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Very few histories recall what Duscur looks like in the summer, the way the Western Seas gently lap at the black sand beaches as the tide recedes, the sway of the olive trees that line the coast. So few words have been put to paper about the sunsets to be seen against the clearest skies, and fewer yet of the dolphins one might see in the distance, leaping above the surface of the water. But what history does not recall, Dedue has made his duty to remember.
A summer evening chill caresses the scars on his cheekbones as he gazes out at the black sand beach just outside the balcony of the inn room he had rented for the night. He sighs — the kind that one might mistake for a lament — and smiles. He had never once thought he could ever return to Duscur like this, not during his stay at the officer's academy, and most definitely not during the war. That he's even standing here — and that the place had somehow been spared from the wrath of the Imperial war machine — is a miracle, and one that he has happily decided to accept.
Despite his circumstances, he has continually managed to find himself blessed throughout the years. First with a cause to fight for, a reason to live. Secondly with friends, reasons to keep living. And thirdly...
A gentle call from inside the room brings him to retire indoors and draw the curtains leading to the balcony. The room itself — and by extension, the inn — is far from impressive. There are no decorations hanging from the walls, and splintering beams are all that support the thatched roof above him. A screen separates the greater part of the room from a much smaller section, one from which a cloud of steam has been rising for the past half hour. Dedue walks toward it, easily towering over the wooden frame of the folding screen. On the other side is a wide basin, one in which his beloved Mercedes is washing herself. She beams a smile up at him, lathing spiced water over her legs. It's almost an invitation, and one Dedue is more than happy to accept.
Dedue's response is wordless, but clear. In seconds, his tunic and trousers are folded neatly over the screen, undone with a speed that betrays his rather heavy build. His eyes meet hers, watching the onset of a blush begin to form across the woman's face, before wandering over her body in the tub. He watches droplets of water cling to her breasts, observes the way the soap has made her skin almost glisten in the low light of the candles in the corners of the room. It doesn't take long for him to feel his own face flush as he does. In his mind, she is as close to perfection as one could ever hope to be. His eyes return to hers, and he can feel a familiar stirring beneath his abdomen when he sees her raise a lone eyebrow. "Would you mind if I joined you?" he asks blankly.
One might normally miss any semblance of emotion in his voice, but not Mercedes. She knows what he's feeling, and how she makes him feel. She responds in kind, putting a finger to her lips and pretending to lose herself in thought. "Oh, but I fear the basin is much too small for the both of us," she says. Her voice carries an almost playful, dramatic lilt with it.
Dedue nods, resting his arms atop the screen. It's a lot sturdier than it looks, thankfully. He hasn't stopped staring, he realizes, and blinks. Another giggle escapes Mercedes. "Why don't you wait for me on the bed?" she proposes instead, resting her hands on the edges of the tub. "I'll be out in a minute."
He bows his head, a habit of his profession that he hasn't quite managed to shake. "As you wish, beloved."
A low creak fills his ears as he sets himself down upon the bed. Its frame is low, crafted of wide logs, and topped by a goose down mattress, sturdy enough to support his own weight. Dedue supposes he could settle for worse beds, but after having spent years in ragged bedrolls in cramped tents, he doesn't seem to mind.
Another chill seeps into the room from the balcony, dancing over scars and dark skin alike, and draws out a contented sigh from the Duscur. He groans as he stretches his legs out, feeling the tension in his knees slowly diffuse as his ankles begin to hang over the opposite end of the bedframe. The air begins to nip at his skin again, forming goosebumps along his arms and thighs, and reminding him once again of his own arousal. It's a lot chillier tonight than he remembers, and he begins to long for warmth.
"I'm almost ready," his beloved says from behind the folding screen. Her white towel is whisked away from its perch on top of the wooden frame, and not long after, a light blue glow manifests itself where Mercedes is standing.
As if beckoned for, she strides out from her bath, naked and still damp. Her wheat-colored hair is bunched up neatly underneath the towel she'd wrapped around her head. As she approaches the bed, Dedue begins to wonder if she'd cast a spell — although, what that spell might be, he could not say for sure. Tiny droplets of water still cling to her perfect skin, making her appear to shimmer. Naturally, she smells wonderful.
She takes a seat on the edge of the bed opposite of Dedue, and turns to face him. A blush quickly forms across her face as she catches sight of his affections, and she giggles. "Looks like someone's eager to be next to me," she teases. A low groan escapes Dedue's lips as Mercedes lightly taps him on the head. He twitches slightly, and she giggles again. "Kiss me."
"You needn't ask," he says, the smallest hints of a smile forming across his face.
