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[Grune/Dhaos] Because I'm terrible. :Db
Title: Suspension
Fandom: Tales of Legendia, Tales of Phantasia
Genre: Romance, gen
Rating & Warnings: PG-13, possessiveness
Words: 1686
Disclaimer: I don't own the above fandoms.
Summary: Grune and Dhaos' plans to spend an afternoon dallying are interrupted by a visitor to the mana tree's glade. One of them take it much better than the other.
Author's Notes: I've been going through my old writing notebooks lately, and I have to say, I'm finding some pretty enjoyable stuff. This would be one such fic.
There were no sounds sweeter, Grune thought with a smile, than those Dhaos could not stifle while attempting to preserve his dignity.
She lightly bit his collarbone and was gifted with one of those very noises. Her next smile was against his skin.
“G-Grune,” he moaned, his deep voice roughened in the way that sent warmth rushing through her.
She responded by licking the length of that collarbone. Her hands travelled along the muscle of his upper arm to the bared skin of his back, then up to his shoulders to push his clothing farther from him.
She looked up to meet Dhaos' blue gaze—darkened deliciously with passion—then flicked a glance downward, to her goal. Before she had yet met his eyes again, he had begun stripping with much haste, a blush blooming in his cheeks. Though this was far from the first time they had made love, Dhaos remained endearingly shy.
She was drawing close to resume their kisses even as he still had need to finish freeing both his arms—but then he stilled. His head jerked up.
“Someone is coming,” he said, his voice now roughened with frustration.
She kissed him. “Return to the tree. We can continue when they leave.”
She expected him to fade at once, and so was caught off guard when a long-fingered hand curved around the back of her head and drew her into a deep kiss. She was nigh on breathless when it ended, a fact of which, judging from Dhaos' smirk, he made note.
Then he vanished and she prepared to greet their visitor.
*
It had taken a lot of time and travel, but at last Dan had reached the glade—actually, The Glade in his mind, because if any place deserved capital letters, that was it. A place full of flowers that grew nowhere else on the planet? It was The Glade, definitely.
He had solved the problem of which plant to study first by deciding to start at one end of The Glade and work his way to the other. He needed to be methodical, or he would rush from the flowers that bloomed at precisely two every morning, to the plant that bloomed with silver and gold flowers on the same stem, to who knew what else.
He'd just decided to set up camp beneath that giant tree, when—
He stopped as if suddenly paralysed, because sitting beneath said giant tree was the most beautiful woman he'd seen in his life.
She was curvy and wearing a—a rather, a very revealing green dress. Her hair was long, so long that it brushed the ground. Even seated, he could tell she was tall, a-and, and she was smiling at him.
“H-Hello,” he gulped out as his heart restarted.
“Good day,” she called back, her voice like sun-warmed earth. “Have you come to visit the mana tree?”
“The mana—that's the mana tree?” He stared at what he had thought was only a particularly large oak or . . . something (he studied plants, not trees).
“It is indeed.” She looked up at it with obvious fondness and set a hand on one of its thick roots.
“I-I'm, I'm here to study the flowers. What are you doing here?”
Then he cringed—could he be any ruder?
She turned her attention to him and gave him a smile that liquified his knees. “I am awaiting my lover.”
Her answer promptly liquified his heart right along with his knees. Her lover. Of course. There was no way anyone that beautiful could be single.
Even though what slim chance he had just had been blown out of the sky, Dan couldn't bring himself to leave and give her some privacy. It wasn't only her unearthly beauty that drew him in: her manner suggested that her kindness ran deep and strong.
“I'm Dan—” He tripped over a root he had somehow missed seeing and only just didn't curse. “Gah! I'm very, very pleased to meet you.”
Oddly, the woman sent a look to the tree; when she faced him once more, though, her smile had returned. “I am Grune. I am likewise pleased to meet you.”
He felt his face flame up, but still he dared ask, “Can I, um, keep you company while you wait?”
“Of course.”
She moved aside to make space for him in the fork between two roots. Of course he tripped over another damn root and nearly overbalanced thanks to his backpack. Grune helped steady him, and then, once he was reasonably sure he wasn't about to fall into her lap . . . she squeezed one of the tree roots, hard. He couldn't begin to guess why, but as far as he was concerned, she could be as strange as she liked. No doubt she thought he was strange, the way he was acting.
