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The Fae placed an inordinate amount of significance on jewelry.
Meilan had been around long enough now to notice, to catalogue, the various accoutrements Wufei had acquired, and the plethora of jewelry that Quatre cycled through (though, to be fair, he was a bit on the deeply dramatic side anyway). She vividly remembered the opalescent necklace that had caused such trouble when they had first rescued her, and the ring that had been a portal home, and the bracelets Duo had solemnly presented to Wufei and Quatre before they had gone to that first meeting with the Seelie Queen.
She was a lot of things, but Meilan wasn’t stupid.
Stubborn and headstrong and uncompromising, but not stupid.
So when Hilde offered her the intricately crafted golden hair comb, composed of finely wrought flowers and leaves, Meilan knew that it meant something .
The problem was that she wasn’t quite sure what that might be.
Still, she accepted it, running her fingers idly over the edges of the fragile-looking but surprisingly strong craftsmanship. She recognized the amount of skill and care that had gone into its construction. The Clan didn’t- hadn’t - accessorized, or had anything crafted that wasn’t purely functional and usually deadly, but that didn’t mean she didn’t appreciate expert skill when she saw it. It was beautiful, and feminine in a way that Meilan was unused to and mildly uncomfortable with. She adored it instantly, despite how much it didn’t fit with the way she had been raised, or with the way she presented herself.
She’d grown her hair out, more than she would have previously done, and kept it parted to the right so that it draped over the scarred side of her face. Meilan wasn’t ashamed of her scars - they had been considered a mark of honor in the Clan, before everything had changed - and even without that validation, to Meilan, they were a sign of survival . Proof that she lived. She had scars from before her captivity as well, and she was unashamed. But she disliked the attention the scarring on her face drew, the remarks and questions.
Tending bar at the club Duo owned was a surprising escape something useful and mindless. She had taken over whilst the boys had been gone to the Fae realm, and Meilan appreciated the poor lighting and the busy, impersonal service. Bartending was something that came surprisingly easily, but she was good with her hands, quick and efficient, and mixing drinks had a predictable and welcome rhythm and routine that suited her, after everything that had happened.
The switch to less traditional clothes and the attention from patrons had required a bit more adjustment, but the fast pace didn’t encourage much chit-chat, and the customers didn’t seem to expect much from her in the way of coddling. In fact, she’d found her biting and acerbic sense of humor to be a good fit.
Bartending had been just one of Hilde’s suggestions that had worked out well. Moving out of the boys’ apartment (and wow, that had been an awkward few nights before they left, and an even more awkward few nights afterwards, when she was alone in an unfamiliar environment) when Hilde had shown up on the doorstep and offered her a room at the club had been another.
Then Hilde had requested Meilan’s assistance with the shifters still arriving regularly, looking for homes and directions and guidance. Something Meilan found she was particularly adept at, strangely. Trowa had been the de-facto pack leader, with Wufei gone, and the most experienced in what a functional pack dynamic looked like, but Meilan had all the same skills Wufei did, the control of her shifts, the meditation techniques, and after a few conversations with Trowa, had thrown herself into helping her new pack get settled.
Hilde always seemed to know the things Meilan kept secret in her heart. She quietly, carefully, unfolded them and presented them to her in unexpected ways.
Like the trip to China with Wufei, organized by the dark-haired fae woman. Ostensibly it had been to retrieve the last of the belongings left there (most of which had ended up being unsalvageable anyway), but in reality it offered them the opportunity to visit the remains of their village, and to mourn their loss.
And now this unexpected gift, something elegant and understated, but so clearly faery made, and obviously intended for her.
“You like it?” Hilde signed, her hands moving slower than they might have done if she’d been speaking to Duo. Meilan had picked up the sign language the fae woman used for communication with relative ease, even if she was slower.
“I do,” Meilan answered, feeling the beginnings of a blush climbing up her face. “I don’t know how to put it in my hair?” She gestured helplessly to the mass of hair falling down her back.
Hilde smiled, her eyes dancing with amusement. It made Meilan feel a deep pang of regret that she’d never hear the other woman’s laughter.
