Hmmm. What should I do for my birthday I wonder? Oh, I know! Let's submit a story to a fandom that doesn't even really exist anymore! Perfect!
Kara's blonde hair was like a curtain, blocking Caesar's eyes from looking at anything except her face as he laid on his bed. She straddled his waist while her hands trailed lazily up and down the length of the inside of his arms, the sensation of her fingernails across the bare skin was sending shivers up his spine with every caress. His own hands rested on her hips, thumbs tracing circles into the pale skin.
They had been like this for almost an hour now, just enjoying the others company, and Caesar could never remember feeling so at peace before.
Abandoning her attention from his darkened arms, Kara instead moved her hands to Caesar's chest, the feeling of her fingers scraping gently across the toned skin causing him to elicit a gasp as his own hands tightened on her waist. With a small smile, she moved her face closer until their noses were almost touching, their breaths mingling as one and her violet eyes gazing into his golden ones. Kara's hands had stopped their ministrations and were now lightly pushing on his chest, keeping him from raising his body. Her hands and the distance of her face from his own was enough to keep him firmly planted on the bed, scared that any sudden movement would cause her to move off of him.
Caesar reasoned that Kara must have seen the want in his eyes as her mouth closed the distance between the two of them and captured his own in a kiss, a slow and lazy kiss that spoke not of passion and heat, but the knowledge that they had no other place to be but here. No worries of impending wars or the threat of downfall, just the calm reassurances they they were both right here, right now, and had no reason to be anywhere else.
Sinking deeper into the warm kiss, Caesar removed his hands from Kara's hips and placed them on the back of her head and neck, his fingers tangling in her long hair as he pulled her closer. He could fell Kara chuckling in his mouth, but felt her slowly slink her arms around his neck as they both rolled over, switching their positions, but never breaking from the kiss.
Distantly, Caesar made a correction as he continued to let the pleasure of her lips overtake him. Now he could never remember feeling this calm and content in his life.
Slowly the two of them broke their kiss, but not their embrace, as Caesar placed soft kisses on her lips, her eyes, her nose, and the side of her neck. Kara's fingers lightly playing with his braids on the back of his head, the beads that kept them bound softly clinking together.
"Caesar?"
Kara had managed to turn his name into a breathy whisper that sent something inside him stirring, but Caesar gave only a lazy hum as he placed his attention on the inside of her collarbone, wanting this moment to never end.
"It's time to wake up."
Once upon a time, Caesar used to dream. Dream of his mother when she was still alive, of his father healthy, of fighting young men in Greede for the attention and affection of lovely young ladies. His father and the manor staff would often rebuke the young lord for this, that he needed to stop dreaming and start paying attention, that he was too old for those sort of things and as the future Count of Greede it was his duty to be the responsible leader that his city needed.
Now Caesar never dreamed, while he slept he only saw past regrets and losses, of what could have been, had he just listened to his father and stopped dreaming for once. Sleeping meant enduring the accusations of his father, that he had told Caesar time and time again to pay attention, to study hard, that the city was going to fail and it would all be his fault. Sleeping meant watching Kara die over, and over, and over again. That it was because of him that she died, that she was buried under the crumbling foundations of the temple. Sleeping meant watching Greede burn to the ground; the people, his people, crying for Caesar to save them while he was stuck with fear and horror, his body refusing to move no matter how much he beg and pleaded.
All of these were events that woke him up covered in sweat, but all he would have to do would remind himself of his fathers last words for him in his letter, that he had been proud of Caesar as he died. That he had tried everything to save Kara, but it had been too little, too late, and he had to accept it. That even his father had had nightmares of Greede burning to the ground and not to put any stock in them.
But the worst, the very worst, was when he would dream of Kara, not of Kara dead and gone, but of her alive and well. Of the life they could have had if it hadn't been for Shapur and Grazel, of what could have been had they had never been separated as children, of how different things could have been when their last touches weren't her dying in his arms. Dreams that left Caesar waking with her name on his tongue and her touch a phantom on his body. These were even worse than nightmares.
It was these dreams that kept Caesar working into late in night in an effort to avoid them. That kept him waking earlier and earlier each day. He began pouring himself into running his father's city, his city now. He had forms to fill, trade propositions to sign, various marriage requests and offers to refuse, and complaints to deal with. Caesar tried not to let his exhaustion show but knew that it wasn't hard to see. Servants and old friends of his father had begun to remark that the way he was throwing himself into the city was not unlike how Drisdell had acted after the death of his wife. Caesar had only laughed and told them that they should be relieved that he had begun to emulate his father in some way. but the laugh had been forced and the worried eyes only increased.
All of it came to head when in the middle of finding mercenaries and bounty hunters to clean out the tunnels as mining season due closer and closer, that Caesar had suddenly collapsed of exhaustion. He had gone almost three days without sleep, three days of not seeing Kara as she should have been. The family doctor had put him on emergency bed rest, telling Caesar that she refused to let him leave the bed until he had at least one nights good sleep. Caesar had been unable to refuse her, falling asleep before he could even try.
That night had been worse than ever before. Kara had been pregnant with his child, their child, and had watched this child with her eyes and his skin running and giggling with shrieks as he chased them throughout the manor.
The next morning he had begged the doctor for something, anything to help him take away the dreams. The draft she had hesitantly prescribed him worked, it took away the dreams but left him more tired during the day. There were some nights though when he fall asleep unexpectedly and she would return, a smirk on Kara's face and her hips swaying in a dance meant just for him.
This had been his first dream of her in a little over a week and hurt just as bad as the ones before. As Caesar left his bed, it suddenly felt more empty than it had when he had fallen asleep last night, he wondered how long it would take to get over her. This had been going on for close to a year now, and in his desperation to get her off his mind, grabbed his spear and went to work off some of his frustrations and regrets.
And as he worked through the forms, if anyone recognized the tears through his sweat they never said anything.