Warp and Weft

"Warp and Weft" is a BOTGD 2 Act 1 thread written on June 11, 2019.
==Summary==
Milae awakes feeling something is wrong, and tries to immediately leave. Dario is worried for him, and Milae still refuses to speak more about what is happening. Dario tells him to be safe, and Milae breaks down, causing Dario to comfort him again, this time with a full-on romantic kiss. He asks Milae why he knew what he did in Longbrook, but Milae promises to explain everything after he returns from his duties.
==Full Text==
Yun Milae: Milae gasped and kicked his hooves involuntarily, his eyelids shooting open, his hooves flailing for a hold of something, anything, as the last dregs of his nightmare faded away. He clutched at his throat, breathing heavily, as he felt the phantom claws of the Eirs dragging him down, his breath choked away by the freezing water of a deep, dark lake…
He shuddered and blinked, trying to take in his surroundings. Dawn was just beginning to break. He wasn’t in his home. Where was he? He never slept outside his home.
Oh. Right.
Milae untangled his arms from around Dario, flushing again, and started to sit up, trying not to disturb him, though he worried his sudden jump to wakefulness had already done that.
Dario Hjort: Dario felt the warmth against his chest slowly dissipate; the rumblings of the other body moving away from him stirred him from the deepest slumber he had experienced in quite some time. His face still stung from the events of the night before, but he could at least see the blurred outline of a half-breed that made wonderful company to him through the night.
I’m so glad that wasn’t a dream.
He reached his arm out slowly to rub the back of Milae’s neck. If he had learned anything over the course of his time with the goat, it was to be wary of sudden movements. He felt his heart beating lightly in his chest, feeling warmer than usual. The tender emotions of the previous day had not faded in the slightest, and he couldn’t be more thankful for it.
“Good morning, handsome. I see you’re up early.”
Milae: “Not by choice.” He rubbed his throat again, completely distracted. He would rather lay back down and wait out the sunrise, but something was prickling him, bothering him. Now the ghostlike sensation was reminiscent of a knife’s blade, sawing back and forth, all the way to the back of his sp–
“I guess I, or any other me, will be seeing you then.”
His fingers dug into his neck. Why? Why now?
“Oh, gods,” he mumbled to himself, breaking out in a cold sweat. “Something…something happened… or is happening…?” He swung his hooves out of the cot and quickly paced to his cloak, throwing it over his shoulders. “I must’ve missed it…”
Dario: Milae?…
Dario sat up slowly, feeling each vertebrae in his upper back jolt with pain as he did so. He expected someone to be tending to the two of them soon, so he allowed his priorities to focus solely on the goat moving away from him.
“Hey, where are you going? Did… did I do something wrong?”
Milae: Alarmed, Milae looked back at Dario while he finished tying off his cloak at the base of his neck. “No! No, no, I just…” His heart sank and he looked down at the ground again, feeling the embarrassment and tension from last night returning to him all at once. “It’s part of my…I…I think I might…need to go…for a bit…” He trailed off, already regretting his words. Never before had he felt so reluctant to hop timelines and help the Rebellion. He started unwinding his bandages to distract himself, exposing his scars to the cool air, inspecting them to see how well they’d healed overnight. They still looked raw.
Dario: The deer so desperately wanted to believe him. Knowing that it was him that initiated the affection the night before, he worried that Milae may have been having second thoughts about how they capped the evening. By no means was there any explicit intimacy between the two, but Dario couldn’t help but wonder if he had expedited things too quickly. He finally managed to push himself upright into a sitting position, the sun returning the warmth back to his bare chest.
“…are you su- okay. Yeah, no, it’s fine, I know you can’t tell me some things. Do you mind if I ask where you’re going, at least?”
Milae: Milae picked up his staff, but still stood where he was, unmoving. He moved the staff in front of him, and pressed his forehead into the wooden pole, gritting his teeth, fighting back his emotions, fighting for repression and familiar tranquility but not finding it.
“I…I can’t…” His voice was barely a whisper. But inwardly he was screaming to release every secret he had.
Dario: You’re not gonna make this easy, are you?
Dario allowed his feet to fall over the edge of their cot, straining to push himself into a standing position. The only means of movement involved shuffling mere inches at a time to the goat, but he needed to show even the slightest semblance of solidarity to his partner. He pulled Milae’s head against his chest, following it up with a quick kiss on the top of his head.
“Like I said last night… when you’re ready.”
He stepped back, yet still holding onto one of the half-breed’s arms with one hand. He wasn’t quite ready to let go of him so quickly.
“Just promise me this one thing – you’ll be safe.”
Milae: Milae clutched Dario’s arm back and ground the butt of his staff against the ground, his neck tightening with the attempt to stay in control of his emotions. 
“Dammit, Dario, I am–” He hiccuped slightly but kept trying to speak his broken sentences. “I’m not ready for this. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I make myself go but…I’m never ready. I don’t want to go…” He tapped the staff against the ground too forcefully, the thud echoing through the room. He still refused to look up at Dario’s face. “I might be safe, but what about you?” His chest and shoulders heaved briefly.