Zechs had taken so much from all of them. Meilan had spent months with the sadistic bastard, coming out of it permanently scarred and nearly unapproachable. Hilde had spent years with the fucker. She shuddered just to contemplate a small part of what the other woman had endured.
Hilde gestured at her, and Meilan turned around where she was sitting on the floor of her room, letting Hilde loosen the strands of her hair, pulling part of them out of her face and twisting them together at the back of her head. She held her hand out expectantly, and Meilan reluctantly passed her the comb.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want it in her hair; it was more that she didn’t want to let it go.
She felt it slide into her hair close to her scalp, settling into the twisted strands as Hilde adjusted it securely in her hair and then let go, her fingers dragging through the loose strands underneath, making Meilan shiver. Turning around, she looked into Hilde’s blue-grey eyes, as shifting as the tides, tilted her head, slightly, turning so that her scarred profile was less prominent.
“How does it look?”
Hilde reached out, touching her chin, and Meilan lifted it in response. The other woman’s expression was soft and warm as she trailed her fingers along the side of Meilan’s face that she tended to think of as damaged.
“Lovely.” Hilde responded, and for a moment Meilan wasn’t sure if she meant the comb or herself.
“Thank you,” Meilan mumbled, feeling her blush intensify. “It’s beautiful.” She wasn’t accustomed to having beautiful things.
“You’re welcome,” Hilde responded. “It is made more beautiful by your wearing it.”
Meilan blinked at her in surprise. After a moment Hilde stood up gracefully, letting her fingers and gaze trail over Meilan’s face one last time before gliding out of the room, a satisfied smile on her face.
It was a little while before Meilan found the energy or fortitude to get up. To go to the bathroom and look at herself in the mirror, craning her neck to look at the woven gold comb, which seemed brighter and warmer against the deep black of her hair.
Later, when she got dressed for work, she couldn’t bring herself to take her hair down, even though it left her face totally exposed. Meilan rather thought Hilde would enjoy seeing the flash of gold in her hair as she whirled around behind the bar.
*
Meilan was startled into stillness when she looked up to help her next customer and found Duo staring back at her, a contemplative look on his face.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like Duo. He was fine. More than fine, really, she supposed. She wasn’t close to him - hell, Meilan wasn’t close to anyone . But she certainly wasn’t close to men, and she especially wasn’t interested in cozying up with any males of the fae persuasion.
Nothing personal.
She assumed Duo had redeeming qualities - Wufei, bewildered though he always seemed by his new role in life, certainly seemed to see something in the other man, and she trusted Wufei’s judgement. Meilan just wasn’t interested in really finding out what those qualities were. The king of the Unseelie kingdom preferred to rule from a small nightclub in Ireland, and while that made no sense to Meilan, it provided her with a home and a job. Her and a veritable revolving door of other supernatural beings, so she accepted that was his choice and she was grateful for it. The bar wasn’t a supernatural bar, per se, but it was owned and operated by supernatural beings, and other supernatural beings flocked to it in turn. Humans were welcome. They often frequented the bar, and, frankly, gave Meilan the most trouble, but the customers were largely other . The employees were all beings of the unnatural variety, and over the months Meilan had jokingly noted to Hilde that it was practically a halfway house for the supernatural community.
Hilde had given her a look, and it took a long while before Meilan understood that that was the point .
So, at least one redeeming quality then.
And Wufei was happy, so two redeeming qualities.
That was enough for Meilan.
Duo smirked at her, and while she didn’t think he could read minds, it was enough to snap her out of the shocked daze she’d been standing in.
The seats on either side of him were empty, his presence enough to ward off any customers who might otherwise have been clamoring for her attention. She’d had more than her fair share, already, the combination of her uncovered face and bare skin apparently enough to cause trouble. The bar didn’t have a dress-code per se, other than wear black and look good, so tonight Meilan had chosen ripped black denim and a tank top that said ‘Whiskey is My Spirit Animal’. She’d found the shirt amusing when she saw it on a mannequin, and it had started a collection of shirts that proclaimed her everything from ‘intoxicologist’ to ‘whiskey bent and hell bound’. She was relatively certain half the ones in her closet had come from Trowa, actually, who had his own collection of themed bar wear.
