Kitchen

Mael walked Amber into the kitchen, kissing her all the way through. Her countertop cleared with the flick of his finger and he placed her atop it, sitting down and facing him, as he kissed her a bit more vigorously about her neck.

"Mm, didn't mind getting dirty, hmm?" he murmured, letting his hands wander over her body.

"If you don't find me something with cushions, this countertop will have to do." he continued as his hands ran up her dress, slowly pulling her clothing off.

Biting her lip, Amber absently waved her hand so that a breeze went out from her fingers, shutting the blinds around the house with a snap. Between kisses, she attempted to speak, only to find that she had no voice under Mael's touch. She wiggled complacently as he shifted her dress off, casting a worried look about the kitchen at all of the new appliances he had had installed before he’d left the last time. Before he could continue his assault, she quickly hopped off the counter, sidling around him with a tender kiss to the tattoo over his heart.

“I fear we’ll break something in here,” she whispered, all the while backing out of the kitchen in naught but a creamy set of lingerie. “So if you’ll follow me…”

Her smile, next, was almost teasing, as she crooked a finger at him and darted from the kitchen, waiting for him to find her on the staircase before continuing on to the second floor. There, she entered into the first room whose door she found ajar, and found herself in the sitting rom, a warm light filtering through the white cotton curtain.

“Now let’s see,” she mused as they entered the kitchen, “What would you like to eat? I’d be happy to cook you anything!”

Colorful, delicious smelling treats already coated the counters, a testament to her day spent in this very room, baking out her loneliness. Muffins and cupcakes, frosted and plain alike, dotted the areas between tarts and pies, some climbing towers of metal that she’d found stored away in the cabinets beneath the countertops. Letting go of his hand, she set to work clearing a space to eat on the island and a place to prepare the food he desired on the counters. She bit her lip as she juggled the various sweets, setting them aside only to grab another. The metal pan she touched was still warm enough to smart, and her eyes watered as she hastily moved it.

“Ah…ow,” she whimpered softly, shaking out the heat in her hand as she looked sheepishly to him. “I-it was still a little warm. No burns, though!”

❀ Sorry this post is so short and so late! Forgive me. T_T ❀

Mael's eyes widened the tiniest bit with the raise of his brows whence he entered into the kitchen. Her enthusiasm bubbled to the brim, causing a natural and peaceful smile upon his face to spread. "Well I don't know how I'll ever choose. You're going to put me out of a job as a sparring teacher at this rate." he noted with a wink and a smile at her. Mael found himself leaning over to kiss her lips lightly, smiling down into her eyes and speaking lowly just to preserve the moment a little longer. "You choose, dear. I'm terribly tired of making decisions lately. Perhaps we should give thise overworked mind a break, hmm?" he said, tapping the tip of her nose lightly and kissing it directly after, hoping for her to wrinkle her nose cutely as she most often did. In the duration of this action, his hand had found hers, and drawn most of the heat in the burn to himself, as his skin was much more accustomed to the temperature of a warm fire, much less a warm pan.

His azure gaze only had eyes for her, and rightly so. He felt that here of all places, he could relax and let his guard down. The blonde crossed the kitchen in three easy strides, pulling out a chair physically and sitting down, looking up at his beautiful mate with a smile. "So? Surprise me." Mael said softly.

Watching Mael’s face as they entered the kitchen, Amber could not help but feel a small amount of pride at the twitch in his eyebrow. Once more, she had surprised Mael, and without even meaning to do so. Perhaps it was possible that he let his guard down around her more than she thought after all. Frightening, to some extent, given that she wasn’t the strongest, but Mael needed his rest.

“The way you keep active,” she laughed softly, “I don’t think any amount of sweets could keep you from sparring. Besides, you need to relax more and you know it…”

The expression on her face distorted for a moment into one of deep concern as she brushed her hand across his brow. Sighing in content as he kissed her and leaned closer, she shut her eyes and let the disquiet fade to silence. A gentle smile formed on her face as she felt the heat pulled from her hand, and she opened her eyes not long after to look happily into his face. Her nose wrinkled in surprise as he tapped it, followed by a kiss that elicited another giggle from her slender ribcage.

“I suppose we should,” she conceded, watching as he crossed the room. “But I’m afraid if you leave it up to me, you’re going to end up with a vegetarian dish~”

Smiling warmly nonetheless, she sashayed away from his position and towards the refrigerator, where she promptly began to rifle methodically through the stored foods. With a song building in her chest, she hummed under her breath, half singing the lines most familiar and melodic to her. Meanwhile, a breeze carried the scent of one of her baked treats to Mael, quite purposefully so, and she looked over her shoulder with an almost apologetic twinkle in her eyes, beginning the process of carting her ingredients to the now-cleared counters.

