Fanfic:Reunion (Crysthia and Rienna)
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The Great Serpent Building | Novice Quarters
Weeks had passed since that fateful first step into the Unseen World, and Rienna Daccil Dunn had arranged the means to make her visits more frequent.
Not only through the way she had arranged for a safe hiding place for her ring, but also to make sure her presence in this new wonderful world became more attuned to her will. Or rather, that she had spent many hours to attune her own presence there. Thought were fickle, the mind not carved into a patchwork of funnels where will might stream. Yet with focus, there was ample opportunity to reap the benefits that Rienna had gleaned.
Removing the ring from its hiding place, she looked at the nacreous gleam to it while she undid her hair. Her pale blue eyes traced the arcane scripture around it, and not for the first time, she wondered what they meant. Of course, she knew the capacities of the ring, but the idle curiosity was something that might make her think less about the endeavour she was ready to undertake - the crown of her achievement.
Anxious? Perhaps, it was - after all - quite some time since they spoke last.
An even longer time for her.
In the Unseen World
It had been awhile since Crysthia had visited Tel'aran'rhiod. Dreamwalking was a useful skill but she rarely exercised it without purpose. Often her purpose was merely to keep in practice. Tonight however she had more reason to visit the world of dreams. She wanted to get a feel for the general mood of the tower. Things had been quiet of late, which was to the good usually, but she wanted to make sure it was legitimately quiet and not something else.
She appeared first in her own rooms as was her custom when entering the dreamworld and paused in front of her mirror. She frowned. Dangling from her shoulders was not the Amyrlin's stole but the White Keeper's stole she had worn so many years. She made a point of not wearing a stole at all in tel'aran'rhiod so it was odd that one should appear now. Willing it away she took in the rest of her attire. A simple lavender dress, with no embroidery. It would do.
As she wandered around the tower, Crysthia could feel something slightly off. The general mood of the tower seemed what it should be, but still something was off. She felt an itch between her shoulder blades as though she were being watched; well more than usual anyway. There were always watchers in the world of dreams, but this felt more focused.
High above her, perched on the railing of a balcony, the Serpent was coiled to spring.
He watched her walk down there, with a smile at the corners of his lips. Dressed as he was in his white coat and seafaring breeches, the revenant of Lucan din Nicander Riven Sail pondered how he best might approach the mother of his child - this woman who had once made him reflect upon the possibility to forsake his Great Lord. She had been a pawn to begin with - a means to an end - yet every so slowly, he had come to find a certain lack in his heart to pursue the causes that had dictated every action in his life. As M'Hael, and her the Keeper of the Chronicles, the relationship they had nursed had gone from farce to something... else.
As to what it had been, before he died, the Serpent did not know.
He could not put a name on such things, not beyond the cause for his hate. The injustice done to him all those years ago. He thought he might suspect what it had been. Yet what about now? Was she not again the perfect means to an end? The ear in which he might spew his venom and make his murderers suffer.
Watching her, he predicted the path she was going to take - the Tower Grounds well-known to him. He watched... until he closed his eyes and pictured the place she was heading. Within a few seconds, his perched frame vanished from the balcony.
Unsettled by the feeling of someone watching her, Crysthia moved quickly off. As she turned a corner the feeling vanished. She paused for a moment to consider this and then shrugged. One of the vagaries of this place, I should be used to it by now. She chided herself.
As she entered the Grand Hall, Crysthia saw an apparition standing there in the middle of the room. She stopped her forward progress and stared at the familiar looking figure for what seemed an age before he turned and confirmed what she had not dared hope.
With his hands folded behind his back, the man she recognised stood in the very centre of the vast mosaic floor - utterly unmoving. He had his back turned to her, and was looking at the great double doors of the Tower's gates. There was no sunlight entering through the gap, but if the Unseen World would have had such light, it would have fallen against the Atha'an Miere reject's hidden face.
As it were, the obscure luminescence of tel'aran'rhiod cast his white threadbare coat in an eerie light, and his long dark hair falling down it like a waterfall. The fact of his bare feet would have made a man not used to the deck of a ship look quite inelegant, but this man raised by the Sea Folk looked more comfortable without footwear than he would ever be whilst wearing such - his frame balanced and at peace.
At the sound of her steps down the stairs behind him, Lucan smiled privately to the open doors, before he wiped it off his face and turned to face her. Now, he let conflicting emotions spread through his features like a wildfire. Confusion. Regret. Sorrow.