Tonight, oddly, the patron problems had been mostly human-related. The supernatural customers had been treating her with a strange sort of deference. She’d wondered, when she had more than ten seconds to breathe, if it was respect because she’d survived an obviously grievous injury, or something else.
The Fae man in front of her arched an eyebrow, and she was once again forced to rein in her wandering mind. Her own anxiety was probably the source of her lack of focus, and annoyance at herself was enough to get Meilan moving, falling back on the familiar routine of serving drinks.
“What can I get for you?” she asked, scrubbing her damp hands on her jeans. Duo and Quatre - and on a handful of memorable occasions, Wufei - were in the club occasionally, seen on the dancefloor, or gliding through patrons. It was enough to be noticed, but she’d never actually served him a drink, or seen him at the bar.
“Death in the afternoon.”
Meilan rolled her eyes. “You could just try waking Quatre up early, if that’s what you’re after,” she snarked, but reached for the absinthe - because of course he wanted a drink with absinthe - and a coupe glass. Most people only asked for the basics, beer and well drinks, but the bar had an entire menu of themed cocktails, and it was no surprise to her that Duo had not only memorized it, but also ordered from it. Hell, he’d probably written it.
She wondered if this was some sort of test, but couldn’t make herself feel overly concerned.
His smirk widened into a genuine grin, but he didn’t respond, just watched attentively as she made his cocktail and passed it across the bar to him. He lifted the glass to his lips without taking his eyes off of her, watching as she replaced the absinthe and washed the glasses sitting in the bar sink.
“Nice hair accessory,” he said after a moment. “Is it new?” His voice carried the sort of idle curiosity that Meilan instinctively distrusted.
She debated her answer for a moment.
“Hilde gave it to me earlier,” she said, finally, drying her hands on a bar towel and turning to face him.
If Duo was surprised by her answer, his face didn’t show it. He merely continued staring at her as he sipped at the drink, his eyes shifting disconcertingly from blue to violet and back again. Satisfied with whatever he saw, or with the drink in his hand, he stood to leave.
“Have a nice evening Meilan. Thanks for the drink.” It was the only thing he said as he strode away.
Odd.
The space he’d made with his presence was swallowed up almost immediately by the press of warm bodies, and Meilan was so busy after he left that she nearly forgot the strange encounter. Until she looked up and caught a glimpse of Hilde watching her from across the room, a mysterious smile on her face. Meilan shot her a quick grin, looking away for a moment to reach for beer pints, and when she turned back, Hilde was gone.
*
It was several hours and dozens of customers later before she saw Hilde again, appearing like smoke at the bar as Meilan was wiping down the sticky counters and drying the last of the glasses. The bar had closed an hour previous, and it had taken both Trowa and Meilan to muscle out the last of the customers. Some of them were always surprised to find she could, actually, bodily remove them from their chairs and force them out the door, and Trowa usually found it a bit too amusing to be properly intimidating.
Meilan snorted her own amusement as she rearranged the liquor bottles, turning them all so that the labels faced outwards.
Hilde cleared her throat and Meilan looked up. The other woman was staring patiently, and Meilan wondered how long she’d been waiting to get her attention.
“Good night?” Hilde asked, smiling.
“Yes.” Meilan answered, decisively, after a second of consideration. “I made money, no one threw up, and I got to toss a guy out of the bar. Great night, all things considered.”
“Only you would find throwing someone physically out of the building amusing.” Hilde responded, still grinning.
Meilan shrugged. That wasn’t entirely true. She was pretty sure Trowa enjoyed throwing people out of the bar too, if for no other reason than it livened things up a bit. “Oh, and His Majesty stopped by to have a drink,” she added, rolling her eyes.
If she hadn’t been looking directly at the other woman, Meilan would have missed the brief look of consternation that crossed Hilde’s face before it smoothed back out into an expectant gaze. Interesting. Meilan finished drying the last of the glasses she’d washed, stacking them on their shelf, before making her way out to the bar to sit in the stool opposite Hilde.
“I’ve never served a Faerie King a drink before,” she mused, continuing her earlier line of conversation. “I’d have expected him to want something classy, or refined, but instead he ordered something with absinthe .”