(Then again, she was probably used to people losing all cognitive abilities in front of her. He was almost certainly in numerous company.)
“So, um . . . you're waiting for your, um, lover?” he asked.
“I am,” she confirmed.
“Are you . . . going to have a picnic here?”
All of a sudden, Grune's face lit, making her impossibly more beautiful still. There was laughter in her rich voice when she replied, “Perhaps. I will have to ask him.”
Above their heads, the leaves of the mana tree rustled. Grune's smile grew.
“Have you travelled far to study the flowers, Dan?”
“Oh yes!” Now it was his turn to light up. “I've been travelling for nearly two weeks to get here—it's incredibly exciting to be at this site at last!”
“Is it truly so interesting?” Grune asked. The sound of the leaves briefly grew louder.
“Absolutely! There are plants here that grow nowhere else in the world! And it almost seems as though someone has set up a crude garden of sor—ow!”
She leaned forward. “Are you all right?”
“Fine, f-fine, I just. . . .”
He left off rubbing his head to pick up the goodish-sized stick that had fallen on top of him. As he looked it over, he heard a “smack.” It . . . sounded as though Grune had hit the tree, but when he looked up again (making sure his eyes stayed on her face, because he was a gentleman and a scholar), she was sitting with her hands in her lap.
He tossed the stick aside. “A-Anyway, it's been a mystery among the botanical community for years. I'm hoping that by visiting The Glade, I can answer at least one or two of the questions we have about it.
“Actually . . . do you come here often—oh no, no no no!” he cried over the suddenly wind-tossed leaves. “I didn't mean it that way! I-I meant—”
“I understand,” she assured him as she placed a hand upon the tree trunk. In a weird coincidence, the wind in the tree branches died down to a light breeze.
“To answer your question. . . .” She looked up at the tree; sunlight filtering through its branches highlighted the curve of her cheeks and the turn of her lips. “There is no other place I would rather be out of all of the worlds in all the universes.”
“It's very special to you and your lover, isn't it?” he asked, softly.
She looked back at him and his breath caught at the love in her face.
“Yes.”
It was a short answer, but nothing else was needed. A memory flew up, of sunny afternoons with Alise by the fountain. When he got back, they should waste some time together. It had been much too long.
“Grune.”
Dan jumped. He'd been so entranced, he hadn't noticed anyone else arrive.
From behind the now-silent tree, a man stepped into view, and Dan couldn't have stopped staring even had someone offered him unlimited funding for the next ten years.
If he'd thought Grune was tall, then this man was a giant. He wasn't the most beautiful person Dan had ever seen, but if he hadn't just met Grune, her lover (because who else could it be?) would be a serious contender. He had masses of gold curls and clear blue eyes—and one very intimidating frown.
Grune's lover extended a hand to her; she took it and stood. Somehow doubting the same help would be offered to him, Dan got up on his own.
“Dan,” Grune said, “this is Dhaos, for whom I was waiting. Dhaos, this is Dan, a kind young botanist who has come to study the flowers.”
“Pleased, um, to meet you,” Dan managed. He received no reply but a stare. “I . . . I'll just go, um, go . . . uh, go.”
“Do not feel the need to depart on our account,” Grune said to him.
“I should get set up. I'll be back in . . . an hour? Or two?” he added, because he thought he knew the look Dhaos was giving Grune and he was not going to picture anything.
“Very well.” She gave him one last smile. “I hope to see you again.”
“Me too,” he said and fled. This time, his path was completely smooth.
*
“Dhaos. . . .” Grune began once Dan had departed.
Dhaos' frown remained fixed. “I did not like the way he looked at you.”
“It was not for you to like or dislike,” she said sharply. “You could have seriously injured him.”
“I would not. I meant only to warn him.”
“You had no need to do so—unless you intended to show you do not trust me?”
Dhaos' eyes widened. “I trust you beyond all.”
And she sighed. “Some days, I am given reason to doubt.”
“Never doubt my trust in you.” He moved closer. “Or my love.”
He bent his head. Satisfied her point had been made, she reached up to meet him. They had little enough time before Dan would return, and she—and it appeared Dhaos as well—intended to make the most of it.