He twitches again as her body presses into his and her arms wrap around his neck. Their kisses are slow, with a tenderness that again betrays Dedue's size. He kisses her as though he'd stepped out of an Adrestian romance, and it doesn't take long for Mercedes to completely melt into him. There's almost a solemnity to their intimacy; in how Mercedes' fingers curl into Dedue's, in how the smell of lavender fills Dedue's head as his beloved presses closer into him, in how she drapes a leg around his midsection almost instantly. And as Mercedes pulls away from the kiss, her lover is greeted by a face redder than even the ripest tomato.
"That's made my head all hot," she says, fanning herself with her hand as her hips descend atop his.
Dedue raises himself to peck her on the cheek, before being pulled into another kiss, deep and passionate. Tongues dance as Mercedes sets her hands on his shoulders once again, pushing him back down onto the mattress. This time, it's Dedue who captures Mercedes in a warm embrace, and it doesn't take long for the heat of the situation to get to him. A giggle ripples against his lips as his manhood twitches against his lover's thigh. It's hungry, yearning. Thankfully for Dedue, so is Mercedes.
He watches as she pulls away from his lips slowly, hums as she peppers kisses along his jaw and his chin. Her trail brings her to his chest and the many, many scars that make it his. She reaches downward, her fingers delicately wrapping around her lover's girth and stroking ever so slowly. He's leaking from the tip, and while he isn't exactly the impatient type, his groans speak of a need that only Mercedes can sate.
Before long, her lips are on his upper thighs, each kiss punctuated by the exact sort of giggles that had made Dedue fall in love with her in the first place. He twitches in her hand as her trail brings her closer and closer to where he wants her, to where he needs her in this very moment. A shiver races up his spine as her lips wrap around his tip and her tongue begins to work at his frenulum. Spit runs down his shaft as she takes in more of his girth, her hand stroking what she can't quite reach just yet. Her eyes look up at him, and Dedue swears that, from this angle, she could very well be a work of art.
Over the course of their time together since he had resurfaced from captivity, he's learned that she loves pleasuring him like this, loves hearing his grunts and moans fill her ears as his jewels tighten against her fingertips, loves more than anything else how solemn her name sounds when it comes off of his tongue in moments such as these. A blush begins to brighten his face as he thinks back to the time she'd told him as much, and a familiar tightening sensation begins to take hold of him. "Beloved," he murmurs deeply, brushing a calloused finger against the curve of her cheeks, "Mercedes, I'm close."
She withdraws him from her mouth for but a moment. Her strokes around his shaft quicken as she drags her tongue along his length. She places kisses on his jewels, slowly taking each in her mouth as she continues to work his manhood. A gentle tap on the shoulder lets her know what's coming, and he erupts in her mouth. He repeats her name like a prayer as he comes, enough times for it to slowly turn into gibberish, before he's finally released from the seal of her lips. She leans back on her haunches and smiles at him, and as always, she is beautiful.
An outstretched arm is all Dedue needs to provide for her to lay into him once again. He can taste himself very faintly on her lips, but he doesn't mind, and never has. He runs his hands through her cropped, wheat-blonde hair, wanting nothing more than to be closer to his beloved. "You ate the fruits," Mercedes teases him in between kisses, tapping him lightly on the nose.
"You were very adamant that I did," he says through the faintest outline of a grin, his tone just a little bit lighter than normal, "and very persuasive."
A deeper kiss follows — a dance of lips, teeth, and tongues set to a symphony of moans and the creaking of wood — before Dedue can think to do anything else. His hands reach lower down Mercedes' form, squeezing playfully at the soft skin around her hips and thighs, and just tightly enough to bruise. She bucks against him as they kiss, obviously loving the contact. After a while, he pulls away to whisper in her ear. "I'd like to taste you."
He pats her lightly on her ass, signaling for her to climb up further, until her womanhood is just mere inches above his face. She's dripping with arousal herself, and Dedue finds it adorable. Gently, he lowers her hips down onto his mouth, his tongue running along her labia as she keels forward and braces herself against the wall. Soft moans fill the room, growing louder with every pass Dedue's tongue makes at her sex. He parts her lips expertly, as he's done many times before, and probes inward, spurred on by the hand that's planted itself on the top of his scalp. Before long, she's grinding against him, thighs pressing firmly against his cheeks and ears, and Dedue intensifies his approach.
His mind takes him back to their first evening together, when he'd been assigned to escort Mercedes to provide medical assistance to a group of merchants allied with the royal supply train. He remembers vividly the tent they shared in the woods that night, the confessions made before they decided to escape the rain together, and the very first time he had made love to the woman he had sought since their days together at the Academy. He remembers the promise he had made to her, that he would one day bring her to the land of his people, and how she told him she would love nothing more than to see it and learn. At the time, he could never have anticipated that he would become her lover, and as he thinks on it now, he silently thanks whichever god that decided to bless him so.