Hilde snorted. “He has a flair for the dramatic.”
A truer statement had never been uttered. Well, in a sense.
“He asked about this,” Meilan continued, reaching to touch the comb in her hair.
Hilde barely stiffened, a nearly unnoticeable cessation of movement that only confirmed Meilan’s suspicions.
“He’s also an unrelenting busybody,” Hilde answered, and if you could ascribe tone to sign language, hers was what Meilan would call grumpy.
That was an understatement. A fae who had built an entire reputation on destroying supernatural beings who took advantage of other supernatural beings, who had razed the Vampire Noble Houses to the ground for helping destroy his home and family, gone toe-to-toe with an infamous Fae warrior and won, all before he’d finally restored the Unseelie Court and then continued to run what amounted to a supernatural rehabilitation program in Ireland.
No, he wasn’t a busybody at all.
Meilan just looked at Hilde, eyebrow raised, and the other woman shrugged.
“I just wanted to give you a gift,” Hilde responded to her unspoken demand for more information.
“Faery gifts often have hidden meanings,” Meilan grinned, softening the cautionary words into the joke she meant it to be taken for. There had been a long list of warnings from Master Long when dealing with the Fae folk, but Meilan had long since broken most of them. And gifts, even of the non-magical variety, were seldom without strings attached. “Is this a just-because sort of gift, or does it hold some other significance?”
Hilde grimaced, and the smile faded from Meilan’s face. She trusted Hilde, so the uneasy look on the other woman’s face was making her nervous. Hilde had helped her more than simple words could express when she’d first come back from China, searching for her place in the world. And while she wasn’t sure that bartending in Duo’s club was what she was going to do for the rest of her life - was, in fact, certain that it wasn’t - it was her home and her life for now, and Hilde was a big part of that. And she’d never seen the Fae woman look so uncomfortable as she did now.
“Hil?” Meilan asked uncertainly.
The other woman heaved a sigh, before straightening her shoulders and seeming to gather herself in a way that only increased Meilan’s anxiety. Hilde began signing, again, but she used an unfamiliar gesture in the middle that threw Meilan off.
“It’s a what?” She repeated the motion clumsily. “I don’t know what this means.”
That seemed to take some of the wind out of Hilde’s sails and she gave Meilan a considering look. She made the gesture again, more slowly, so that Meilan could watch carefully, and then started fingerspelling - something they’d both had to learn when Meilan and Wufei had taken up the task of trying to learn the complex method of communication Hilde employed.
Meilan watched carefully, saying each letter out loud as Hilde signed it until it spelled out a word that caused her to gape at Hilde for a long, breathless moment, her heart pounding in her chest.
“It’s a courting gift?” Meilan finally managed to grind out, around her shock and nerves and the weird fluttery feeling in her stomach. “Does that- is that the same-” she shook her head, trailing off awkwardly.
Hilde pursed her lips. “Is that ok? I know that some things are-” she paused, head cocked as she thought about it before continuing. “Well, humans are strange.” She shrugged.
“I’m not human ,” Meilan corrected, automatically affronted, before laughing. “It’s fine, I just- it’s unexpected,” she finished, lamely. Looking at Hilde’s very careful expression, she added, “It’s more than fine, it’s-” perfect, great, fantastic, “-good.”
She was looking at Hilde in a whole new light, suddenly. Meilan had never - well to say she’d never thought about it would be a lie, and Meilan was somewhat known for her brutal honesty - but she’d never given any kind of relationship other than friendship with the other woman any serious consideration, the kind of consideration she was giving it now .
Hilde, who was poised and funny and competent in a way that Meilan found extremely appealing, not to mention the kind of heart-wrenchingly beautiful that all fae were capable of being, with eyes the color of the sea and hair so dark it shifted colors like a raven’s wing in the light.
Meilan was suddenly very interested in exactly what ‘courting’ entailed.
She licked her lips as her mouth went dry, saw Hilde’s eyes flick to the motion before returning to meet her gaze, and the other woman smiled, slow and knowing, as she slid off her barstool. She closed the few inches of distance between them, until she was standing so close Meilan could feel her body heat, Hilde’s hands resting on the bend of her knees, scorching her even through the jeans.