Adoration mixed with compunction.
"Crysthia," he said in a low voice, yet the name echoed all the way across the Great Hall.
Clenching his teeth together, he lowered his pale grey eyes. "Forgive me, I... You should not look at me. I am not here," he said and hurriedly turned back - walking towards the soaring doors that he had been looking through. His step was hastened, yet leaden all the same.
"Lucan." Crysthia whispered.
Her icy blue eyes were wide with shock. There before her, as solid as if he were alive was her now long dead lover. Her hand stretched out towards him then pulled back almost fearfully. She was not near enough to touch him, yet it seemed that if she did he might vanish.
Crysthia knew the rules of this place, she had seen strange things before, had created strange things before with her thoughts. She was terribly afraid that she had merely created the man before her with her longing for him. Yet he seemed too real, standing there, and then he spoke. She knew then that he was not a thing of her imagination. Had he been the Lucan of her dreams he would not turn away as he did now.
"Lucan!" she said his name again, a shout this time and hurried after him. "Don't go, don't leave me."
She reached out her hand to grab hold of him. If he truly was there she wanted to feel him. "Please don't go. Why do you say you are not here?"
Having reached the doors, Lucan felt her fist wrap around the sleeve of his coat - stopping him just shy of the threshold that would take him outside the Tower. The gap in the double doors towered above him, yet when he was upheld, he did not struggle to break free of her grip. He stopped, but did not turn back to face her. His shoulders were drawn up, signalling internal conflict to her - even though there was none.
"The prescripts of the dead," he murmured in explanation in his Atha'an Miere accent - cultured by his many years away from the salt. He paused, as if in realisation that he had spoken at all.
"I am not supposed to speak with the living. Not to interact with them." He slowly turned his head then, and the sorrow made deep lines around his pale yes - split his frown in two. "While you live, I am but a revenant trapped here - in this Living Dream. I have yet to be rewoven into the pattern, and I fear I never might. Go, Crysthia. Forget about me. To be in your presence is forbidden, regardless how much I wish to remain with you."
He had read about the prescripts; this rare knowledge recently discovered by the Horn of Valeri had seemingly barred people from being given new lives in the Lace of Ages. They remained to answer its call. He used this truth in untruth to ground his claim - convince her doubting White mind. It was imperative she thought him the man he used to be, and not the young woman he had become.
He stared at her, as if unable to look away - still halfway turned to the exit of the Grand Hall.
"Live your life. Find the happiness I could not bring you. Forget me so that you can move on."
Crysthia clung to his arm, afraid he would disappear, tears began to well slightly in her eyes at the thought of finding him only to lose him again. "You were the only happiness in my life, do not ask me to forget you, I cannot. I will not! Have you been here all this time? Why could you not come to me? The prescripts be damned!"
She stopped herself then, this was not what she wanted to say to him. She did not want to be angry with him just now. He was here in front of her, if he was here now maybe, just maybe he would be here for some time to come. It took years for the wheel to spin people back out didn't it?
"I don't want to move on Lucan." She said softly. "Stay, talk to me. What harm could it do? Tell me what happened to you at least."
The memories of the events after his death flooded her mind. She tried to shake them away but one in particular floated to the forefront. Perhaps it was the key that would entice him to remain just that little bit longer with her.
"Your daughter, Lucan! You have a daughter, surely you would want to know about her. You have remained in my presence this long and the world has not ended, surely it cannot truly matter if you remain longer."
The scene transpiring exactly as he had predicted, Lucan portrayed the common expression of surprise - pausing with his eyes travelling to Crysthia's. "Is... She? Is she already..?"
He did not have to finish the question, and his act was based on further knowledge about the afterlife - facts gleaned and kept in the 13th Depository. They both knew time flowed differently - unpredictably - for those who's thread's had been cut from the Pattern.
Mournful, showing hurt in how he had not been able to see her, his eyes dropped to the hand around the sleeve of his coat. In truth, he had seen his daughter at the Masque, even watched Crysthia out of the eyes of the young woman - the one had been cursed to lead his real life.
