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cassynite · 2 years

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9. exchanging gifts for the first time!

hhhhhhhh sorry for the late reply, I am apparently all or nothing when it comes to prompts. Endure 2000 words of the most tooth-rotting fluff imaginable

The package is wrapped in thick, plain brown paper, tied with twine, and arrives to Drezen just in time for Sparrow and Daeran's return from Nerosyan. The visit itself as well as the trip home was exhausting; even Daeran is happy to settle for a quiet dinner and an early night once they return to the citadel, though he sprinkles the evening conversation with hints that Sparrow should not make any extensive meeting plans for the next week. The new year is fast approaching, and he clearly wants to make a celebration of it; Sparrow is making a mental note to ask if he wants help preparing whatever he has planned or would prefer to do it on his own when she sees the delivery.

Any exhaustion tugging at her drowns under the sudden warm rush of excitement. Woljif had said it was possible, had even helped set up correspondence. But she hadn't believed she'd be able to get it until it actually appeared in the hands of a young runner who delivered it along with the correspondence collected during their absence. Forcing herself not to snatch it from the courier's hands, she smiles and tips him in thanks, and then heads straight to their chambers, the package tight against her thudding chest.

Daeran has already settled in when she arrives, candlelight bouncing off the glint in his golden hair as it spreads across the pillows of their bed. He stares at her as she enters and Sparrow recalls herself--she must look rather silly, rushing in like a child, but that doesn't fully pop the bubbles of giddiness. Certainly, her husband doesn't look disapproving, a smile widening as he takes her in.

"And what has you looking that way, hmm?" His gaze drops to the package in her hands. "I don't believe it," he smirks, rising from the mattress and meeting Sparrow halfway, "did you really get something for--"

"It's yours," Sparrow holds it out for him to take. "Open it. I got it for you."

"Me?" He takes it, observes the plain wrapping with a critical eye. "And what is the occasion?"

That dims the excitement, just a little. "No occasion." Was it strange, to gift something out of nowhere? Daeran had done it many times during the Crusade, his rings and wands and of course the necklace she wears around her neck, but that was when he was courting her. She would have returned the gesture in kind, but what did one get a nobleman with the money to buy anything he wanted? She'd searched for ages for an idea, and then this--"I just thought of you, I suppose."

Something in her expression makes his soften with genuine delight. He peels away the wax paper, "Well, I'll hardly say no to any gift--" He stops when he actually sees what is inside.

Sparrow bites the her cheek as the silence seems to stretch between them. She'd pictured his reaction to be--funnier, perhaps, more dramatic. Perhaps playfully annoyed. Instead, he just continues to stare, his face blank, at the cover of The Duke's Temptations by Ophenia Thwait.

Sparrow swallows. "I--know that you have strong opinions about the author." Everyone did--the ha'penny novels of dashing romance and sweeping action capture the hearts and minds of both the working people and the fluttering young nobility in Mendev.

New Thwait books always become hot topics of discussion in certain circles for at least a fortnight after release. Daeran in particular always had something to say about them, vitriolic and derisive about the ludicrous tropes, gag-worthy saccharine in the dialogue, and the physical implausibility of the sex that occurs every other chapter.

Sparrow always noted that his complaints were terribly granular for someone who supposedly hated them enough to never touch them, and that he never denied himself the opportunity to talk about them when the subject came up. But he hasn't said anything, he's still not speaking and maybe she miscalculated, maybe this had been a terrible gift and he's trying to think of the right way to tell her he hates it.

Sparrow's hands fold in front of her, clenching like a lifeline, as a shard of ice forms under her ribcage. "I--heard about a new book coming out, and. I thought you might enjoy being the first to know about it. To read it. And...to talk about it before anyone else could. So. I reached out to see if I could get it and--I could. I did."

"This doesn't come out for another two months." Daeran doesn't sound angry, or even peeved. From another person, Sparrow would have called the tone awe. Sparrow tears her gaze away from her hands to meet Daeran's jewel-toned eyes. He's smiling in disbelief. "Thwait keeps her releases locked down tighter than an Iomadean priest keeps his virtue, exactly how did you get your hands on this?"

The warmth of his tone melts the ice in her chest, and Sparrow smiles, delighted and relieved. "Woljif helped," she demurs. "Ms. Thwait is hard to find but he knew someone who knew a contact of her publisher's, and. From what I understand, Ms. Thwait was happy to provide an advance copy when she found out who was asking."

Daeran leans in closer. "Using your status as former Commander of the Fifth Crusade to gain favors?" he murmurs. "How unbecoming. Absolutely shocking behavior."

Sparrow can't swallow back the laugh that bubbles at that back of her throat. "I am a true light in society, you know." she tells him, craning her head up as he comes close enough to touch. "An inspiration for everyone. Ms. Thwait said so herself when she wrote to me."

"A shining beacon for us all." Daeran's hand cups her cheek, fingers curling under her hair at the nape of her neck, and when his mouth finds hers, her eyes are already closed. For several minutes, there's nothing but his body against hers, holding her like she's the only person in the world. The thudding heat in her ears is almost as hot as the sweet joy his happiness has sparked. It's a good gift, and he likes it. The knowledge of it is almost like a victory.

