Chapter Text
Eivor wakes to the feel of smooth sheets on bare skin, her legs aching pleasantly when she stretches them. She should be cold, if she is as bare as she thinks she is. She isn’t, though. Her body is warm, except for her toes that peek out from under the linen. All of this, though, is merely a fleeting thought. As soon as her eyes open and reach the source of warmth, her drowsy train of thought is derailed and entirely replaced. The split second where everything comes back feels like a lifetime.
Soft lips and hands. Gentle touches becoming something more, exploring and mapping out an array of patterns over curves and planes. Various states of breathing, whether it be a heave or a gasp or a moan, resounding in the bedchamber stand out as the primary noises. Passion. Euphoria. She lays still for a moment more, savoring the weight of Randvi’s head on her chest. All of her senses are focused. She can hear and feel Randvi’s breathing. A smile grows on her face at the sight of an absolute tousled mess of red hair, barely visible pink lips peeking out from underneath. The lips are parted and exhaling deep, even breaths, belonging to a warm body that will still be asleep for the foreseeable future.
She risks a light brush of fingertips down her face, from her brow to her jaw, tracing her features like seeing them simply wasn’t enough. And it isn’t. She’s beautiful, even after a night of lovemaking that left them both sweaty and shrugging off sheets like they were on fire. But now she looks serene, tranquil, and her skin is a faint tint of golden where pale sunlight from high above lands; a dazzling contrast to the green sheets they’re wrapped in. Eivor’s fingers trip over freckles and birthmarks and find themselves at Randvi’s smooth shoulder. Then her hand ventures further and her fingertips travel to the dip in her spine. Her hand flies back when Randvi makes a low, gravelly sound. Eivor waits. Hesitant. But the redhead licks at her bottom lip before sighing, shifting a bit and staying perfectly asleep.
It still feels like some kind of fever dream. If Eivor didn’t know better, she’d think she is hallucinating. Moments like this; perfect, gentle moments of utter contentment, of feeling loved and appreciated (and if she thinks about last night, worshipped) don’t happen to her. Not anymore. They feel strange. She hasn’t been anybody’s first choice in a long time. Styrbjorn had Sigurd. Sigurd had the clan. Randvi had Sigurd. Or so she thought.
The road that led them here had been bumpy, but there’s no question that it was worth it. She looks down at her lover, still sleeping. She wants to remember everything about this moment more than she wants to remember anything in her life.
Just when she closes her eyes and is about to drift back to sleep, the body curled against her stirs and hands start to dance across her cheeks and down her neck, stopping at her shoulders. She leans into the warmth. Heated lips start at her neck and make their way up, each kiss sloppier than the last. Eivor tries to focus on the soft sheets and enjoy the bed, but Randvi’s too distracting now. Before long, her eyes flutter open as the rest of her comes awake.
“Morning,” Randvi’s voice is tender and slightly rough with sleep, making the drengr’s heart ache in her chest; a good kind of ache, like having too much affection to contain. Just the sound of it makes her heart do a flip or two and she mentally laughs at herself, feeling like a foolish maiden for being so damn in love with this woman. She reaches up to run her hand along Randvi’s face, turning her head to leave a featherlight kiss on her forehead. Something feels different this morning. Closer. More free. They might have slept together plenty of time before, but this is the first time they had woken up naked in each other’s arms, with no need for rushed goodbyes and no need for hiding. It’s unusual. They hadn’t explicitly told anyone about this yet, aside from Sigurd, of course. As Jarl, there were too many eyes on Eivor already, it felt nice to have something private, but without the need and pressure to be private.
Eivor untangles herself enough to look at her properly, lifting a hand lazily to brush some of Randvi’s hair away from her eyes before gently cupping her face in her palm. “Is that how you are going to wake me up every day?”
“I can be convinced.”
Her hand slides down to run lightly along Randvi’s side, finger tracing absent-minded patterns on her skin until it reaches the sheet that pools at her waist. Now her touch is soft, almost hesitant, nothing like the way she had touched her the night before. Seeing the goosebumps spreading in the wake of her attention, a shiver runs down her spine. She pulls her into a kiss. A soft one. Not the same as the heat and passion of the night. No, this is softer, almost an afterthought, gentle in a way that neither of them seem to be entirely used to being kissed in.
She’s opening her mouth to say something when Randvi chitters, “You snore like a troll, you know.”
“I do not!” the blonde gapes and pulls back dramatically, feeling stung.
“You most certainly do,” Randvi reassures with an innocent bat of her eyelashes and giggles. It’s a lazy, whimsical sound that matches well with the hazy yellow, early-morning light streaming into the longhouse through the wooden beams. “Though it’s nothing to be embarrassed about!”
Although Eivor feels heat creeping up her face in swirls of blooming red, she cannot help but laugh along with her.
“As if you have any right to complain about snoring when you steal all the blankets,” she retorts.
“That is not true!” Randvi counters, swatting Eivor’s arm lightly.
“Oh, it is, my feet are freezing,” she retaliates, pressing said cold feet to Randvi’s legs, smirking when she yelps at the uncomfortable contact.
“Get those icicles away from me before I shove you off the bed,” she exclaims, eye snapping wide awake from the frosty touch. She tries to push the drengr away, but strong legs wrap around her own as Eivor pulls her body flush against her, briefly bumping their noses together before kissing her again. Her lips are soft, criminally soft for so early in the morning, and she presses so gently, so sweetly against Randvi’s lips that she practically melts into the touch. With a rather pleased hum, Randvi returns the kiss, matching Eivor’s slow, tender pace.
The drengr can feel her cheeks heating up again when she leans back away a moment later, warmth flooding her body. Not just want and desire, though there’s certainly a helping of those as well. But just sheer blooming happiness, she feels content and good and loved. She could get used to this. She will. She looks away for a moment, because looking at her is like looking at all-bright seen Sól herself and Eivor can feel herself burning up by the second.
Not that Randvi lets her look away.
There’s a hand gently sliding up against the back of her neck, turning her head back with a gentle press, guiding her back to Randvi. Guiding her back home.