"I cannot name my murderers. The impact to the Pattern would be too great..." he lied, using the prescripts to further embellish his words in truth. After all, once he was finished, he would never have to name the three names of those present in the bowels of the Tower that late evening. Oh, no, he really did not need to speak their names. He would make Crysthia know them all on her own - merely guiding her to the truth so that there would be not a shadow of a doubt to his claim. "Yet the answer is as plain as it aught to be; enemies to the Light caused my demise."
Looking back, staring down into her pleading eyes, Lucan found his thoughts momentarily straying. Her hand. It was no longer gripping his sleeve, but laying around his bare arm. His coat had suddenly vanished - all against his own will. Cursing his fickle thoughts, he stopped himself from adamantly making the garment return. It could possibly serve as a slap in Crysthia's face. The memory of her warm legs around his waist and her kisses upon his chest and neck had bridged the hiatus of his death and surfaced in this second life he led.
"Crysthia," he said, smiling instead, "you make me think I am alive again - making me defy rhyme and reason. You deny the prescripts so quickly that I jump to the same measures. I want to ask you so much, but fear every word spoken. Yet what you said, about our child... Will you proceed?"
It was, after all, only natural that he would make such a query. In the meantime, he turned to face her - his back towards the gates.
Relief washed over Crysthia as she realized he would not rush away and she smiled at him as she smiled at her. She was troubled, though, that he would not speak further of those who had flung him into the existence he now had. She was in a position now to bring down those who murdered him if he but spoke the name. No, names, he had said murderers. How many were there? Enemies to the Light implied the Black Ajah. Could Amora have known? Was that why she buried the investigation?
Crysthia pushed those thoughts aside. She knew why Amora had not pursued the investigation to find Lucan’s killers. She understood even if she could not bring herself to truly accept that it had to be let go. Still, she was Amyrlin now, perhaps there was something she could do, even so many years later. The Amyrlin’s Stole appeared on her shoulders for a moment unbidden and then vanished. Does he even know I am the Amyrlin now? Focus, he asked about the child, I must somehow keep him here with me.
"Our child," She began slowly, letting go of his now bare arm. "I named her Zulaya. She is well grown now. Eleven years old. She has many of your features. I cannot look on her without thinking of you." She was silent a moment before adding "She will be a strong channeler one day."
Crysthia fell silent again. She was not sure what else to say, she was not accustomed to discussing her daughter with anyone. She had always known she would not be a doting mother, even had Lucan survived, but she felt as though her words were inadequate, describing her daughter to the child’s own father. After several moments of silence she reached up to brush Lucan’s cheek with her fingers.
"You really are here." She said softly.
The interpretation of her thoughts - that had made her appearance change - was not altogether conclusive for Lucan, but he supposed that thoughts of her current position might imply a number of things. The Amyrlin's power. Duty. Reach. Knowledge. The usage of these or the fact of them. In correlation with the names he had denied her, it was as if he was reading her like an open book. She craved justice for the loss of her late husband, and was ready to act in her offical power to claim it - to learn the truth and deal punishment on those deserving.
His focus was marred when she touched him - making memories of her surface from beyond the Living Dream and a yore time. More than eleven years past, to be exact. His attire changed when her skin skimmed across his bronzed cheek, shifting from herb-stained Asha'man apparel to the ring and stole of the M'Hael. Yet when they had become one, in the wake of a dagger throwing tutorship he had held in her private Keeper study, he had been but a Dedicated.
Thus, with sword-pin in his collar, he spoke - before thoughts of how he had claimed her upon the floor of her study made his thoughts lead somewhere unproductive. "I am," he assured her in a low yet deep voice. He reached up with his left hand to her cheek in order to return the affectionate gesture.
Yet he suddenly came to think of how he had used her and their unborn child to bargain with the Freak and the Captain General. Subsequently, his thoughts returned to that dark corridor in the bowels of the Tower, and he remembered what had been done to him. Somehow, there was blood on his sleeve...
The hand he raised towards her was cut in half.
Crysthia's eyes widened as she realized the hand heading towards her face was cut in half. She took an involuntary step back, the hand that had been caressing his cheek flying to her own mouth in surprise before she could control her reaction. She remembered that part of his hand had been severed in such a way when they had found his body, but to see it now, when he seemed so alive and whole was... startling to say the least.
"I..." She began and then had to clear her throat. She stepped toward him again, recovering the distance she had made as she recovered her composure. "I guess stray thoughts can plague the dead in this place as much as the living. Why did they do that to your hand? Were they after the fang ring?"
