truly too much to bear now, and Adrienne squirms away from him at last, still gasping for air as little aftershocks course through her.
She grasps blindly for X’rhun, desperate to pull him close, or perhaps simply to have something steady to cling to, and he obliges her happily, crawling up to rest beside her and opening his arms to her. There is something oddly soothing about the feel of his shirt against her bare skin. She nestles against him with a sigh of deepest contentment.
“I…never knew it could feel like that,” Adrienne puts voice to the very first thought she remembers.
X’rhun hums thoughtfully, and now it is his turn to card his fingers through her hair, cradling her head beneath his chin. “I hope you’ll take this the way I intend it,” he begins slowly, “for I would never wish you even the slightest dissatisfaction. But I’ll concede to a bit of a…twisted sense of pride, shall we say, to have been the first to give you such an experience.”
Adrienne laughs softly, trailing her fingers idly down the length of his torso, toying with the buttons of his shirt as she goes. “I daresay I shall ever be grateful,” she says, and though her tone is light, her words are true. “Though—“ her fingers hook into the waistband of his trousers, knuckles grazing the taut muscle of his abdomen “—I think what so moved me was how very much you seemed to be enjoying yourself.”
X’rhun hums his contentment, runs a hand along her body to rest at her hip. “So I did,” he assures her warmly. “I thank you for indulging me, and, if I may say so, for giving me your trust. ‘Twas not a matter I took lightly.”
Adrienne’s mind, which had been wandering in decidedly less innocent directions, suddenly snaps its focus to the words he has spoken. She does trust him, she realizes. Would trust him with nearly anything, in fact, from an unimportant secret to her very life.
Is it foolish to feel this way, or merely a result of the similarities between them, the kindred spirit, as he’d called it? She knows very little about him, all things considered. Would he tell her about himself, if she asked? Would his kindness and generosity wear thin if she spent more than a handful of evenings in his presence?
Does he feel the same way about her? Wonder at the same mysteries?
Perhaps it doesn’t matter. He has been unfailingly kind and generous in the limited course of their acquaintance thus far, and the incident with the little girls and their would-be kidnappers suggests, as she’d already more or less believed, that X’rhun had helped her before purely out of the goodness of his heart. Adrienne has put her trust in far less, by choice and by necessity.
“I’d say my trust was well-founded,” she says at last, returning her attention to the matter of his clothes. Fetching though they are, the room is far from cold, and surely he’d be much more comfortable without them.
She unbuttons his shirt and untucks it, sliding her hands up his bare chest and pulling away just enough to look up into his eyes. He affords her an easy smile before leaning in to kiss her, a surprisingly chaste gesture.
It’s a curious thought, that he’d likely be perfectly content to leave things as they are, never having been touched himself, nor even having removed all of his clothes, though of course Adrienne has no intention of letting such inequity stand. She slides his shirt off his shoulders and he shifts to allow it, and then she turns her attention to the buttons on his trousers.
X’rhun presses his lips to her forehead. “Let it be said,” he begins gently, “that there is no debt between us, and never has been. I am quite contented as I am, and you are surely tired.”
And though his words are almost perfectly measured, there is a certain part of his body which says otherwise. Adrienne trails her fingers further down still, just barely grazing the evidence of his arousal through the fabric of his smallclothes. “Quite contented?” Adrienne echoes airily, tilting her head upward in time to see the way X’rhun’s tongue darts across his lips.
“W-well.”
For all his easy charm, his steadfast self-assurance, it is these moments—the flashes in which he comes undone, if only by a fraction—that will truly be the end of her.
Much, much later, when they are both naked, and both well and truly spent, X’rhun asks her, “Have you…somewhere pressing to go, come morning?”
Adrienne labours to think of anything that exists outside of this room, her mind sluggish and hazy. “Not that I can remember,” she says, nestling just a little closer against him. “Why?”
X’rhun’s fingers trace an inscrutable pattern across the small of her back, sending pleasant tingles up along her spine. “You could stay,” he breathes.
Adrienne’s grip upon his waist tightens subconsciously.
“If you wished it, of course,” X’rhun amends. “There remains the matter of the young ladies’ would-be kidnapper to attend to, after all, and as you well know, there are always problems that need solving. I’ve no particular attachment to Ul’dah, of course—“
Then he really does mean it the way she thought. She could stay not for another day or two, but for…
“—in truth, I had forgotten how stifling the midday heat can be. And my offer to teach you the fundamentals of red magic stands, should you wish it, and—“
“Rhun,” she stops him with a kiss, though in truth it’s meant as a kindness to him and not because she has an answer to give him.
It is perhaps a more appealing idea than she’d have thought, to return for a spell to her life as a wayfaring adventurer—a different job every day, a different bed every night, but all of it with X’rhun at her side. She rather likes the notion of fighting alongside him, remembers all too well how his display of skill earlier had impressed her so, and Adrienne has ever been an eager student of all things magical, often from far less favourable sources.
