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Jiaoqiu wakes up to the broad expanse of Feixiao’s back. Her hair is strewn all about her, casting a wild halo on her pillow. They had fallen asleep without redressing last night, and her bare skin is a tantalising sight, awakening the familiar tendrils of want in him. The mark of the Hunt contours along the curve of her sharp shoulder blades, her graceful, ruthless beauty captured in one breathtaking landscape mapped across the toned musculature of her back. He traces the mark along her skin, fingers whispering a trail along the dimmed outline, its power dormant with its wielder asleep.
Feixiao has trained herself to embody the Hunt, and many describe her as such — fierce, swift, aggressive — traits of a general, a weapon, a leader in the war effort.
Lying next to her in bed like this, rare opportunity it may be that he is awake while she slumbers, Jiaoqiu marvels at the femininity that she so rarely reveals to the world, but gives to him and Moze with no restraint. The plush of her breasts soft to the touch, her slender legs intertwined with his. Her laughter, so raucous and untempered in the sunlight, that calms to breathy chuckles tickling his ears, her sparkling eyes no less mischievous under the moonlight.
Behind him, Moze shifts, and Jiaoqiu grows aware of the arm that is firmly wrapped around his abdomen, the hand loosely stashed into his tail. Jiaoqiu could shake it free if he wanted to, but it is comforting to be held between them like this, even if it is at the expense of having to witness their increasingly ridiculous nightly competitions to claim dibs on his tail.
“You’re up early,” Moze murmurs, soft against his neck.
Jiaoqiu nods, not wanting to speak and wake Feixiao. He taps at the arm around his abdomen, nudges Moze to move it higher around his chest so that he can intertwine their fingers, feeling from memory the calluses and rough scars on Moze’s skin. They are a rare sight for a Xianzhou native. The curse of the Abundance ensures that scars and blemishes heal over and disappear — with exceptions for Aeonmarks like the one Feixiao bears, and, well, the unnatural ones that Moze too regularly exposes himself to.
The duties and assignments that he handles are so dangerous that for a time, Feixiao refused to tell Jiaoqiu of their full nature. It wasn’t until Jiaoqiu had pulled Moze back from the brink one too many times, heart threatening to leap out of his throat like a rabbit’s jackhammering pulse, even as he forced his hands to be steady and patient, that he had threatened to walk out of the General’s barracks and never return if they continued to hide the ugliest details about Moze’s missions from him.
Even so, the danger of Moze’s missions has not lessened, and the number of times Jiaoqiu has stayed by his bedside through the night, praying to whatever Aeon might care to answer, will only continue to rise. Today, it is reassuring to feel his strong steady heartbeat against his skin.
Moze may be reticent by nature, but what he does not say in words, he makes up for with his blades. There is a fearsome stubbornness to Moze when he sets his mind to a mission, one that the Shackling Prison could not hinder, that even death itself cannot intimidate. He has been clawed by Borisin and stabbed with poisonous knives by turncoat informants, has placed his arm between Hoolay’s teeth, every part of his body part of his arsenal. Each and every encounter has left scars that tarnish his skin, yet few will ever know of his deeds and sacrifices for the Yaoqing’s peace, and none more clearly than Jiaoqiu and Feixiao.
Cloaked in shadow as Moze prefers to be, more silent watcher than active participant to the rest of the waking world, one would never know that he lingers in bed like this, amidst bedsheets rumpled from last night’s activities, forehead pressed against Jiaoqiu’s nape like an oversized dog looking for affection— another thing the world never sees, another thing only Jiaoqiu and Feixiao are privy to.
Truth be told, this proximity scares Jiaoqiu. Feixiao and Moze are the strongest warriors on board the Yaoqing, and easily among the strongest in the whole Alliance, but it doesn’t make them invincible. And he? He is merely a healer, neither an Aeon nor a miracle worker. He cannot change destiny or fate.
He knows how this story will end — one day, he will arrive late to their bodies on the battlefield, or they will leave for war and not return. One day, he will not be smart enough, not be fast enough, not be able to identify the exact poison that has been used, or the Moon Rage will outrun his search for a cure, and he will be left with nothing once more, cursed to carry the memories of their deeds, the knowledge of their legacies, and the eternal reminder of his failure to save them. He is doomed to fail, as they are doomed to die.
Perhaps Feixiao has learned to hear his gloomy thoughts, because she stirs sleepily, her body pressing against Jiaoqiu’s as she fumbles blindly for his tail, an unfortunate bad habit she has picked up after all the nights and mornings they have spent together. Moze offers it to her searching hand before she can grope Jiaoqiu too much, but it ignites the delicious heat of desire nonetheless, gentle and searing as it creeps up through his body. She tucks nimble fingers into the proffered tail (once again, that is Jiaoqiu’s tail), settling only when she has located Moze’s hand and managed to grasp both hand and tail all at once.
“Mornin’,” she mumbles, voice more asleep than awake, sticky-sweet like loquat syrup. “Are we going for another round?”
“Maybe later,” Jiaoqiu groans, wrapping his arms around Feixiao’s waist and pulling her flush against himself, taking a deep inhale of the alluring scent that emanates off her soft skin. “My back hurts from last night.”
“We can go another round around the courtyard,” Moze supplies helpfully, the words warm puffs of air against Jiaoqiu’s ear. “I got in one more sprint than Feixiao last night, remember?”
Of course Jiaoqiu remembers. His tail was the target of that ridiculous competition.
“Ugh,” Jiaoqiu grumbles, letting go of Feixiao and rolling over on his side to face Moze with great prejudice. Cool grey-mauve eyes meet his glare with ease, and Jiaoqiu rolls his eyes, presses a kiss onto Moze’s mouth to shut him up and nips his lips with his teeth for good measure. All of which are no matter of threat to Moze, only serve to make his eyes darken further.
“Jiao-shifu, that’s playing dirty,” Feixiao teases from behind him, now sounding far more awake. Her hand is already tapping a playful pattern around the base of his tail, exactly where she knows he’s sensitive.
So much for enjoying a peaceful morning off. Jiaoqiu sighs as he gives up and lets them embrace him. Maybe it’s not so bad, to exist with them like this.