Crysthia frowned, considering. Had that been the case, the ring would not have reappeared surely. More likely it was just to prevent him from using it, but still, why was the ring removed from the scene and found later? There were too many things she didn't understand about what happened, too many things deliberately kept from her, by Amora, by those involved in what little investigation was conducted, and now by the very man who had been killed.
"Can you tell me nothing of what happened? Give my mind some peace, I deserve that at least do I not?"
Lucan did not answer immediately, but was staring down upon his hand - flexing his fingers. It was not easy to abolish the memory of something akin to what he had suffered; to supress the thought of that night and the injuries he had suffered. Yet he managed, and the two fingers and the ring was there again by his will and focus alone.
As he kept flexing his hand - dressed as the M'Hael yet again - he raised his pale grey eyes and answered her in a sharp tone. Not directed against her, but towards his assailants.
"I might be a Healer. Yet had they not removed my ring, I would still have been with you," he promised her without having to embellish the brutality he would have resorted to, "and they would be the ones wandering this Living Dream - suffering the regrets of an unfulfilled life. Oh, they would never have known what happened before their Threads had been severed."
The sa'angreal had been the key to his survival.
"You deserve everything, but I can give you nothing," he said with regret and lowered his hand, putting on a contemplative look, "Yet apparently, the prescripts allow us to be together. At least as far as we are now. Oh, I want to name my murderers, and I wish them to give them justice as much as you do, but dare we threaten to tear the Pattern? No, Crysthia, I cannot say much more..."
There, he paused artistically, and made his eyes drift from hers. His carefully picked words spilled from his lips at the most opportune moment - the act complete. At least for this first encounter.
"Meticulously arranged by two who were raised above any suspicion," he said to her as if he sailed foreboding waters, "it was the third one who completed what they began. This, someone once very dear to me... and had betrayed my heart for the sake of my friend's embrace."
Having spoken, his eyes drifted back to Crysthia - the look portraying bleeding pain. Though long gone betrayed, the hurt aught to have resurfaced when he saw the face of his executioner, wouldn't it? Secondary to him, he had this in mind, even though he now held the opportunity to repay the Sige in full. Traitor of my heart...
Lysira Viathene Gaidar.
"I dare not speak much more... Please, ask naught else." He took her hands in his and looked down into her blue irises - these pools of innocence that he contaminated without remorse.
They would suffer the hand of the Flame - smiting them all into oblivion.
Three. She thought. There were three involved in his murder. Two raised above suspicion? Crysthia wished he could be less cryptic, and the pattern be damned! But she knew that was not right. Still she had something to go on now. Perhaps she could discover more later. The third, his killer, was clearly a former lover. She did not like to think about those Lucan may have loved before her. He had been the only one she had ever loved.
She filed the information away in her mind for later use as she studied the man in front of her. This was clearly as hard for him as it was for her. Harder perhaps because he was the one dead, and un-avenged. She had their child for solace. Lucan's daughter. I should try to spend more time with Zulaya. she thought to herself. Perhaps it would not be quite as painful to look on her daughter if she could have Lucan at least in her dreams.
"I will ask no more tonight." Crysthia said as she clutched his hands. "I can see the pain it causes you, forgive me." She gazed up into his eyes. "I'm not sure how much time we have left before I must wake, but I would like to make the most of what time we can have together."
Keeping hold of his hands she closed her eyes and concentrated on her bedchamber. "I think perhaps this is a more comfortable place than the Grand Hall for us to... talk." she grinned at him, blushing slightly.
She let go of his hands and looked around the room. The bedchamber of the Amyrlin Seat was not much different than the bedchamber she'd had as Keeper of the Chronicles. A little larger, perhaps a little more grand, but she had furnished it similarly. Most of the pieces had followed her from her rooms as Keeper, though there were a couple more wardrobes. As Amyrlin she apparently needed many dresses, in varying colors and styles.
Crysthia recalled the day that Lucan had become M'hael. He had spent much time that day with seamstresses taking his measure for clothing that befitted his rank. She recalled how disgusted he had been with the process. She had wanted to scream when the same was done to her, though she'd had fittings regularly as Keeper. She hadn't needed as extensive a wardrobe then, but still she had to be presentable.
She shook her head at the recollections of past Lucan and focused on the one that was there with her now. "I have missed you, so much."
