Originally written in response to a tumblr meme, now cleaned up a bit and expanded.

Ahiru loves Fakir's hands. In fact, she finds them his single most beautiful attribute, even more so than his eyes. Her fascination started when she was still a duck, after the Story, and he'd carry around places when she couldn't keep up. She noticed that they're long-fingered and elegant, and large enough to still appear strong rather than delicate. Periodically, she would study them minutely from beside him on his desk, fascinated by the subtle intricacies she could pick out: a few cuticles never quite free of ink; the faint calluses left over from his days wielding a sword; the writer's bump that slowly developed on the third finger of his right hand, just above his top knuckle; the pale sliver of scar on the same hand, a short slice on the back and a smaller prick on the palm, such an insignificant-looking injury for how much it means to them both.

But his hands are not merely passive objects of reverence, to be adored like relics and kept separate from the world. Fakir knows how to use his hands as much as the next person, and this too Ahiru finds beautiful. When they move—with purpose, in distraction, out of response to some emotion he refuses to otherwise show—they are danseurs writ small. (Ahiru has learned to tell more of his state of mind by watching his hands than by watching his face.)

There is an old clock in Charon's house than refuses to stay unbroken, and over the years the blacksmith has learned and has taught his ward all the tricks and cheats to make it tick for just a bit longer, so that not even the town clockmaker could do better. She has seen Fakir fix it once, when its latest malfunction coincided with a day visit to his foster father. She had already known that he was dexterous, having witnessed before his attaching of latches and buckles and rivets and fasteners to such things as needed them, but the clock was different. Ahiru, perched quietly on a stool, had watched his steady, meticulous work: arm, wrist and palm steady as a whole note, fingers each moving independently of each other, lifting and dropping and flicking along their courses like hummingbirds. She had never seen such a miniature ballet, and she was enraptured. Surely, she thought, Fakir must have been created at least in part to be a dancer, to be able to do it so well without even moving his feet.

Sometimes, on quiet evenings when the world seems far away from the self-contained tranquility of their warm little cottage, Ahiru will take one of Fakir's hands in hers and, without saying anything, set about tracing the infinitesimal whorls of his fingerprints, the three deeply defined lines struck along his palm, the slightest of webbing between his fingers (just a little bit like a duck, then, and so not so very different from her after all), lingering over details she noticed before, searching for those she's missed. He lets her, because he likes the feel of her hands against his, for aesthetic as well as selfish reasons, and they seldom do more than briefly hold hands while in public anyway. When she is finished, she gently pushes her fingers through his, knitting them tightly but tenderly together. She then lifts them up and brushes a kiss over each of his knuckles and the back of his hand, almost as if by way of explanation. To her, his hands are a story, and she wants to memorize every word.