Work Text:
“My heart beats in your chest,”
Juniper clenches the fabric of his travel robes in a tight fist, tugging him impossibly closer. Her eyes dart between his, desperately searching for something before she speaks again. Though the moment between words is short, it feels near infinite.
“And you’re going to walk away?” Words spoken barely audible.
“We were each free, as we always were… but that does not need to be the end.”
The rest of his words blur together in her mind as she watches this tree of a man speak of their relationship so casually. Listening to him rip out her bloody and bruised heart and simply hand it back to her. His eyes are filled with mirth as he daydreams of their future- his future and he speaks to deaf ears.
“-selfish reasons for wanting to see you again,” The tenderness that suddenly surrounds his words, knocks Juniper from her stupor as he dares to take on a self conscious tone “if you wish the same.”
“What?”
Suddenly she becomes hyper aware of every point of contact on her body. The sheet she once held to veil her nude body now sits in a heap at her knees, the windowsill she’s perched on. How his hands feel so hot and oppressive on her bare hips, and just how tightly she clutches to the medallion of his druid’s garb.
Suddenly, it disgusts her. All of it. Less than a day before, they had been locked in battle beside each other. Fighting an impossible fight against a fleet of fucking nautiloids- a dragon, and the whole of the Githyanki people. Less than a night ago he had had her mind body and soul at his disposal, when they were entangled in the sheet that lay on the ground between them, and she had confessed her love. And now he was content to just leave and put the effort of reuniting on her.
Her, the woman who had slain the one and only Netherbrain with a broken oath and at half her power. A woman who was in the freefall, without purpose or cause, without family or support once the party would disband just later today. Before Juniper gets the chance to release the venom oozing into her mouth like the first warnings of losing a lunch, a pounding on the door interrupts her.
“Master Halsin, it is time.”
When he leans to meet her with a kiss, she pushes him away, and bats his hands from her bare body.
“My, hear-”
“Go.” She interrupts, eyes dropped away from his and hands clenched on either side of her, digging into the windowsill.
If he says anything else, she doesn’t hear. A terrible sensation of shame and sorrow bubbles out from the cavern in her chest and filters through her limbs and up to her eyes. By the time the door to their room is shut behind him, she’s unable to hold back the terrible sobs.
Hot wet tears fall from her eyes that squeeze shut in the futile attempt to hide herself from heartbreak. Growing light headed from irregular breathing, she straightens and turns towards the window facing the street before the Elfsong. Juniper braces her palms against the wood, and sucks down cool morning air, desperate to regain control of herself.
She huffs and groans in frustration as she wipes at her eyes, forcing herself to get one last look before he would be gone forever. The sight of him on the cobble below, lugging a heavy pack back turned and striding down the front steps, is too much. She’s physically repulsed and spins, hunches forward and is wracked with a second more mournful round of tears.