Finding himself inside the Amyrlin Seat's quarters, hands still holding hers, Lucan paused to look around. Seeing the bed, his reaction was twofold. Externally, he blinked and looked regretful, while he laughed inside at the ease in which things had turned out just like he remembered them from his past life. So reminiscent and perfectly satisfactory as the spoils for the victor.
He looked back to Crysthia and raised his tattooed hands - setting them on the shoulders of her lavender dress. Thoughts of the past with Crythia had again left him without any coat - betraying his wishes even though his words were cautioning. "The prescripts," he murmured even though his pale grey eyes sought the hollow below her throat, the tumble of her blonde hair, her beckoning and pursed lips, "yes, they allow us to be together, like I said. Yet only so far as we are now. Should we truly chance..."
He did not even have to finish the sentence. What lay between them were plain. What laid ahead, so utterly tempting despite how forbidden he had made it seem to be. He had trailed off, and his thumbs had hooked the shoulder-straps of her dress. Slowly, he parted them, and he looked down into her eyes as the lavender fabric revealed porcelain skin.
"Dare we truly chance this to be allowed?" he whispered, as he gradually leaned down to kiss her for the first time after the hiatus. It was just like he remembered it, and for a moment, he completely forgot about his current life.
Wrapping her arms around him, Crysthia tilted her head up to meet Lucan's lips with her own. She was eager to taste him once more, yet she felt a brief hesitation. A small part of her was afraid that it would not be the same as before. Perhaps tel'aran'rhiod would somehow make it different. Or perhaps now that he was dead he wasn't exactly Lucan any longer. Would there be a difference? Would she notice it? Then she was kissing him and all the fears vanished. He was Lucan, her Lucan, and he was everything she remembered. She would have happily died right then, in his embrace.
"What is there to chance?" She said a little breathily when their lips parted.
Her fingers had tangled themselves in his long hair, just as they had always done when he lived. It felt so familiar, his hair running through her fingers, as if it had been only yesterday instead of more than a decade since she'd last done this. Resting her head against his chest she marveled that it was solid and so real seeming.
"Surely it would not matter to the pattern if we steal these moments for ourselves? You are here to wait until you are needed. What better way to pass the time than in the arms of one who loves you? How can that truly be so wrong? Forget the prescripts, at least in this regard. We will not unravel the pattern by having a night together."
Crysthia felt a frisson of guilt at saying this. She was not generally one to break rules. They were usually there for a reason. But she could not see what harm it could do if they talked, or... did other things. She blushed as images cascaded across her mind of what she hoped might occur before she had to return to the waking world. As she had these thoughts her dress flickered and disappeared but she didn't seem to be aware of it.
"How can I set your mind at ease?"
Light was she moving too fast or not fast enough? He couldn't be allowed to second guess or he'd disappear and perhaps never return. She couldn't bear that now she had him again. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew he would be reborn eventually and disappear, but eventually was not now. She could have him now, she just had to get him to forget his precious prescripts.
Yet Lucan needed no enticement - the prescripts a lie - so when the dress vanished out of his hands, he did not have to feel the turmoil he let Crysthia see. Rather, he had the presence of mind to look as much as he wanted, and plan each step with fastidious care.
"Indeed... how?" he said with voice thick and hands running down her bare arms, making it appear as best he could that his heart and his mind was at conflict on how to proceed. "Crysthia... You are exactly as I remember you. There is no sign that you.. that we, had a child."
It was then that Crysthia realized her clothing had disappeared and she blushed slightly. She looked down at herself as his hands caused shivers to run up her arms before moving . She appeared as she always thought of herself to be, and it occurred to her that she had not paid any attention to her body after Zulaya had been born. Her shape had returned quickly enough but she wondered now if the flesh was as firm and unmarked as it appeared to be here in tel’aran’rhiod.
"In tel'aran'rhiod we appear as we see ourselves. Even when I was pregnant with Zulaya I did not appear so here. It matters little however, how I look in the waking world, if I can only have you here. Here I shall be what you remember, for that is what I remember. You too are just as I remember."
He brushed the back of his fingers across her abdomen, his words and his gesture a sign that he had avoided the dire question about what they might be permitted to do or not. In his study, he avoided the problem as if he did not wish to deal with it - instead distracting himself with the appreciation for her.
