Chapter Text
One lazy Sunday afternoon, after everything is over, he turns abruptly to Rei while she's curled up sleepily beside him on their bed, her face pressed against his ribs, one arm slung across his waist. The worn wood of the headboard creaks beneath his back as he leans against it, shuffling his tarot deck.
"Let's do it," he says. The cards thrum as they slip through his fingers. "Let's get out of Vesuvia."
She cracks open one eye to peer up at him. He's distracted, momentarily, by the way the sunlight streaming in through the window shifts along the dips and curves of her face as her mouth pulls up into a smile.
"Where did this come from?" she asks, shifting to rest her head on his stomach to see him better.
"Because we can," he says, throwing his head back to take in the room around them. Everything here is familiar: the tattered rugs on the floor, the homey charms of twigs and grass hanging from the rafters, the lingering smell of spilled tea and spices that have sunk into the wood of the lone table. This is their home, and he loves it as fiercely as he's loved anything, but there's an entire world out there just waiting for them to see it.
"We can't just leave the city, Asra," she chides gently, nuzzling into his side as she stretches out from her light doze.
"And why not?" he asks, teasing with words as much as with his fingers in her hair. "You said you wanted to travel the world, didn't you? Why wait?"
She raises herself up on one elbow as her free hand extricates his from her mess of hair. Their fingers tangle together, gilded golden in the sun, resting just below where his heart beats slow and steady.
(Like it has all the time in the world.)
"Well, what would Nadia say?" she argues gently, thumb brushing back and forth, back and forth; stopping tantalizingly just at the edge of his half-unbuttoned shirt. "Julian? Portia? What about Muriel?"
"Nadia has a city to run," he shrugs with a lazy smile on his lips, fingers tightening around hers as he drags her hand over his sun-warmed skin at last. "Portia has Nadia, Ilya has his clinic, and—I may be wrong—but don't you get the impression that Muriel would appreciate a bit less of us dropping into his house on every whim?"
She laughs, the bell-like sound echoing through the tiny space. Faust slithers up from where she'd been lounging on a pillow on the floor, peering at them with inquisitive eyes, and Tulin wakes up with a huff and a ruffle of feathers from where he'd been roosting in the rafters.
Adventure? Faust asks, tilting her head at them.
"That's right!" Asra answers her, then turns back to Rei. "See? Faust is absolutely on board. Tulin too, probably."
An indignant squawk sounds from above them, followed by a vague feeling of annoyance at having been spoken for emanating from the general direction of the ceiling. Asra laughs; he has long ago accepted that the osprey was never going to like him, but he's certain that Rei's familiar would go anywhere she goes.
(It's a sentiment Asra knows well. He shares it.)
"Asra," Rei says, still stifling giggles, rising up only to lean over him, "we can't just leave Vesuvia like thieves in the night."
"We'll say goodbye first," he replies easily. "And we'll visit again, after a while, when they've had time to miss us."
She raises a brow. "And what about the shop?"
"That's just it, Rei," he says, grinning. "We'll take the shop on the road."
She blinks, and he watches the memory flicker to life in her eyes.
Golden wheat stretching out for miles under a dawn sky. A thousand footsteps behind them, and a thousand more to go. Gentle promises for the future they're living in, now.
'I can help you take the shop on the road.'
"Wha—"
(He's seen innumerable wonders in his travels; he'd give them all up for the simple pleasure of watching her remember, just like this.)
"We can go to another big city, like you wanted," he tells her, breathless as he paints a hopeful picture for her with ever-quickening words. "I'll take you to markets bigger than Vesuvia's; I'll take you to the all the places I haven't been to with you, yet. I'll—I'll show you everything you missed and everywhere I've missed you—which is everywhere, really, so wear comfortable shoes." She laughs. "And then—and then maybe—" he starts to trip over his own words in his excitement, "—maybe we can finally visit your family again, across the sea."
Her eyes grow soft, fingers delicately tracing the line of his cheek as her magic and love in equal measure wrap around him like a warm blanket.
"Well," she sighs, wistful, longing. "Doesn't that sound lovely." She looks dreamy and distant for a moment, before her face falls and she begins, hesitant: "But—"
"Here," he interrupts, almost vibrating with unfettered joy and the urge to just go. "We'll ask the cards."
He shuffles the deck one more time before he fans out the cards in front of her, face down. The smile she gives him is a mix of amused skepticism and fond exasperation, but she delicately slides out one card anyway, flipping it over and holding it up between her index and middle fingers so both of them can see.
The wide open landscape of The Fool greets them, its voice beckoning from over the green horizon.