thinkin' about dancing with eula, in your favourite place to be with her—
it's cold out, it always is. dragonspine's climate is harsh and unforgiving, but to those of steel will, the wintry terrain is easy enough to temper. her hand is gentle around yours, the slightest flex beneath her gloves as she steadies you at the slightest hint of ice upon the ground.
(don't worry. she'll catch you, before you so much as harm a hair on your pretty head upon the snow.)
there's a precious spot—well, several, really—that you both come to often in search of refuge and respite from the trials of society. the snow is pure and untainted, untouched by the unjust jeers of those who call mondstadt home; it's quiet, here, a shelter in some ruins with evidences of your prior visits. a memory to return to with fondness.
you share a drink by the campfire, some dandelion wine fresh from the tavern. you watch as she prepares it, skilled and delicate, the slightest furrow in her brow as her cryo vision pulses and cubes of ice form in her palm. cheek on hand, you can't help but smile as she deposits the ice into the cups she'd brought: goblets, really, stolen away from the stash at the lawrence manor.
"so much silver gone to waste keeping up appearances. at least, with these, they'll serve a more priceless purpose," she huffs the first time she brought them, engraved with sapphires and dappled with gold embellishments. you should've felt like royalty then, as you swirled the wine; like nobility as you took a tentative sip. but the sight of her, tufts of silken arctics and sunset eyes and tender smile, made you feel like a witness instead.
(a witness, you remember thinking, to divinity itself.)
eula glanced at you when she concluded, then. an unspoken message that you already understand, that already warms you. much of it took time to learn, the little tells that gave her away (with some help from amber, of course), but you relished memorising each: her indignant scoffs and denying looks away when she's flustered, the furrow in her brow as she ponders her next strategy.
you thank her when she hands you a goblet, the dandelion wine chilled to the perfect cool. she wouldn't normally go through the trouble and hassle of the tradition, but for you, she would dredge up every crumb of history branded upon her skull.
it makes you appreciate her all the more. you smile, and she looks away, and you know her fair cheeks are already rosy before she does.
eula drinks less often, when she's around you. every moment is too sacred to be enjoyed drunk; you are a thorn in her side, but you are also the plaster and the sweet kiss and the tender touch that mends it with care enough unworthy for a pariah such as her.
you find that she sets down her cup, after no more than two sips. eula slips her gloves from her hands, tucking them into her sleeve, before extending her palm to you in wordless invitation.
it's soft, but firm as you take it. you can map every scar on her skin in your mind's eye, born of fumbles in her ascent to knighthood, her sisyphean struggle to be as the roil of waves: free, and unbridled. liberated from her guise, a pursuit of vengeance.
you brush your thumb over her knuckles, knowing the strength in them; these are the hands that have clawed their way out from the grave her ancestors dug for themselves, the hands that cleave a path towards a breeze-ful future. hands of a captain—the hands of the woman you love.
there's a twitch in her lip that you want to catch with your own, but she's already tugging you onto your feet.
"may i have this dance?" eula murmurs, bowing some. she has never been one to abide by her clan's customs, yet she shares the sanctity of her favoured past time with you. her favourite person.
and you laugh, because she doesn't need to ask, she never has to, because your answer would always be yes.
yes, of course i will.
yes, always.
her face colours, and you beam, radiant as the unsullied snow. you are her peace, and her trouble, and her quiet and her noise.
"yes, you may."
permission given, eula lets out a misting breath of relief, as if this wasn't already something she had done many times before with you. one step, and another, just to close the distance, lithe arm slipping around your waist to tug you flush against her, and your breath leaves you.
your clasped hands entwine, and eula brings them to her lips, soft petals brushing over your flesh. she has a way of that, stealing the air in your lungs, but you'd let her. every single time.
her lips trace the bone in your wrist, your inner forearm, through the sleeve of the coat she'd tucked you into before your hike through the snow. eula is cold but she's everything warm, the dawnlit sun and the duskfall's set; she kisses to your elbow, to your bicep, all touches reverent in every capacity. worshipful.
mondstadt's archon has never been her god, for you were the visage and her oath.
your eyelids flutter, your smile unbidden as eula finds her way to the curve of your shoulder, her breath warm against you. with a turn of the head, your nose brushes against her jaw, and you nestle into her, pressing a kiss of your own there, too.
"i thought you wanted to dance?" you murmur, soft with a hint of play, and she scoffs in your ear.
"that i did," eula exhales. "is this not our own?"
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