Yet she had asked a question. Decidedly, he could not avoid it, could he? That would be such poor manners, right? "Perhaps," he murmured as both hands climbed her torso, "the Pattern might issue a warning - of some sort - if we just proceed... slowly."
Tenderly, his tattooed hands encompassed her breasts from beneath, and he leaned down to kiss her once more - now just a little bit more insistently. His lips split hers open, sampled her - tasting that which he had lost when he died.
It seemed such a change of pace from times past. He was the hesitant one now where in the past it had been she. The man was dead, what could he have to really worry about? Surely a minor transgression such as this would not see him cut out of the pattern. She wanted him so badly she was willing to risk much, didn't he feel the same? She decided that he did when he bent to kiss her.
"Slowly." She murmured agreement against his lips. Slowly, so that she could savor him though, not for some silly notion of warnings from the Pattern.
His hands on her breasts sent ripples of electricity through her. It had been so very long. Nothing had aroused any desire in her since his death. Admittedly nothing and no one before that first time with Lucan had done so either, but then she had not known what she was missing as she did once he was gone. Her hands were still tangled in his hair and she extricated one so that she could run it along his arm while her lips locked to his. She returned his kiss hungrily.
Lucan had longed from beyond the grave for the touch of a good woman, and though the late Mistress of Novices had given him - in his other body - the first reminder of what he had missed, he was far more comfortable in his current form. He knew the steps of the dance, and they were instinctual by practice and experience. Without doubt or hesitation, he moved one one hand to slide down behind her lower back and pull her closer.
Still, the recent experiences with Zaephra Sedai and the thief - Taevrin al'Crohn - happened to slip into Lucan's thoughts, and he realised how he had experience in what Crysthia had to be feeling right then. He knew what it felt to have a man overwhelm... her... with male presence and aroma. To have her chest crushed by the coarse skin and hard physique of a man. Rienna groaned when she felt Crysthia against herself - the kiss increasing the pace...
...except Rienna was not the one to thread the Dream at all.
Eyes shooting wide, she had to ignore the newer sensations that had made her head reel, clear her mind from thoughts of reality... and Lucan quickly reasserted himself. He hoped Crysthia had not noticed anything since her eyes had been closed, alas the differences... had been undeniable. If but a couple of seconds, Lucan's bare-chested form and height had been oh, far too different.
So engrossed was she in the kiss that at first Crysthia did not take note of the sudden change. It was soon all too apparent however that something wasn't quite right. The mouth locked to hers was softer somehow. And his body, it did not feel right beneath her fingers. It was smaller, also softer in a way. The hair she had twined in her hand was different too, the texture was not the same. She opened her eyes confused but as soon as she did so whatever had changed seemed to revert.
She pulled away from him, slightly puzzled. She was certain he had changed somehow. A trick of tel'aran'rhiod she was sure, but was it a stray thought from her, or from him? She had never kissed anyone but Lucan so she could not imagine she had been the one to change him somehow, so it must have been something he had done. Taking a step back she eyed him slightly suspiciously, beginning to allow a little doubt to creep in. Was he really Lucan? Perhaps she was being blinded by her desire to be with him?
"The mind can play strange tricks here. " She said as if to herself. "More so perhaps because the mind can create those tricks in this place. Much is possible including appearing as someone we are not. I know something changed just now about you, but I do not know what. How do I know you are truly Lucan?"
She waited for his answer with baited breath, possibilities running around in her mind. She had been certain he was Lucan. And the kiss, surely he could be no one else. Surely even one who might impersonate him would not be able to kiss just like he did, surely they would not be able to match his every nuance and even the scent of him? But he had most definitely changed somehow. She needed to be certain.
Mind racing, Lucan remained where he stood. Her question was, as soon as he could collect his thoughts, quite easy to answer. Her concerns were merely a mild nuisance, when the words came to him.
"The latest was not the only life my spirit has led," he said quietly without batting an eye, "I have found myself unable to preserve myself to this latest incarnation at times, even though I have no recollection of the lives I have led before."
It would have been unwise to close the distance again, rather than have her take the next step. She was White once, and it was almost eerie how her mind had shifted from fire to ice at a heartbeat. "Remember that breakfast we had on the balcony of your former office," he continued and swallowed to get his voice working properly. Had she really affected him so? It must have been the nostalgia.
