Soft Parting

                Cass and Azzie lay next to each other on the roof of the Crystal Hall.  Though winter had already begun to sneak near--the ever-extending thistlevine moors that surrounded the temple in a swirl of scarlet bending to the biting breezes--the two on the roof were warm, covered in a sunlit swath.  The distant blue of the sky wasn’t as cold from where they drank in the subdued heat.  Cass kept his eyes closed, seeing the red of his eyelids where the light illuminated his blood.  A second had him considering if he could pick the capillaries out from the mass of vermillion that glared before him, but when he tried, he just gave himself a headache.

                “I’m going to Larsica,” Azzie suddenly said from his left.  Cass let her words settle about him and then turned over, opening his eyes to trace her profile.  The sunlight outlined her face in a thin, glowing thread over the curve of her brow and down the gentle slope of her nose.  Her eyelashes were long against pale cheeks like the rosy flesh of a halved apple.  He sighed, a hand reaching to stroke at the platinum strands of her hair that twisted around her head against the glass they laid upon.
                “Why?” he asked, voice thick with lingering silence.  Cass’s hand slid nearer to her until he stroked his knuckles against her jaw.  Warm….
                “I’ve decided after being involved in the rebellion in Deilos that I’d rather wander and hire myself out over the country,” Azzie told him, unmoving against his touch.  He watched the odd twitching of her eyes beneath the thin folds of skin that hid them.  He wondered if she could see the vessels.
                “A mercenary, then,” he said.  “It suits you.”  She hummed in agreement and nodded.
                “You should leave too,” she said.  “You stay here another month and you’ll end up massacring the Merloc.  Or they’ll massacre you.”
                “But I wouldn’t know where to go,” Cass muttered, tugging a strand of Azzie’s hair to his face so he could flick it across his dried lips.  “Though you are right, this place is making me crazy.”
                “At least they had the sense to let you stay here with me,” she said. 

                A sigh came after and as the sun rolled behind a cloud, she turned and looked at him now.  Though her razor-colored eyes glittered and she had no smile on her lips, Cass could feel the soft touch of her tenderness in the reservoir of his heart, a ripple that extended through and steadied the rigid clamor of unknown that had begun to rise in him.  He breathed.  Her hair stuck against his lips as he ran his fingertip up and down the soft lines.
                “You might consider Forsberg,” Azzie continued, twisting her hips so her whole body faced him.  Cass scrunched his face, shaking his head.
                “That place is in the middle of nowhere and full of mortals.  I’d be bored to tears,” he said, tugging at her hair to show his disdain for the idea.
                “No, Cass,” Azzie closed her fingers around his to get him to stop pulling.  “It’s distant and quiet.  Merloc can’t be bothered with such a no-name place.  It’s the best place to go to avoid reprimand.”  He smiled at her; though her own face echoed none of it, Azzie did twine their hands together and pressed closer to put her forehead against his.
                “You’re assuming that I’ll go out into the world and do things worth reprimand?”  Cass chuckled.  Their breath gathered between them in a damp, silver cloud.
                “I’m also assuming that the sun is going to rise tomorrow,” she said back.  He laughed again.  Silence moved into that breathing space, brought by the gentle rolling of the late autumn winds and the shift through the thistlevine and last sounds of the clinging harvest time that arced over them.  The sun slid from behind its sparse hiding place and poured down once again.  Cass could taste Azzie’s breath in his throat, the bitter depth of it ghosting along his palette.  He wondered for a moment if her tongue would taste any different.  Then he squeezed her fingers tighter.

                “You’ll have to visit me.  A lot, okay?” he said to her.  She nodded, her cold steel gaze never turning from his molten gold one.
                “I will,” she promised.  He smiled in his small way that he knew would draw out her own quiet grin: the one that was rarely given.  And he kissed it when it emerged on her thin lips.  A silent acceptance of her word.  Azzie only offered a slight press back.  Kissing wasn’t really her thing, which Cass knew, and was why the kiss only lasted a second before he pulled away again.  The smile quirked at her for just a moment before he pulled himself up to his feet.  Winter would nestle down in the moors soon enough, filling the red fields with fog and snow beneath the gray haze of a heartless sky.  But Cass could only think of now, with the shock of blue above them and the gentle scorching sun floated down on him and his best friend.  With a soft groan, the great wings at his back materialized and spread out in an ivory banner atop the Crystal Hall.  Cass stretched his arms above his head and closed his eyes again, thinking about all of the colors that he would miss when he left.

Author's Note

Please review if you read. Even if it's only one word, I'd be appreciative.