It was snowing. 

Raenef watched, enraptured.  His wide eyes scanning the sky hungrily, trying to take in every flake as they passed before him.  His smile, full of delight and excitement as he saw patterns form and flurry in the drift.  He pointed and giggled, looking back only for a moment before fixing his eyes again on the whitened sky.  But he said nothing.  Eclipse thought then that he really should have taught his master this spell earlier.  For the silence.  For the smile.  For the way he looked at him. 

“This is the first time I’ve seen snow,” Raenef said then, his voice quieter, more solemn than usual.  He reached out a hand and let the cold snow fall against his skin, watching in fascination as it melted there.  “It feels cold.”

“It falls every day in the northern lands.”  Eclipse didn’t know why he felt the need to say that; just that he felt the need to reply to his lord.  His lord who looked so thoughtful, standing there at the window looking out at the snow he had made.

“It’s pretty,” he smiled.  “They’re lucky.”  Raenef’s face was wistful now.  Eclipse watched, as he always did, the way his master’s mood changed. From happy to thoughtful, to sad and back to happy again, all in the space of minutes.  Every change written clearly across his face, in the way his shoulders sank, in the way his head titled. 

“I doubt they would agree,” Eclipse replied, his voice gentle but laced with amusement.  His master.  Everything he said was so certain, as though everything in the world was a simple thing.  A natural thing.  As it should be.  It was not the way a Demon Lord spoke.

Raenef was looking at him now, a curious expression there.

“Why not?” he asked, honestly perplexed. 

“As you said yourself, master Raenef,” Eclipse took a few steps towards the window to stand beside the window and his master, “Snow is cold.”

Raenef looked back at his hand, still stretched out into the storm, and nodded.

“Bring your hand in, master Raenef” Eclipse asked then.  But Raenef did not move except to wave a little, causing snow to swirl haphazardly around his hand.  He smiled.

“Lord?”  Eclipse took Raenef’s arm. 

“Ah… sorry, Eclipse.  I just like it.”  Now he was beaming, and it took all of Eclipse’s self-control to not smile back.  “This is a fun spell!”

Eclipse would have, should have, balked.  He should have informed his master right there and then that this spell was designed to cause hardship and suffering.  That it was meant to create fear, and maybe if you let it go on long enough, famine and death.  It was most certainly not created to allow young Demon Lords to play with the snow, call it pretty, and maybe even make a snow-demon or two later in the afternoon. 

But the look of pure delight on Raenef’s face was a force to be reckoned with.  A thing Eclipse could do nothing but submit to.  He, proud, ancient demon of the highest order, reduced to such lowly human tasks as cooking and cleaning because it pleased his master.  Because Raenef would smile at him and say his name with such gratefulness and affection as no one ever had before. 

And Eclipse was staring.

“What’s wrong, Eclipse?”  Raenef was speaking, he knew that.  His light voice was tinged with worry, he could hear.  He should reply.  He should reply.  But he liked to hear it, still.

“Eclipse?” Raenef was saying again, and he finally drew his arm in from the window, wondering if he had annoyed his teacher.  Eclipse didn’t let go.

“Your hand is cold,” Eclipse said, and covered it with his own, warmer hands.

“Heh,” Raenef laughed nervously.  “Sorry.” 

It was strange.  This nervous laugh.  This proximity to each other.  The feel of Raenef’s hand within his own.  And it was then that Eclipse knew.

“It is cold master,” Eclipse sighed.  “I should teach you the counter-spell.”  Should.  Should. 

But neither of them was moving.

“Cold…” Raenef repeated, and looked up at Eclipse then with a decidedly mischievous smile.  “Yes it is!” he said, and chuckling lightly pressed himself against Eclipse, trapping their hands between them. 

Eclipse thought then that he should pull away.  But he couldn’t.

Raenef was snuggling.  Snuggling.  A Demon Lord snuggling.  And before he knew it he was laughing gently, Raenef leaning lightly against his chest.  And he was laughing at the absurdity of it all. 

Raenef looked up at him again.

“Warmer?” he said, smiling.  Eclipse could only nod and look at that smile.

It was absurd, to be sure.  But he didn’t care. 

He released his master’s hand and took instead his face.

“Warmer,” he agreed, and Raenef’s smile softened and there was so much there that Eclipse wanted to taste it, though he knew he shouldn’t want to.  But in the absurdity of it all it didn’t seem to matter anymore. 

So Eclipse kissed him.  Kissed Raenef.  His master.  Pressed his lips to that smile and was not surprised when Raenef, his master, pressed back.  He felt then hands lain lightly on his chest, and heated cheeks under his hands.  And didn’t have to see Raenef’s smile to know it was still there.  He could feel it under his own and reveled in tasting it and making it his own.

“Warm,” Raenef smiled.