"We spoke of your time locked inside a ter'angreal, and the cycle of horrors you had to endure there. We spoke of apples and food, and we declared our love for each other. Remember you not how we enjoyed the vista after that, and did not attend to our duties until much later that day?"
There was a look of open concern on his face, as if he was a bit hurt by her doubt of him. It was the perfect choice of composure, and the best means to make her credit his word. There had been no one but them present when they spoke of such things.
Crysthia softened at once and regained the distance she had put between them. Of course it made sense that he had been other people over the course of the turning of the wheel. Why would he not shift to them here? His most recent life certainly seemed to be prominent, likely because it was so recent.
She put her uncertainties away completely as he spoke in detail of the day on her balcony. No one else had been present then to know such details but they two. She remembered shuddering in his arms as she recounted that horrific memory, something she had kept inside of her until that day. She remembered their silly discussion on apples and such too.
"I remember that day well my love." She blushed slightly as she remembered vividly what they had done instead of attending to their duties. "I am sorry, it was just... startling to sense a sudden change." She reached up to stroke his cheek with the back of her fingers. "We haven't much time left this night I fear. I do not believe we could recreate everything we did that day but perhaps there is time for a few things?" Her eyes twinkled invitingly as she looked into his and she tilted her head up to kiss him again. "We should make the most of the time we can share together."
Pleased that he has lied successfully to her again. Lucan allowed a rueful smile to touch his features. "Whatever the prescripts might allow," he promised quietly after the feeling of her fingers came to a stop upon the smooth surface of his cheek.
True to his word, he made his pursed lips seek hers again, and he lifted her up against him. With her arms around his neck, and legs around his waist, he carried her to the bed, even though he would have been just as content by taking her upon the floor. The mother of his child would want more tender treatment, that he knew, and she would get it.
On the way there, he gave her lips careful attention with his own, and abandoned them only to travel further down her jaw, neck, throat and collarbone. Only when he was able to lay her down could he continue his path down her front.
There are certain advantages to being small and light. Crysthia thought as she allowed him to lift and carry her to the bed. It was so comforting with her arms around his neck, her legs encircling his waist. It was as though he'd never been dead. As though he had never left her. She kissed him hungrily. When his lips parted from hers, they began to form a pout. She wasn't ready to stop kissing him yet, but the pout vanished as his lips began traveling down her. She smiled and as he reached her neck she leaned her head back slightly closed her eyes, to enjoy the sensations.
When he laid her down upon the soft bed she unfolded her legs from around him. He seemed intent upon continuing his downward progress with those wonderfully skilled lips of his. Unwrapping her arms from around his neck she run her delicate fingers through his hair. She had always loved playing with his hair.
Though Lucan was a savage lover, he took care to make her comfortable, yet he did not treat her like she was made of glass either. Whilst cupping her breasts in his hands, he treated the hardened hilltops like he had treated her mouth. He did not abandon her or the taste of her skin for a second as he continued his downward path across her flat tummy - soon applying his mouth against her.
Lucan ran his tongue against the wetness while one hand fondled her breasts, with fingertips that soon came to travel further and find her awaiting lips. His free hand held her hips in place so that she could feel every stroke and every graze of his lips.
She felt the anticipation building in her as he got closer and closer. Part of her was afraid he would disappear before reaching his destination and Crysthia tensed just slightly as she felt his mouth hover over it. He did not disappear though as his tongue ran across her waiting lips. It seemed she was not going to be denied satisfaction. She relaxed and allowed her mind to focus on the ever increasing passion building within her lower extremities.
She felt his clever fingers traveling down while his other hand rested on her hip. His touch was electric. If he kept this up she would soon explode. Light it had been so long and yet he was as skilled as ever at eliciting responses from her body.
Experienced almost to a fault, Lucan teased her clitoris with the tip of his tongue - rubbed it lightly between his lips, and slid further down in order to spear into her. To have her around his tongue and scenting her so intimately made him more eager, and less focused solely upon his plans for her. He lavished her, drove her farther, allowed her to give into that heat that was rising in her - the passions that she had been denied in his death.
Yet he did no allow her to feel reality become unhinged quite yet, and stopped just short of her climax. He sat up on the couch - chest heaving in their shared intoxication. "Look what you have done to a dead man," he said quietly in jest, just barely managing a grin despite everything.
Crysthia's breathing had become heavier as his deft attentions brought her nearly to pitch. She could feel the climax a breath away when he ceased his ministrations. She gasped and sat up a complaint forming on her lips when his words hit her. She burst out laughing.