Fandom: Tales of Legendia, Tales of Phantasia
Genre: Romance, gen
Rating & Warnings: PG-13, possessiveness
Words: 1686
Disclaimer: I don't own the above fandoms.
Summary: Grune and Dhaos' plans to spend an afternoon dallying are interrupted by a visitor to the mana tree's glade. One of them take it much better than the other.
Author's Notes: I've been going through my old writing notebooks lately, and I have to say, I'm finding some pretty enjoyable stuff. This would be one such fic.
There were no sounds sweeter, Grune thought with a smile, than those Dhaos could not stifle while attempting to preserve his dignity.
She lightly bit his collarbone and was gifted with one of those very noises. Her next smile was against his skin.
“G-Grune,” he moaned, his deep voice roughened in the way that sent warmth rushing through her.
She responded by licking the length of that collarbone. Her hands travelled along the muscle of his upper arm to the bared skin of his back, then up to his shoulders to push his clothing farther from him.
She looked up to meet Dhaos' blue gaze—darkened deliciously with passion—then flicked a glance downward, to her goal. Before she had yet met his eyes again, he had begun stripping with much haste, a blush blooming in his cheeks. Though this was far from the first time they had made love, Dhaos remained endearingly shy.
She was drawing close to resume their kisses even as he still had need to finish freeing both his arms—but then he stilled. His head jerked up.
“Someone is coming,” he said, his voice now roughened with frustration.
She kissed him. “Return to the tree. We can continue when they leave.”
She expected him to fade at once, and so was caught off guard when a long-fingered hand curved around the back of her head and drew her into a deep kiss. She was nigh on breathless when it ended, a fact of which, judging from Dhaos' smirk, he made note.
Then he vanished and she prepared to greet their visitor.
It had taken a lot of time and travel, but at last Dan had reached the glade—actually, The Glade in his mind, because if any place deserved capital letters, that was it. A place full of flowers that grew nowhere else on the planet? It was The Glade, definitely.
He had solved the problem of which plant to study first by deciding to start at one end of The Glade and work his way to the other. He needed to be methodical, or he would rush from the flowers that bloomed at precisely two every morning, to the plant that bloomed with silver and gold flowers on the same stem, to who knew what else.
He'd just decided to set up camp beneath that giant tree, when—
He stopped as if suddenly paralysed, because sitting beneath said giant tree was the most beautiful woman he'd seen in his life.
She was curvy and wearing a—a rather, a very revealing green dress. Her hair was long, so long that it brushed the ground. Even seated, he could tell she was tall, a-and, and she was smiling at him.
“H-Hello,” he gulped out as his heart restarted.
“Good day,” she called back, her voice like sun-warmed earth. “Have you come to visit the mana tree?”
“The mana—that's the mana tree?” He stared at what he had thought was only a particularly large oak or . . . something (he studied plants, not trees).
“It is indeed.” She looked up at it with obvious fondness and set a hand on one of its thick roots.
“I-I'm, I'm here to study the flowers. What are you doing here?”
Then he cringed—could he be any ruder?
She turned her attention to him and gave him a smile that liquified his knees. “I am awaiting my lover.”
Her answer promptly liquified his heart right along with his knees. Her lover. Of course. There was no way anyone that beautiful could be single.
Even though what slim chance he had just had been blown out of the sky, Dan couldn't bring himself to leave and give her some privacy. It wasn't only her unearthly beauty that drew him in: her manner suggested that her kindness ran deep and strong.
“I'm Dan—” He tripped over a root he had somehow missed seeing and only just didn't curse. “Gah! I'm very, very pleased to meet you.”
Oddly, the woman sent a look to the tree; when she faced him once more, though, her smile had returned. “I am Grune. I am likewise pleased to meet you.”
He felt his face flame up, but still he dared ask, “Can I, um, keep you company while you wait?”
“Of course.”
She moved aside to make space for him in the fork between two roots. Of course he tripped over another damn root and nearly overbalanced thanks to his backpack. Grune helped steady him, and then, once he was reasonably sure he wasn't about to fall into her lap . . . she squeezed one of the tree roots, hard. He couldn't begin to guess why, but as far as he was concerned, she could be as strange as she liked. No doubt she thought he was strange, the way he was acting.
