The cave's warmth wrapped around me like forgiveness as I knelt by the shallow pool near our fire. Steam rose from heated stone where I'd poured water, creating a makeshift bath that would wash away more than just the physical remnants of our flight. Moon-dust clung to my skin like guilty secrets. Dried blood—mine, divine, impossible to tell anymore—flaked away as I scrubbed with trembling hands.
My reflection wavered in the disturbed water, and for the first time in memory, I saw only myself. No silver glyphs crawling beneath the surface. No divine light trying to escape through my pores. Just flesh that had survived too much, scarred but whole, mortal but unbroken.
Just Aria.
"The water's getting cold," Dorian said softly from across the cave. He'd been watching—I'd felt his gaze like warmth on my bare shoulders—but when I glanced back, he'd turned away. Not from shame or discomfort. The set of his shoulders, the careful way he kept his distance, spoke of something deeper. Reverence for what I'd endured. Patience for what I might need.
Ashara slept soundly in her nest of blankets, truly asleep for once. No prophetic dreams leaking into reality. No ancient memories surfacing through her lips. Just a child, exhausted from being asked to carry the weight of worlds, finally allowed to rest.
I rose from the water, not bothering to cover myself. My body was a map of our journey—silver scars from divine burns, stretch marks from impossible pregnancy, new wounds from battles that shouldn't have been survivable. But it was mine. Every mark, every imperfection, every human inch.
"Dorian."
He turned at my voice, amber eyes careful, questioning. Always so careful with me now, as if I might shatter from too much attention. As if I hadn't already been broken and rebuilt myself from the fragments.
I crossed to him, bare feet silent on stone. When I reached him, I didn't speak—words had carried too much weight lately, been twisted into prophecy and command. Instead, I took his hand and placed it against my ribs, over the scar where divinity had tried to claw its way out.
"Aria..." His voice came rough, uncertain.
"I'm ready to feel human again," I said simply. "To remember what my skin means when it's not a battlefield."
He searched my face, looking for fear, for obligation, for any hint that this was anything other than genuine desire. Finding none, his hand curved gently around my waist, thumb tracing the ridge of another scar.
"Are you sure?"
In answer, I kissed him. Not desperate or demanding, but with the quiet certainty of someone reclaiming what had always been theirs. His lips were familiar territory I'd been exiled from by divine interference and cosmic weight. Now I was coming home.
We moved together toward the bedroll with deliberate slowness. No urgency drove us—we'd learned to mistrust urgency, the way it could mask deeper needs. This was about something else. Recognition. Return. The choice to be vulnerable when vulnerability had nearly killed us both.
His hands mapped me like a cartographer working from memory, rediscovering paths worn by time and trial. Each scar received attention—not as wounds to be mourned but as proof of survival. When his lips followed the silver line across my shoulder, I shivered with more than desire.
"Still mine," I whispered, as much to myself as to him.
"Always yours," he confirmed against my skin.
I led, setting rhythm and depth, reclaiming agency over my own pleasure. This wasn't about divine ecstasy or prophetic union. This was human need meeting human response, simple and profound as breathing. When he moved within me, I felt only the sweet friction of mortality seeking connection.
Halfway through, tears came. Not from pain—I'd forgotten my body could feel good without cosmic significance attached. The release of it, the simple human joy of choosing pleasure, overwhelmed me. Dorian stilled, concerned, but I pulled him closer.
"Don't stop," I breathed. "I'm just... I'm feeling. Just feeling."
He held me through it, whispering my name like a prayer to no gods. Just my name, over and over, anchoring me to this moment, this choice, this purely mortal joy.
When completion found us, it came quiet as recognition. No universe-shaking climax, no divine fire. Just the sweet shudder of bodies remembering their purpose beyond prophecy. We collapsed together, skin slick with honest sweat, hearts beating rhythms that belonged to no cosmic plan.
"I'm still mine," I said into the curve of his neck.
"You always were," he replied, pressing a kiss to my temple. "Even when the gods tried to claim you. Even when prophecy wore your face. You were always Aria first."
We lay tangled as the fire burned lower, casting dancing shadows on cave walls that had witnessed nothing more significant than human connection. My body hummed with the particular satisfaction of the freely given, freely received. No destiny. No purpose. Just the choice to feel good in skin that had survived too much.
Ashara stirred once in her sleep, murmuring something in the old tongue. But the words were gentle, dreams of small things rather than cosmic weight. Even unconscious, she seemed to sense the peace in the cave, the safety of parents who'd chosen each other over divinity.
I closed my eyes, feeling Dorian's heartbeat against my back, his arm secure around my waist. Tomorrow would bring its challenges—it always did. The world wouldn't stop hunting us just because we'd killed a god and scarred the moon. Ashara would continue to remember too much, to carry echoes of lives unlived.
But tonight, I'd reclaimed my skin. Remembered that my body was more than vessel or battlefield. Found joy in the simple act of choosing pleasure with someone who saw me as woman first, legend never.
If this is survival, I thought, pressing back into Dorian's warmth, feeling profoundly, brilliantly human, then I want to live.
The fire crackled. Our daughter slept. And in a cave that asked nothing of us but shelter, we were enough.
We were everything.
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