"Dead you may be my love, but you look very alive to me at the moment." She grinned appreciatively as she looked at him, her eyes twinkling.
She pushed him back onto the bed and climbed on top straddling his hips. Grinning Crysthia bent down to kiss his lips. Her long hair falling across his chest. As he had done she left his lips, though she was slightly reluctant to do so. She could get lost in his kiss, but she had other plans just then. She moved down as he had done to her, savoring the saltiness of his skin as she kissed his neck, then shoulder and downward.
Lucan allowed a deep-throated chuckle as he lay there, feeling quite nostalgic and deciding that the "threat" of the prescripts could remain forgotten in the reverie. He propped himself up on his elbows so that he might see her better, and soon extended a hand to stroke her hair.
Crysthia moved slowly down, tasting each part of him as she ran her hands down his sides. Her hands paused at his hips as her mouth hovered over the crown of his manhood. She ran her tongue around the tip a few times before taking the whole of it into her mouth. One hand left Lucan's hip to grasp the base of his member and stroke it while her mouth worked on the top.
She was not as skilled as he, in the arts of love making, but they had been lovers for some time before his death and she knew enough of what she was doing now to bring him where she wanted him. When she sensed that he was nearing climax she pulled away, denying him that final release as he had done to her. She grinned up at him.
Oh, but she has learned from the best, Lucan modestly surmised, and wasted no time in sitting up upon the sheets, lifting her chin up so that he might taste himself on her lips. All in the pretence of savouring her and craving her intimate immediate presence. Still, it was sublime to lift her into his lap once more, and to look into her innocent eyes with his warm yet merciless gaze of deceit. He vaguely remembered that once upon a time he was prepared to surrender the Shadow to the Light for her.
Yet such a chance had now passed.
Whilst he crushed her to his chest in act of desperate desire, as he pressed her down unto himself, he never looked away. A noise escaped his throat, unwillingly, since her confines smote the years to dust, and he felt like he was truly a man once again. Crysthia made him feel like no time had passed at all. And for that, he kissed her.
Crysthia was all too willing to be settled onto Lucan's lap, to satisfy the craving she'd had since his death. She had not allowed her self this pleasure with anyone since him and that made this moment all the more sweet as she felt the organ enter her. He seemed so alive then, it was as though the last years had not really occurred, that he had not died. Perhaps it had all been a dream and she was in the real world now. Foolish thoughts she knew, and the logical portion of her mind, which was usually dominant, told her so.
It was very rare that she pushed aside her precious logic, but she did so now. For quite possibly the first time in her long life, she didn't want logic, it could burn in the pit of Shayol Ghul. She wanted what she had now, this instant, with Lucan. She wanted to fully enjoy the moments they could have together, wishing it could last for eternity. She did not want to think about what must occur soon. That she must wake and return to a world where he was gone. Instead she concentrated on the feelings building inside her as she rocked her hips against him, pushing him deeper into herself, as she kissed him deeply, twining her tongue around his.
Desires awakened from decades past, reminiscence animated in animal grind and noises, Lucan's fingertips dug into her hips, her back, her shoulders. He wrapped his arms around her porcelain frame and made her weightless in their reunion. He savaged her neck, throat and breasts in turn with his lips, and he gasped when he was about to spend himself inside her. "Crysthia... I..."
She silenced him by pressing her lips to his. She was suddenly fearful that anything he said now would end it all and she couldn't bear that. She was so close. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as the orgasm took her. Her muscles tightened around him, seeming to milk his seed as he spent himself. She wanted it all. She wanted anything of him that she could have, even another child were it possible, though she rather doubted dream semen would produce such a result. Strange what one could think of in such moments.
Still shuddering from the climax she kissed him fiercely. Her arms wrapped around him tightly, Crysthia clung to Lucan as though he might disappear any instant. They had been allowed to get this far but would it be ended now? Would she ever see him again after tonight?
"Please don't leave me." She whispered, burying her head in his chest.
The rush of release numbing him, Lucan still spoke the truth - words he would say even if he would not have to. It was fitting.
"I have to," he murmured into her fair hair, stroking it free from her ear, "yet if the prescripts allow as much, this... might not have to be the only time we defy life and death for our own purposes."
Or rather, mine.
- Fin
