Chapter Text
Garavel Ir’Viraan pauses, standing just outside of his lovely wife’s office, taking a deep breath and trying to wipe the laugh from his face. He knocks gently on the door, in the way he knows she will recognise as him.
“Come in.” He is slightly relieved to hear the smile and calm in her voice. Good, this might make it easier.
He walks through the door, shooting his wife the most charming, innocent smile he can muster. With the way the corner of her lip quirks in the lovely way it does when she’s trying not to smile, he can tell that she’s already seeing through the innocence. He expected nothing different.
“Darling, I need you to turn me into a goose.”
He watches as she blinks at him, once, twice, three times. He can see the gears turning in her lovely mind, despite her carefully blank expression.
“What?”
“A goose! Have you never wondered what it would be like to experience the world through the eyes of a bird?” He takes a seat in one of the plush armchairs on the opposite side of the desk she’s occupying. “I, for one, would love to have that privilege.”
Alara’s fingers twitch where they are resting on the papers she was reading before he came in. “Da'vhenan, my dear husband, what is going on? You have asked for my help with magic before, but never to turn you into a whole animal.” She tilts her head at him, her eyes glinting in amusement. “Did the children do something? Last I was updated they were all outside.”
“No no no, don’t you worry, all our children are perfectly safe,” he replies, perhaps too fast to be believable.
She squints at him, an expression she would never make in the company of any other than himself. “Right. Safe.”
“Mmhm.” He gets up from his seat and steps over to her side, crouching down next to her chair and grasping her hand in his, pressing a soft kiss to her knuckles. “Just simple curiosity, is all. Research.”
Her cough barely conceals the laugh that almost escapes her throat, making his smile widen in a more genuine way. I always love to hear that sound.
“You’re laying it on thick, Garavel, aren’t you?” she says with a smile, shaking her head.
“I do not know what you mean, Ara sal’shiral,” he says back, feigning an offended tone. Her raised eyebrow breaks through his act, grin spreading over his face at her unamused look. “Is it working?”
The sigh that passes through her lips is one he has heard many times before.
She reaches her free hand over, cupping his face and tracing his cheekbone with her thumb. “One of these days, I swear, I will say no.” Her fond tone softens the threat into a promise she has yet to keep.
Garavel presses his face in her hand, leaving a gentle kiss on the soft skin of her palm as her magic bleeds into his body, warming him from the inside. He would never tire of feeling the surge of his wife’s power spread over his every cell, although this time it is overshadowed by the feeling of shrinking and shifting into a form entirely unfamiliar.
The grey and white goose lifts its head towards Alara, shaking out its feathers, and gives a great, clear honk.
It turns around, wobbling a little as the man-turned-goose finds his bearings in the new body, before dashing out with its black webbed feet pattering on the wood floor.
“Dareth shiral!” She calls out after the goose, hearing its little footsteps get quieter as it disappears down the hall. She swears, as the goose honks back in reply, that there is a second, higher pitched honk that joins in the cacophony that trails out of the house and into the grass of the back gardens.