Merlaine - Tumblr Posts
Pale light descends from a cloudy sky, almost warm against a monochrome world rousing back into colour.
And the air smells like the earth.
“Oh faraway on a mountain side...”
Mountains. North.
Areyan's home.
They're riding north through petal freckled fields and dew-laden grass.
It's been a while, Merlaine supposes. A few years stuck in the capital's court could drive anyone mad. He didn't know what Areyan saw in that bastard of a Shah, enough to stick by his side and help him rule, and honestly speaking he still doesn't know even now.
“...we'll go to our tent and spend the night.”
Areyan's letters to him were full of frustrations and homesickness, stupid nobles being stupid nobles, him running around untangling their messes, and complaints of the hot weather.
Areyan did not enjoy hot weather.
He took great joy in making fun of the fools, at least. Giving them stupid nicknames and viciously tearing apart the stupid-ass ideas these fools come up with.
Can you believe? one particular letter read, He was going on and on about garden sizes. Garden sizes! As if it has anything to do with the repair projects. It's not even produce gardens he was talking about, oh no. I swear, Merlaine. I swear my intelligence was deteriorating with each passing moment.
Like he said, idiot nobles with stupid-ass ideas.
He wonders why Areyan stayed at all, even if he has to admit the pigeon made good changes. Things were... getting better, ever since the country was restored.
Still.
It made him fucking miserable.
Fucking Shah took too long to let him go.
Just as Merlaine pulls a face at the thought of the bastard, Areyan's horse gallops onwards, full of force, hoofbeats accenting his joyful singing.
Yazata's sake, how does he have so much energy so early?
“The moon shines with its watchful eyes—”
Well, he looks happy, at least. Happier than Merlaine imagines him looking at court. His eyes glimmer with the brightening sky as he glances back at Merlaine, as if daring him to keep up.
“—and from a tree branch a white bird cries!”
And Merlaine has never been one to back down from a challenge.
Puffs of breath emerge in the still-cool air, their hooves sending dewdrops flying off the blades of grass.
His smile matches ones he wore back in the Zott clan village. A sharp smile, wide and free, so unlike the practiced diplomatic smile Merlaine's seen him wear before.
He likes this one better, so much better, it reflects the menace they both know he is in truth.
It doesn't take long for him to catch up and catch the carefree wrist that's not holding the reins. Then and only then they slow to an easy halt, laughter bubbling from Areyan's throat.
“Fakta*,” he grumbles. “Why'd you have to run off like that?”
“No reason in particular,” Areyan replies cheekily. Little shit. “Nothing's the matter at all.”
The pigeon grabs Merlaine's wrist right back, gripping it with a gentle sort of firmness.
Now what.
“Like hell nothing is.”
“It's true.”
“What is?” He quirks an eyebrow. “That you're airheaded enough to do it?”
Areyan gasps, all fake and dramatic. “How rude! Where lies your sense of whimsy?”
“Ick.” Ignoring the pigeon's offended noises he instead says, “Just come and spit it out. You have something to say, don't you?”
Areyan stills for a short moment, then his face morphs into a fond smile, a much softer one than the one he had mere moments ago.
“You know me so well.”
“Course I do. What do you take me for?”
“I don't know, a grouch?”
“Just hurry up and say it!”
Areyan's hand finds his, and he almost jolts on the saddle.
A steady hand, precise and rough.
The hand that wrote all those letters. The hand that heals. The hand that made all those tiny little trinkets.
Hands that have seen hard work.
“Merlaine,” he says, somehow light and serious at the same time. “Do you love me?”
His breath catches in his throat, and it's a miracle he doesn't blurt out “what” like a total dumbass.
Of all the things he was expecting Areyan to say, this was not one of them.
In hindsight, maybe he should've seen this coming.
He doesn't remember when that happened, to speak the truth— just that it did. They'd been friends for six years, almost seven, and...
That doesn't really matter.
What matters is that he does.
“Yes, I do,” he answers firmly, looking at the dove right in the eyes.
There's no need to cushion the impact, to hide.
Why would there be?
A blush blooms on Areyan's face, and oh ain't that a look— and his smile shifts again.
He doesn't know what kind of smile this is, but he does know that he likes it.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah.”
“I love you, too.”
“Good.”
“Good?” He laughs. “Is that all you have to say?”
His own cheeks begin to heat up. Damn it. “Yeah. That's all.”
Areyan leans closer, until their foreheads almost touch, a mischievous glint in those midnight eyes. “Is that really all?”
And.
Well.
If they kissed, then...
That's just the natural outcome, ain't it?
*oh god I forgot to type this in at first but it's an older Persian word? Apparently it means a particular type of dove, the Eurasian collared dove? And since Arslan's (Areyan here) nicknames include “little bird” and “little dove” it's a play on those nicknames. Merlaine also just calls him “pigeon”.
volume 17 sketches
From the German edition
Akakkoko bringing back some older art in preparation for the latest chapters.
There are a few more pics if you want to have a look. I really love their work.