“You might want to try one of the sweets while you wait. This could be a little while,” she explained softly, once more wafting about the pleasing aroma of baking with a small breeze. “If I had known you were coming home, I would have prepared ahead and cut y time in half, but this dish is rather large…believing I was going to be on my own, I didn’t think to make it ahead. Silly, huh though, when you think about all the baking I did today, isn’t it?”

While she spoke, she set out on the counter a myriad of ingredients—butternut squash, butter, milk, whipping cream, and finely shredded parmesan cheese. That retrieved from the refrigerator, she set about searching through the spice cabinet for what she needed, settling with salt, a few cloves of minced garlic, and fresh rosemary from her garden. From the pantry, she produced olive oil, lasagna noodles, and flour. Her utensils were already within a useful distance as she set to work, humming softly whenever she wasn’t talking with Mael. The melody built slowly to lyrics, a gentle song that was once her favorite—As the Deer. She used to sing it often while she attended Hokkaido Academy.

Patting his toned stomach, Mael chuckled. "This won't stay this way much longer if you feed me like this all the time. You're probably right though. Maybe I plan on being less active?" he allowed with a teasing question at the end. His forehead wrinkled as his eyebrows pushed together at her discontent. "I'm always warm, dear. It's hard to gauge my fatigue on that alone." the old soul chimed with a twinkle in his eyes.

Those azure eyes gazed across the warm kitchen as he exhaled slowly. "It's nice to be home." he said, relaxing in his chair whilst she gathered her meal ingredients. "Uh oh." he chuckled. "Planning on balancing out my diet with no protein? I'm doomed as a fighting instructor." he noted, feigning a stretch of the back atypical of older humans.

Mael scratched his chest absentmindedly, looking up at the ceiling and closing his eyes while she hummed. This, of course, made him completely unprepared for the scent wafting into his nose; his own windy current allowing it quite easily, a sure result of her meddling with the element. "No fair." he mumbled, his eyes closed as a smile revealed itself.

"I suppose I don't have much of a choice now, do I?" he asked with a chuckle, holding out his hand and allowing some pumpkin spice muffins to float to his palm, a small amount of pain striking through his forehead as the overuse of his ability migraine set in. A furrow of his brows gave this away as the young form reflected in the glass of the window as the older man.

"Perhaps you're like me in that you don't like to take care of yourself, but you'll care for others for any amount of time." he noted, a bit of analytical edge to his tone. He quickly noticed this, and sought to change the subject immediately to avoid the quickly approaching headache.

Avoiding this thought, he opened his eyes, leaning his head forward to take a bite of an individual muffin; placing the others on the table in front of him. "You think I'm getting too old for this fighting thing?" he asked half to himself and half to Amber. "These headaches are more frequent just for using innate abilities." he mentioned with a bit of annoyance.

He continued to munch whilst she prepared the meal and hummed, his annoyance very short-lived in her presence, and his eyes closing once more to give way to his fatigue as he rested his eyelids in wait of her meal, enjoying the atmosphere of being back home very much.

With her back turned to Mael, a faintly sad smile touched on Amber’s lips as she listened to his early comments, and she gave a barely perceptible shake of her head. Still, she laughed along with him, and never did she miss a beat while peeling the squash or otherwise preparing her ingredients. Boys would be boys, even after thousands of years.

“You’re such a stubborn man,” she murmured gently, “and yet I love you still!”

She glanced slyly over her shoulder, one eyebrow quirked in the way his was always so apt to do, as he feigned complaint at her choice of food. The smile still tugged at her lips, though more of humor than sad resignment. Pausing in her preparation, she tilted her head and rested her chin atop her shoulder, gazing evenly at him.

“If anything dooms you as a fighting instructor it’s your tendency to complain so much,” she teased. “I thought you knew I was a vegetarian.” Her smile widened as she saw him take up a few of the muffins to bite, and she shook her head to his question. “All’s fair in love and war~.”

As she turned her head back to the task at hand, she caught a glimpse of his reflection in the window, and the same pained expression which touched him flashed over her face. She bit her lip tightly, shutting her eyes and sighing beneath her breath as she worked. Much the same as he attempted to ignore the subject, she let the heavy air settle in its stifling way, a depressing blanket over the situation. It could only be suppressed for so long, she found as she worked fervently, and all too soon the discomforting silence was ringing in her ears.