“What, um,” Meilan cleared her throat, “what does one do to ‘court’? Should I get you a gift?” What that might be, she had no idea. Meilan wasn’t well-versed in gift giving.
Hilde smiled that same smile, full of secret knowledge, and a little bit amused. “It’s not so much a gift as a declaration of intent.”
“And just what are your intentions ?” Meilan asked, and the sound of her voice matched the tone of Hilde’s smile, now.
They shifted, gravitating towards each other, Hilde tilting her head and Meilan leaning down just enough, and finally their lips met.
There was no thunderclap, no flash of lightning or burst of magic, just the slow, warm glide of smooth lips, and for that, Meilan was grateful. Hilde smelled like the sea, not like the heat of a summer day, but more like the cool, damp breeze that heralds an oncoming storm. Mysterious and powerful. Meilan leaned into the touch, breathing deeply, feeling Hilde’s hands slide up her thighs in response. Hilde stepped closer, lifting herself up to press further to Meilan, and was hampered by the barstool Meilan had settled on, the edge of the seat preventing her from being as close as she clearly wanted to be. Hilde wrapped her hands around Meilan’s hips and pulled, yanking her to the edge of the seat, until they were settled flush against one another and Meilan groaned, burying her hands in Hilde’s hair.
It was as soft and silky as it had always appeared, sliding easily between her fingers, despite the callouses on her hands.
Meilan came from a people where strength was prized, and beauty an afterthought. While she might, at one time, have been considered beautiful, she’d always been prized for her strength of mind and body, her fighting prowess and physical ability.
Subsequently, these were traits Meilan similarly found attractive, and Hilde, with her effortless show of strength, was hitting all the right notes.
For all that she was tiny and delicate-looking, Hilde wasn’t weak by anyone’s definition.
The kissing got more intense, tongues sliding together and teeth nipping, Hilde’s hand sliding under the edges of her shirt and her fingers splaying across the bare skin of Meilan’s back, making her shiver. The other woman’s magic crept over her slowly, sliding across her bare skin and making her gasp into Hilde’s mouth, making the tigress at the core of her being take notice. Her beast shifted under her skin, inquisitive until she recognized the woman dragging her nails down Meilan’s spine and pulling an embarrassingly needy noise from her throat, and then the animal settled down, content in a way Meilan seldom felt.
The sound of someone clearing their throat penetrated the haze of arousal and lust that surrounded them, Hilde withdrawing with clear regret as she pressed a final, lingering kiss against the edges of Meilan’s mouth before turning to address the intruder.
Quatre was leaning against the wall near the stairwell, watching them with amusement.
Hilde arched her eyebrow, easily communicating her thoughts.
“Can we help you?” Meilan asked, echoing the look on Hilde’s face. And if her voice was a little rough, well, he was the one who’d walked in on them.
“I’m not sure if you’re deliberately trying to get my attention or not, but you certainly have it.”
Meilan blinked at him in confusion, while Hilde sighed in exasperation. She turned to look at the fae woman, who rolled her eyes.
“Clairvoyant,” Hilde explained. “And nosy.”
Only sheer force of will kept the dull blush Meilan could feel climbing up her chest from turning a spectacular red on her face. She’d forgotten the vampire could feel others’ emotions. They were probably broadcasting lust all over the place.
“Oh, go away,” Hilde continued, directing her attention to the man across the room. “The last thing we need is your assistance.”
“Then I suggest you get a room that isn’t directly beneath me,” he responded, still grinning, wolf-like and attentive. “Or continue, if you’d like. I promise to keep my suggestions to myself.” He paused thoughtfully. “Though they’d probably be good ones.”
Hilde snorted, stepping back to make room for Meilan, who hopped off the barstool to follow her.
“My experience with women predates your birth, I think I can manage.”
Quatre burst out laughing, but Hilde outright ignored him, threading her fingers through Meilan’s and leading her towards the side exit that lead to the residential area of the building.
“Let me know if you change your mind,” he called from behind them, amusement threading through his words. Hilde lifted her hand in a universally understood gesture - middle finger raised skyward - without looking back, but Quatre only laughed harder.