Dario: Dario was well aware of the warning signs signaling that Milae was about to push himself into a panic. His erratic verbalization and aggressive actions could only lead the goat to spiral, so the deer did the only thing he could think of in the moment. He repeated his previous movement; pulling Milae against his chest, though tighter this time. The difference in their heights allowed him to rest his face in the goat’s hair, followed by his arms reaching around Milae’s upper back.
“Hey.”
Dario felt a sense of deja vu when he cupped his hand under the goat’s chin, bringing Milae’s eyes to meet his own.
“I’m going to be safe here. I’m not alone anymore, and neither are you.”
Closing his eyes, he held his breath and seized the opportunity to give Milae a proper kiss. The entire world could have crashed around him, but all would have seemed irrelevant compared to the absolute high he was experiencing.
Milae: Tears cascaded down Milae’s cheeks as their lips met, and it was like his mind went completely white. The staff clattered to the ground behind them. He thought he might keel over and faint, but Dario’s arms were tight and strong around him, and he rested his hooves on his upper arms, movements slow with shock.
When they parted, Milae had trouble finding his breath. His legs were still a little too wobbly for him to trust standing on, so he leaned into Dario, pressing his velvet muzzle gently against his scraped chest.
“Stop that.” His words were muffled, but carried a hint of mirth. “I’m supposed to be reassuring you of the future, not…not the other way around.”
I’m not alone anymore.
Dario: The tears that fell from the goat’s eyes stung the cuts on his bare chest, but Dario would trade it for the world. He was so grateful to see Milae opening up and being vulnerable, and consistently at that. The deer continued to hold him close to his heart as he pondered that last sentence…
“…I’m supposed to be reassuring you about the future…”
“Milae, you don’t have to tell me where you’re going, or what you’re doing. I trust you… but I do have one thing I need to know.”
Milae: Milae’s grip grew tighter. “I…I cannot promise an answer, but I will try to give one.”
Dario: “You remember when we first met… when you made that delivery with the handcart…”
He rubbed Milae’s back, working to keep the goat as calm as possible before broaching a topic without a clear idea of how he would react. He could feel Milae’s heart rate increase, even before finishing the question.
“You gave Vox and I a piece of fruit after the journey, and I remember exactly what you said.” He paused momentarily, making a final decision on whether to proceed with the inquisition. “You said, ‘Here’s to the future’, and I have a feeling that wasn’t just a coincidence that you would say something I told Vox many years before that.”
The deer chose not to release his grip; the inquiry wasn’t out of malice. He was genuinely curious.
“The fruit was a pear… the same fruit I had reanimated right before I gave it to him and said that… but you knew that already, didn’t you?”
Milae: Milae closed his eyes and exhaled briefly in a small laugh, remembering the cheeky trick he’d pulled right before leaving Vox and Dario in Longbrook. “I got a bit cocky there, didn’t I?”
He reached for one of Dario’s hands and pulled it from around him to between them, holding it close to his chest. He was still shaking, but he squeezed Dario’s hand to dispel it. “Dario…I…”
There was a rapid knock at the door. “Helloooo? You sleepyheads still around? Doctor needs to break it up in there.”
Milae jumped and inhaled sharply, his expression changing from confidence to alarm. He looked back at the door and then at Dario. “I–uh–I-I have to go, it will be a long time for me, but not for you. I will be back, and then I will explain everything.” He hesitated, and then brought Dario’s fingers up to his lips, kissing them softly. “Don’t go somewhere I can’t find you.”
Dario: His face burned red upon his fingers making contact with the goat’s lips. Though he couldn’t understand the unexpected sense of urgency, he wasn’t going to stop Milae. He knew he needed to go, but it didn’t quell the fear that began to build within Dario.
I adore you.
“I’ll be here; don’t have too many other options at this point. I promise I won’t leave, but please take care of yourself.”
Milae: Milae, filling up with a new courage, straightened up from Dario’s chest, used his foot to kick his staff upright, and with a flourishing spin, held it to his side, looking up at Dario. He winked.
“I’ll be back.”
He activated his seal and disappeared from the room. When he opened his eyes, he was in a deep, quiet library, with walls of dark ice and several dim lamplights burning on several shelves. A woman was just walking past him through the aisles, with olive skin and long, silken black hair, Her dark gray eyes were sharp and pierced Milae as he lowered his hood, stepping out from the shadows.
“How did…you get in here?” A flash of inky darkness swirled around her ring and pinky fingers as she lowered the parchment she was writing on.
“It’s best not to ask questions, Lady Svi. But I have a few of my own to discuss with you, if you don’t mind. Urðr sends her regards.”
Category:BOTGD 2
Category:Events
Category:Act I
Category:Yun Milae
Category:Dario Hjort
Category:Hemlock