Not so much that his comment bothered her, no, she was far too used to that, but more that she saw and heard him in pain was she in pain as well. She worked to finish preparing the meal for a few minutes more, carefully tucking the glass pan of precisely spiced and layered ingredients into the preheated oven. That done, she shut the appliance door with her hip and wiped her hands, turning back to face Mael with a thoughtful look. The more she saw him, the more tired he seemed, even in such a young state. When she’d first arrived, it had been hard to find the Mael she had known at the academy, weighted down by guilt and age, in the young man she’d encountered at the beach. Now, as she flitted elegantly across the kitchen to his side, they were almost the same. Resting her hands on his shoulders, she kissed his cheek and leaned her temple against his with a murmured sigh.

“If it gives you headaches, perhaps you shouldn’t use it quite so often—perhaps you could have picked those muffins up on your own, without your powers. I don’t think you’re too old, Mael, I think you’re too weary…” She gave a pause to let her words sink in, half bent over to lace her arms about his shoulders from behind, before she spoke again. “Dinner won’t be done cooking for about forty minutes or so. Why don’t you let me give you a massage, hm? I’ll break out the aromatherapy oils and treat you to a relaxing welcome home.”

A faint buzz of relaxation thrummed through his mind as he smiled through her movements and words. "Were I not so stubborn, I may not have loved you through all of these years." he commented, flashing a faintly flushed grin her way. "As I still very much do." he added; not so much as an afterthought, but more as a purposefully late addition to enthrall her.

Light chuckling rumbled from the old warrior's chest, erupting as a deep laugh. "Complaints indeed. And nobody would know me better." Mael noted with a wink and a smile. Taking another muffin from the table, he grumbled out a response. "I should have made John Lyly a cynic during the Renaissance. He may not have had the wit to come up with such a useful statement." he commented with a slight pout to being won over by her yet once more.

The dampening of the air brought his attention to her lip biting, causing him to frown deeply. Avoidance maneuver one.. he thought to himself, smiling faintly shortly thereafter in a feeble attempt to cheer her up. There wasn't much he could say, and most words he attempted merely caught in his throat halfway to vocal recognition. Of course she would be upset by his pain. There was nothing he could say or do, except to let her work her magic. "You're probably right.." he mumbled in reply.

His azure eyes gazed upon her beautiful figure sauntering over to him, a smile catching to his visage as time seemed to slow. There would never be a more beautiful or desired sight to his weary eyes. Mael relaxed as she laced her arms about his shoulders, sighing contentedly and nodding his head whilst mumbling a simple "That sounds heavenly.." in response to her offer, his eyes closing in peace at having her scent and presence about him.

“I’m glad you still love me, Mael, even after all the hell and waiting I put you through,” the reborn angel whispered, lightly kissing the old warrior’s pouting lips. “I’ll be right back with the oils. Take off your shirt and lay down across the table in the mean time?”

Flashing him a warming smile, she brushed her fingers through his hair and crowned his temple with another chaste kiss before sidling out of the room. Though her bag of travel-sized oil capsules was nearby on a hook at the door, she passed it by in the alcove and searched instead below the waist of a china cabinet that was otherwise empty. Unused, the clear bottles lined the cedar hollows in neat, precisely ordered rows, their names and uses written on the front label. She brushed over the colorful liquids with expertise, selecting only those she would need, and making no hesitations. Clary sage and lavender, recalled from some early memory, were the first to be tucked under her arms, joined soon by cedarwood and rosemary extracts. The former were generally intended for stress relievers and headache alleviators, while the latter were more masculine, woodsy scents, those that Mael carried naturally on his person. Cedarwood and lavender in particular, she hoped, would reduce his stress and anxiety. With these thoughts in mind, she shut the cabinet and returned to Mael, meticulously laying out her chosen scents and oils on the nearest clear space she could find.

“I’ve got several oils, but I’m only going to be using one for the massage unless you’d like more,” she explained, pausing momentarily to search for something else among the utensil drawers. “I don’t particularly know what scents you would respond well to or not, and I don’t want to make your headache worse…I am, however, going to burn a lavender oil in a candle because it goes well with the cedarwood extract I’ll be using. They’re both meant to relieve stress.”

With the sense of having rambled on long enough, she picked out a medium glass candleholder and carried it back to the length of counter where she had set her oils. Uncapping the lavender, she inhaled and exhaled with a delighted murmur as its subtle, floral scent wafted from the bottle neck. She capped it again after pouring a decent amount of the substance into the candleholder, and, taking the holder into her hands, turned to Mael with an apologetic look.

“Ah…one thing, though, before we begin? Would you mind lighting the oil? I don’t have any ready-made lavender candles yet, or a match. I was hoping you could create a pseudo candle…,” she mumbled sheepishly.