They finally part. "You will, of course, get to hear my thoughts on the latest travesty Ophenia Thwait calls a novel before anyone else," Daeran says. "In fact, we can compare notes--no, you are absolutely reading it as well, I refuse to suffer alone. And, speaking of which--I refuse to let you be alone in gift-giving either. We shall have to make this an exchange instead."

Daeran pulls away from Sparrow's embrace to rummage through their still-unpacked valises. After a moment, he pulls out a long, thin box in shining wrapping, complete with a lace bow. He hands it to her and she stares, wrong-footed. She hadn't expected this. "What is this for?"

"I would love to also say that there is no occasion whatsoever, since that is now an appropriate gesture to make--rest assured I will take advantage of that. Expect gifts once a month moving forward, for no reason at all. Once a week, even."

"Is it for no reason if it's planned?" Sparrow pulls the bow, letting the lace ribbon slide to the floor--she'll pick it up after. "Wouldn't the giving of gifts become its own occasion in that circumstance?"

Daeran brightens at the idea. "We can mark it on our calendars--or, you can mark it on our calendars. Regardless, this is not that occasion." As Sparrow pulls the lid off the box, Daeran says, "Happy belated birthday, darling."

"Wh--" Sparrow cuts herself off, overwhelmed. How did he know about her birthday, when she's spoken of it to no one--what is this, glinting gold and orange and red almost as bright as Daeran's hair, like living fire--she grasps at the garment, feels silk as light as air, and pulls out the most vibrant dress she's ever seen. The fabric, with its bold geometric pattern, is familiar--"I've seen this."

"It's from Katapesh, I believe. The fabric was on display at Karensley's, in Nerosyan? The last time we visited? You couldn't stop staring at it, and it seemed like a wonderful opportunity to introduce some proper color into your terribly drab attire."

They'd gone for, among other things, a proper new wardrobe for the both of them, a few weeks before their marriage--"That was months ago."

Daeran shrugs. His nonchalance is abominably insincere; Sparrow's certain she's seen cats less smug. "It took about that long for the dress to be made. I'd hoped to give it to you on your birthday proper, but then of course my dear cousin decided she wished to end the year by hashing out import taxes and our presence was suddenly mandatory in the capital. Of course you weren't going to see it until next week during your party, but then you had to give such a delightful gift yourself that I had to respond in kind, so."

Sparrow struggles to parse out the words inside her, to describe how beautiful the dress was, to put a name to the bright rushing warmth that grew so large that she hurt with it, to try and encapsulate what a birthday present even meant. The last time she had a birthday, Crow was alive. Her eyes stung, and she managed to get out, "A party?"

"Ah, well. That was meant to be a surprise. My mistake." Again the feigned nonchalance. "You'll have to pretend to be shocked when we go."

Sparrow swallows. "I will do my best. I'm going to wear the dress, though." She's going to wear it every day for the rest of her life, in fact. She'll die in it; they'll have to peel of her skin to remove it. She considers kissing him again, but doing so would require her to put down the garment. "I'm going to try it on."

"Wonderful. I will torture us both with the beginning of this atrocity while you do so." He holds up The Duke's Temptations and sits back down on the bed, leaning back. When he opens the inside cover, though, he is silent; instead his eyebrows rise, and then he starts to laugh in disbelief.

Sparrow, halfway out of her shirt, pulls it back down. "What is it?"

"No, don't stop," Daeran tells her, though he sits up from the bed and swings his legs over the side. "Listen to this: In the everlasting battle against the devilish hordes of Hell, General Evelynne Khaine, right hand of the queen, fears no evil and succumbs to no temptation. But with the arrival of Duke Arendi, the queen's nephew and a notorious rake, Evelynne will have to face a carnal desire that no devil's machinations can match--" Daeran stops, unable to continue through his laughter.

"Excuse me?" Sparrow places the dress reverently on the ottoman before tearing the book out of Daeran's hands, reading the rest in a haze of mortification that teeters over into hilarity. "This is. It's..."

"Apparently," Daeran gasps, "you were very much an inspiration to Ms. Thwait."

"We were," Sparrow corrects, her mouth hanging. In two months' time, everyone in Mendev would be reading Ophenia Thwait's poorly-veiled rendition of their own relationship. "Oh, heavens. I had no idea."

"Clearly not. Give it back--I need to know what happens, now." Daeran pulls it out of her grasp, somehow even more delighted. "We will have to compare Ms. Thwait's creativity with reality. Oh! Actually, before that--" He flips to about halfway through the book. "Hm."

"What is it?"

"Oh, the first sex scene. It's always about halfway through the book." Daeran skims it. "Well. I propose we see just how physically plausible this particular arrangement is, and then we go from there."

"And by that, you mean a real-life rendition?" Sparrow steps closer to the bed between his legs. When Daeran reaches up, she leans closer under his hand.

"Hmmm. We can even do the dialogue, if you like. Perhaps the general is even wearing a lovely dress she can take off."

Sparrow laughs into the kiss, and every other one following that night.

#cassy answers #aeoncoded #oc: sparrow #daeran arendae #pwotr #pathfinder wrath of the righteous #wotr #wrath of the righteous #the most unbelievable part of this scene is that an author completed a manuscript a whole two months before a deadline #just suspend your disbelief for that bit #(i'm putting this deep in the tags but i wanna portmanteau these two. daerrow is a cute ship name i think)#anyway! had a lot of fun with this one thank you ella :3 #cassy writes #pwotr pals

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