But there are other implications beneath his offer, implications to which she is not opposed, exactly, but with which she has minimal experience. Indeed, her greatest fear in this matter, something deep and primal, well beyond the scope of rational thought, is that in spending a bit more time with her, X’rhun will find her wanting, and the next time they part ways, it will be for good.
Perhaps she would do better to remain aloof, to stay another day at the most and then make herself scarce for a time. After all, how would Adrienne feel, if someone she’d had a pleasant night with insisted on hanging around afterward, encroaching on her space and her time, entwining himself in her life? Wanting anything more than this from someone like X’rhun Tia is a recipe for heartbreak—so she has been telling herself over and over these past few months.
But then again…Adrienne has never asked anyone to stay.
“Wouldn’t I get in your way?” Adrienne wonders, attempting lightness, but her voice comes out high and thin. “I’d expect a man like you to have a sweetheart in every city-state.”
X’rhun lets out a surprised chuckle, pressing his lips to her forehead once more. “Yet again I am uncertain whether you mean to flatter or to insult me.”
“Neither,” Adrienne insists, trailing her fingers idly along his side and across his back. “But I’d rather know what I’m agreeing to, if I should stay.”
She would tell him exactly what she’s getting at if she knew, herself, but the details are murky within her own mind, things she’s heard and things she’s observed over the course of her lifetime. Lovers who were sweet and attentive in private, but nigh-ignored their unwitting victims in public. Sometimes they had other sweethearts to think of already; other times, they were simply always on the prowl for the next best thing.
“I’ve had perhaps more than my share of lovers, but none very recently, if that’s what you’re getting at,” says X’rhun pleasantly. “But I do believe this grants me leave to ask the same of you—must I expect to run afoul of the Warrior of Light’s countless admirers, should we travel together? I was never much inclined towards the baser traditions of the Sun Seekers, fighting for the favour of a lady and all that, but for you I might make an exception.”
Adrienne laughs, so wholeheartedly it almost aches. X’rhun’s unfailing good humour is, as ever, catching. Perhaps it might do her more good than she realizes, to spend a bit more time with someone who has never yet failed to lift her spirits. “I hope you won’t think me terribly vain when I tell you I don’t wholly abhor that image,” she says. “But no, no one of consequence.”
“Such cruel condemnation from Eorzea’s champion!” X’rhun drawls with a touch of melodrama, but his fingers trail lightly over her sides, drawing a series of rather undignified sounds from her as she swats halfheartedly at his hands. “Am I doomed to one day be cast aside in the selfsame manner, dismissed as no one of consequence?”
Adrienne scoffs at that, at last capturing X’rhun’s errant hands only to pull his arms back around her. She does not tell him that her fear—indeed, the very thing that kept her from seeking him out sooner—is that he will be far too consequential. “I’m not sure you could make yourself inconsequential even if you tried,” she says, instead.
His reaction comes as something of a shock to her. She’d expected a dismissive chuckle or perhaps a jest, either at her expense or his own. Instead, he lets out a little huff, and his ears fold back against his head, as though he hadn’t expected her response, and isn’t sure what to make of it. Adrienne reaches up to smooth his hair from his face and thumb at his ears—will she ever tire of the way his whole body seems to respond to such a simple touch?
“You needn’t answer right away,” says X’rhun, reaching up to cup her face in his hand. “And I assure you there’ll be no hard feelings from me when you are inevitably needed elsewhere. But…” he brushes his thumb across her cheek, an unbearable softness about his expression. “I think we could be…remarkably good for one another, don’t you?”
“I do,” Adrienne agrees without hesitation, for it is the truth, terrifying though it might be. “I fear I may be a fool for thinking it.”
X’rhun positively beams. If Adrienne’s decision weren’t already made from the start, it is made then. She pulls him close and kisses him, delights in the way she can feel him trying and failing to contain his smile against her lips.
“I’ll stay,” she says, punctuating her words with another kiss.
X’rhun makes a small noise against her lips, surprise and delight, and he kisses her at least a dozen times more after that. “You won’t regret it,” he swears to her between kisses. “I’ll see to that.”
He kisses her again and again and again, all over her face and down to her collarbones, until she isn’t certain whether to laugh or to weep. Much as it terrifies her, foolish and reckless as she feels for entertaining such a ridiculous promise, Adrienne has never in her life wanted to believe in something more.
“Gods above,” X’rhun murmurs with a shaky sigh, pressing one last kiss to her cheek before he draws her tightly against him once more. “For a moment there, I thought you meant to refuse me!”
Adrienne tucks her head beneath X’rhun’s chin with a soft chuckle. “I’m not sure I ever could have,” she confesses.
By way of response, she is treated to another veritable onslaught of kisses, equal parts fun and reassurance. There is such joy, such relief in it that she cannot help laughing, swatting halfheartedly at her assailant’s arms even as she prays he will never, ever relent.
“I’ll never know a moment’s peace!” she cries, but she is still beside herself with laughter, and her words bear absolutely no bite.
“Never,” X’rhun swears between kisses.
And this, somehow, grants Adrienne a measure of peace she cannot say she has ever known before.