She starts to quiver against him as he sucks her clit into his mouth and her wetness begins to coat his lips. Her rhythm has become more erratic since, more desperate, almost lost. "Oh, goddess," she mewls, almost sounding close to tears, "oh, Dedue... Dedue, I—..."
Mercedes is quick to cover her mouth with her hand, quick to muffle a moan that might mortify even Sylvain. Her thighs begin to quiver around his head as her orgasm begins to take hold of her. She draws his name out again as she leans back, hands on his chest and back arched. He eases her through her high, keeping just enough pressure on her sex to keep her going before releasing her hips from his grip as she keels forward again. She crawls back downward onto the mattress and nuzzles into the crook of Dedue's neck. Dedue himself doesn't exactly believe in destiny, but he likes to imagine that it's something like this.
They're normally quiet during times like these, in the more intimate moments between flashes of pleasure and need. Words are exchanged in hushed voices — tender declarations of love, mostly — as the distant sound of waves joins an uneven chorus of ragged breaths. They could lie here like this forever, should they choose.
Except they don't.
Not yet, anyway.
It doesn't take very long for Mercedes to get things going once again. Lips are once again planted across the breadth of Dedue's chest, and he responds to each bit of contact with a groan and a twitch. She kisses up his neck as her fingers tease at his nipples, and when their lips join once more, Dedue finds himself at full mast again. Idly, he wonders if she enjoys how she tastes on his lips, or if she minds at all. His hands find themselves on her hips, gliding over the soft skin in imperfect circles as she grinds against him, seeking something only he could give her. "How do you wish to start?" he asks her, gritting his teeth as she sits up over his manhood and slides back and forth over him.
Her lips come excruciatingly close to his tip as a smirk forms across her face. He lets out another impatient groan, to which she responds with a giggle. "I think..." she starts slowly. She lifts her hips ever so slightly and wraps her fingers around him. Their moans are a chorus as he enters her and she sinks down onto him, pausing for just a moment to adjust to his girth. She's still for just a second and moving only slightly, and then relaxes. "This is good."
Good, Dedue thinks, doesn't quite do it justice. Her hips swing back and forth over his, and their dance makes his head almost swirl. He loves having her like this, loves being able to look up at her as though she were divine, as though she were some sort of goddess of beauty herself. He loves the way she gasps and mewls as she rocks herself against his length, the way her hips feel beneath his palms, the way it seems nothing else in the world matters in this very moment. Most of all, he loves her.
He meets her ministrations with thrusts of his own, and it doesn't take very long for the two of them to fall into a rhythm — a perfect harmony of skin meeting skin punctuated by a crescendo of pleasure. She says his name with reverence, and it's music to his ears. It's one of her tells, more than anything else, but that doesn't make it any less beautiful to his ears, and sure enough, her tempo seems to slow. And now is his cue.
Strong arms wrap around his lover as he wrestles her onto her back, the two of them still joined at the nethers. She bites her lower lip as she looks up at him — he can tell she's close, and by whichever gods were watching over them, is he going to bring her there. He captures her lips in a deep, fervent kiss that can barely hold together as the room fills with a cacophony of pleasured moans, skin on skin, and the sound of a headboard banging firmly against the wall. He quickens his pace, desperate for more, as her legs wrap around his waist. Words are of no more use, not when he's pounding into her like this, and certainly not when neither of them can seem to form a complete thought.
She tightens around him the second his head dips down to suck on her breasts, and Dedue starts to realize himself that he won't be able to last much longer either. His lover comes first, as he always makes sure is the case, and fervently. Her legs tremble around his waist as her orgasm washes over her. A tiny streak of tears forms at the corner of her left eye, and Dedue swears he has never seen her face look redder. He joins her not too long after when the sensations between them become too much, even for him. He spills deep inside her, flooding her womanhood with his seed just the way she likes it, before collapsing onto his elbows exhausted and completely spent. Their foreheads join once more, the air thick and heavy with their breathing and the smell of sex.
They're normally quiet like this, in the more intimate moments after the flashes of pleasure and need just as much as those in between. He relents himself to giggle at the way her fingers trace the outline of his braid as he's sprawled out over her, arms underneath her immaculate body and head just above her breasts. He can feel her heartbeat like this, and decided very early on that he liked it. Words are exchanged again in hushed voices, joined this time by shy giggles. They plan for the next time, and the next before they decide to finally retire and let sleep have them. "Goodnight," she whispers, stroking his hair, "my love."
"Goodnight, my love," he echoes.
Outside, the sun has since completed its descent far across the sea, and the stars now sit where the clouds once did. Very few histories recall what Duscur looks like underneath the glow of the moon, but what history has failed to remember, love has kept alive.