by your hand, i am undone
characters: azriel yladi, eris vanserra, vera crisedus
summary: newly-crowned high lord eris vanserra remains unable to process love and affection, but azriel and vera are happy to guide him through it.
His study is bathed in the flickering amber heat of the hearth, its warm glow defiant against the late hour. With a flick of his wrist, Eris incites the fire further. He sighs when this only casts more shadow over the report in hand, but he does little else to improve his lot.
After an eternity spent frowning at the words bleeding across the page, one of the doors to his study opens a hesitant crack. Eris, anticipating a servant unable to follow simple instruction, prepares to snap out a dismissal. It withers at the tip of his sharpened tongue upon seeing the silver of Vera’s head peek in instead.
She closes the door behind her as she steps inside, bare feet silent on the wooden floor, nightwear merely an impression of silk atop her body. Her eyes are drowsy with the clings of sleep, and her hair is unbound and unadorned, gently tussled where it cascades over her shoulders. This, more than her attire, is an exposing thing, one that has Eris shifting idly in his seat.
Vera settles in his lap without a word exchanged between them, tucking her feet between his thigh and the arm of his chair. She presses her face to his throat, the bridge of her nose firm at his pulse point. One of her hands slides into his tunic, and her palm is cool where it flattens over the swell of his chest, just above his quickening heart.
Into the crown of her head, Eris says, “You should be asleep.”
As Vera makes herself more comfortable, she releases a small orb of light to illuminate his page. How she knew he needed it, Eris does not know. “I won’t distract you,” she says, voice muffled.
“Go back to bed,” Eris urges. Yet even in the saying, he is wrapping an arm tight and proprietary around her hips. “I’ll be there soon.”
Her light flits to circle the piles of parchment covering every free inch of his desk, then returns. Liar, she calls him, in such few words.
“Only if you come with me.”
Her lips brush against his neck, and he instinctively tilts his head back for her. She offers a slow, plush kiss to the hollow of his collarbone, her thumb stroking affectionately along his skin. Eris shivers.
“Does this not constitute distraction?”
“Come with me,” Vera says over again. “Bring your work with you if you must.” After a beat, quieter, “I don’t like being in a bed without you in it.”
Eris wonders, idly, if she can feel how that sentiment cracks at his chest, so firm is she against it. Still, this manner of affection, overt and guileless, chafes against his upbringing. He says, “I don’t think the shadowsinger would appreciate the intrusion.”
From the entryway: “I wouldn’t mind.”