Lovebirds (Xayah x FemRakan)

-x-

The violet raven sat upon a rather intimidating boulder in the middle of a clearing. Uninterested yet pointed, golden eyes fixated upon the fistful of feathers she had only moments before plucked from somewhere unknown.

"One, two, three..." she counted under her breath, as if taking inventory.

The number rose a bit more silently as she inhaled for a deeper breath, but a painted black nail kept the unruly, soft things from fluttering away with the air she expelled soon after.

"Four, five, six, seven, eight..." again, the number drifted and her eyes followed the count. Her posture shifted to a more upright, attentive one as a rather troublesome realization began to dawn across her flawless features.

Rakan had contemplated sneaking up on her beloved - a rather befitting trick she could play, having not seen Xayah all day. But the thought quickly dissolved into nothing as a pang of heartsickness was swallowed just before her body met the other Vastayan's. Easily, the taller of the pair bent forward to gently encircle her arms around the rebel's waist. Her chin came to rest upon her shoulder and a meaningful little hum of contentedness sounded from the charmer's lips.

"...nine, ten, eleven--" The soft muttering didn't cease even when Rakan makes her presence known, though she wordlessly shifts to accommodate her insatiable demand for cuddles.

But as she reached the end of the count, she flourished a bouquet of tatter-edged, dulled violet about before her lover's face; her tone of voice having climbed up along a crescendo of frustration that paralleled the numbers. "Eleven. Can you believe this? Eleven this week."

The dopey smile across the more eloquent Vastaya's face signaled that she wasn't too interested in taking inventory like Xayah was. At least, not of anything that wasn't the raven's skin and where her hair fell once her weight caused a shift in her posture.

Rakan only clued in that she was supposed to respond once a beat skipped, and, well, Xayah thumping her in the side of the head out of her daze helped, too...

Her eyes finally looked at the feathers, dull and tattered. She'd already taken in the fact Xayah was unhappy - she's always the center of her focus, after all. It wasn't hard to notice the little space between her flourish and her words that isn't there when she's happy, or the way she was too focused to comment on her presence with even a smooch. Her mind raced as it was finally put into motion taking in these other odd little variables outside of what she was interested in this very moment.

Feathers. Eleven of them, Xayah pointed that out for a reason... Eleven was more than ten. Ten was a nice, round number. Eleven wasn't; it had symmetry but lacked elegance, importance. Plus, these were eleven uglier takes on the beauty that Xayah's feathers usually represented. So maybe ten wasn't a very good number after all, and this situation was only made worse by the fact that it wasn't ten...

All of this raced through her mind in that second missed beat and then her brows furrowed together, lips pulled into a mild sneer.

"Ugh. Eleven. I hate that. I hate that sooooooo so much." She gave her love a little reassuring squeeze around her sides in solidarity with this sentiment she was only mostly guessing at. She was sure she'd figure out the rest in a minute, give or take.

...

It was a very emotive performance, but maybe not the most persuasive one. Xayah only tagged it with a sideways glance, the turn of her cheek playing a rustle along the fringe of gold-red plumage which sprouted from both sides of Rakan's features like a sunset frame as it tangled with her own hair. The tips of the feathers tickled the charmer's nose before she withdrew them.