Title: Sunset
Author: PwnedByPineapple
Summary: He is like light, and she wonders at the nature of it. America/Belarus.
Rating/Warning(s): K; none
Notes: The prompt was 'sunset', and the maximum length was 500 words, which this reached exactly.

Disclaimer: This fangirl owns nothing, because if she did, this pairing would be canon.

The first light of spring falling on winter snow, she thinks pensively, before discarding that notion.

Poetic utterances are not within her characteristic scope of behavior, but her thoughts are more inclined to wander a less inhibited range, and it's easier to understand confusing sentiments when equated with simpler things. But spring light isn't what she wants; it's too calm, too delicate, nothing like him.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Alfred sighs into her hair, breath tickling her ear. Natalia absently reaches up to tip his head away and feels his hand playfully entwine within her hair, returning to the same spot.

"I will break your fingers," she warns him, as is custom.

Alfred chuckles. "I'd expect nothing less." But he settles once more, and Natalia lets herself relax - his broad form solid and warm behind her, her own slender figure cradled comfortably against his, enveloped by his arms.

Around them, the sand is beginning to release heat gathered throughout the day, creating an indistinct haze, as the blazing source has dimmed and is being drawn down past the horizon. The sun throws out elongated rays, as if reaching for the hazy heat lost to earth, and the effect - interspersed with orange clouds, reflected over a glassy ocean - is indeed beautiful. Natalia, returning to her musings, contemplates it for a moment, but sunsets mean endings, and that isn't what he brings to mind.

A sunrise, perhaps. A bright dawning, an end to the night's darkness, something that welcomes and warms. The thought has merit, but it's not quite right - sunrises are easily forgotten when faced with the radiance of day.

Neither is the light of day an appropriate comparison. Daylight is dazzling and demanding, invasive and impossible to ignore, and it lacks accuracy precisely because she knows that is what he wants others to see. That's what he presents to the rest of the world, but Natalia is nothing if not perceptive, and she wouldn't love him if that was all there was.

In contemplation, she tunes into awareness of her surroundings and thinks of sunset again. It means more, perhaps - sunsets are not forgotten. They are radiant in their own way, all the more beautiful by their brevity and far more fiercely alive than other light.

Natalia listens to Alfred's contented breathing and the steady thrumming of his heart, feels the healthy warmth of his skin and the sensation he brings to her own heart, once-cold.

The sunset is a reminder of light. A beacon that shines through the darkness even when it's long gone, because it's an enduring memory of warmth and a promise of return. It's the only memory that day leaves behind before night envelops the world.

Natalia herself is nearly as warm as Alfred, nestled in his lap and surrounded as she is by sunset.

"It is beautiful," she murmurs, conceding, and though her eyes are fixed on the horizon, she can feel his delighted smile, burning brightly in her mind's eye.