(Then again, she was probably used to people losing all cognitive abilities in front of her. He was almost certainly in numerous company.)
“So, um . . . you're waiting for your, um, lover?” he asked.
“I am,” she confirmed.
“Are you . . . going to have a picnic here?”
All of a sudden, Grune's face lit, making her impossibly more beautiful still. There was laughter in her rich voice when she replied, “Perhaps. I will have to ask him.”
Above their heads, the leaves of the mana tree rustled. Grune's smile grew.
“Have you travelled far to study the flowers, Dan?”
“Oh yes!” Now it was his turn to light up. “I've been travelling for nearly two weeks to get here—it's incredibly exciting to be at this site at last!”
“Is it truly so interesting?” Grune asked. The sound of the leaves briefly grew louder.
“Absolutely! There are plants here that grow nowhere else in the world! And it almost seems as though someone has set up a crude garden of sor—ow!”
She leaned forward. “Are you all right?”
“Fine, f-fine, I just. . . .”
He left off rubbing his head to pick up the goodish-sized stick that had fallen on top of him. As he looked it over, he heard a “smack.” It . . . sounded as though Grune had hit the tree, but when he looked up again (making sure his eyes stayed on her face, because he was a gentleman and a scholar), she was sitting with her hands in her lap.
He tossed the stick aside. “A-Anyway, it's been a mystery among the botanical community for years. I'm hoping that by visiting The Glade, I can answer at least one or two of the questions we have about it.
“Actually . . . do you come here often—oh no, no no no!” he cried over the suddenly wind-tossed leaves. “I didn't mean it that way! I-I meant—”
“I understand,” she assured him as she placed a hand upon the tree trunk. In a weird coincidence, the wind in the tree branches died down to a light breeze.
“To answer your question. . . .” She looked up at the tree; sunlight filtering through its branches highlighted the curve of her cheeks and the turn of her lips. “There is no other place I would rather be out of all of the worlds in all the universes.”
“It's very special to you and your lover, isn't it?” he asked, softly.
She looked back at him and his breath caught at the love in her face.
“Yes.”
It was a short answer, but nothing else was needed. A memory flew up, of sunny afternoons with Alise by the fountain. When he got back, they should waste some time together. It had been much too long.
“Grune.”
Dan jumped. He'd been so entranced, he hadn't noticed anyone else arrive.
From behind the now-silent tree, a man stepped into view, and Dan couldn't have stopped staring even had someone offered him unlimited funding for the next ten years.
If he'd thought Grune was tall, then this man was a giant. He wasn't the most beautiful person Dan had ever seen, but if he hadn't just met Grune, her lover (because who else could it be?) would be a serious contender. He had masses of gold curls and clear blue eyes—and one very intimidating frown.
Grune's lover extended a hand to her; she took it and stood. Somehow doubting the same help would be offered to him, Dan got up on his own.
“Dan,” Grune said, “this is Dhaos, for whom I was waiting. Dhaos, this is Dan, a kind young botanist who has come to study the flowers.”
“Pleased, um, to meet you,” Dan managed. He received no reply but a stare. “I . . . I'll just go, um, go . . . uh, go.”
“Do not feel the need to depart on our account,” Grune said to him.
“I should get set up. I'll be back in . . . an hour? Or two?” he added, because he thought he knew the look Dhaos was giving Grune and he was not going to picture anything.
“Very well.” She gave him one last smile. “I hope to see you again.”
“Me too,” he said and fled. This time, his path was completely smooth.
“Dhaos. . . .” Grune began once Dan had departed.
Dhaos' frown remained fixed. “I did not like the way he looked at you.”
“It was not for you to like or dislike,” she said sharply. “You could have seriously injured him.”
“I would not. I meant only to warn him.”
“You had no need to do so—unless you intended to show you do not trust me?”
Dhaos' eyes widened. “I trust you beyond all.”
And she sighed. “Some days, I am given reason to doubt.”
“Never doubt my trust in you.” He moved closer. “Or my love.”
He bent his head. Satisfied her point had been made, she reached up to meet him. They had little enough time before Dan would return, and she—and it appeared Dhaos as well—intended to make the most of it.