Good Morning, Beloved

((Co-written with gratitude with the player of Alia Atherton))

The man sometimes known as the Shadow of the Magna stood silently, a lazy grin on his visage, as a small lumpy fluff of egg cooked.  The fellow was significantly under-dressed, wearing only green leather trousers, and only sporting three knives (two openly, and one concealed). His bare chest looked like a wall that vandals had left graffiti upon; three claw scars stretched from his upper right pectoral muscle diagonally across his chest to where his abdominal muscles met his lower pectoral muscles. Other lesser scars - blade marks, burn marks (both accidentally and intentionally inflicted), fang and claw marks - decorated the rest of his torso. His body was like a roadmap of mayhem and misadventure, several of them had only recently healed from operations against the Horde in defense of the village of Fallhaven, earned alongside his compatriots on the House of Stewards. The cool morning air of the Mage Tower in which he and his fiance lived felt good on his skin.

There was a creak of wood not of his own doing. A pair of feet shuffling towards him. He did not turn, or acknowledge his awareness of it in any way, even as his finely-attuned ears tracked its progress.  His mind mapped its slow shuffle as if it were the tread of a zombie.

He and his Beloved, the Kirin Tor Magna Alia Atherton, someday to be Alia Atherton-Chess, had been gone for some time, leaving the Tower in the care of Alia's dragonkin ward (and legally, Jon Chess's 'younger brother') Rorik.  Rorik had done a fair job of making sure that the place was clean, though perhaps they should have emphasized the need for dusting. The layers of dust were thick on the various shelves and cabinets. Not to the point of being disgusting, but thick enough to offend Alia enough to require immediate cleaning. Jon made a mental note to get his so-called 'little brother' to spend less time frequenting the taverns of Stormwind and more time doing chores... he grinned, recognizing his hypocrisy. There were always gnomes who were willing to come down from Ironforge to do a thorough job cleaning, especially for the Jon Chess, who was well-known for his expeditions into the dangerous parts of Gnomeregan to guide refugees to New Tinkertown, thinning the ranks of the kobolds and renegade Dark Iron dwarves who persisted in claiming the lost city.

There was a loud thud behind him, punctuated by swearing in a voice tinged with rudimentary Thalassian distinctions. Jon fought to keep an idiotic grin off his face.  The shuffling gait resumed, closer now.

The eggs were done, and he swept the skillet off the cooking surface of the stove and plated them alongside the honey-laden toast and fried potatoes and onions he had finished earlier. He moved to finish the morning coffee, using the same precise measures and movements that he used in the distillation of his various venoms and poisons. A spoonful of sugar, but not too much to overwhelm the spices he had added during brewing. A dash of milk, to mellow the bitterness of the coffee and cool the temperature so as to not scald the tongue. Mages, priests, and warlocks may be able to perform complex rituals with their magic, but the art of making coffee for his Beloved was its own school of magic that Jon had long since mastered.

Two slim, olive-skinned hands snaked around his waist, and any coherence in Jon's train of thought was completely derailed. The hands pulled him back against the body of their feminine owner. Like vines of ivy, the fingers weaved a delicate pattern, each hand its own entity. They moved sinuously, slowly, up his chest, feeling out every familiar dip and bump. Lips kissed his shoulders and shoulder blades. The hands danced down his ribcage, not quite reaching into the front of his trousers before rising again to rest on his stomach. A tired giggle, muffled by the lips nuzzling his back, sounded a musical welcome, announcing her presence - one that made Jon's heart sing like a Cathedral choir.

“Beloved, I thought I told you to stay in bed,” Jon said in a soft voice.

He looked over his shoulder into the labyrinth of dark brown hair atop Alia’s head. She shrugged, tugging him closer. The soft skin of her bare breasts felt glorious against his own skin, and he purred, which elicited a coo from Alia.

“I got cold.”

“Then put on something warmer.”

She was covered only by a thin embroidered bathing robe that evoked the deep green and blues of the sea; a gift from Jon while in Kul Tiras. While the fabric reached shin length normally, it was just barely draped over her to preserve a modicum of decency for the parts not presently hidden with his body, leaving her shoulders bare. Her hair was gathered to one side, her neck a tempting, unspoken offer that he would take her up on later.

Alia Atherton groaned. “I would, but some rat-bastard hid my clothes.”

Jon Chess laughed. “Guilty as charged.”  Upon rising, Jon had picked up the trail of both their clothes that had begun hitting the floors and stairways of the tower after the front door had closed. With Rorik out haunting the taverns, Jon and Alia had taken advantage of the privacy. They had spent the evening exhausting each other, only punctuated by Jon making them a late-night snack of cheese and fruit. When they had awoken, Jon had let his mouth ravish her intimately and at length, after which he had admonished her to stay in bed while he made them a proper breakfast.

"And that rat-bastard still is owed something, I think..." she murmured, turning him around and reaching up to kiss him.

"What do you mean?" Jon murmured between kisses.  "It was only fair that I get up to make you breakfast, as you allowed me to make you my breakfast..." he chuckled at the now-familiar joke between the two of them.

"Like so many of your bargains, Master Cheese Merchant, it sounds fair on the surface, but upon inspection is far from equitable. If you must insist on having two "breakfasts", then after breakfast I shall take you for a morning ride."

"Alia, my raven of the arcane, we have no horses." Jon pointed out.

"That may be so, my Shadow... but for the kind of ride I have in mind, we don't need horses..." Alia took his hand with a devious grin, "All I need is you. And coffee."