Once in a Blue Moon
They sat around the bonfire with their arms pulled tight across their knees. The sky was dark and in the distance came the cry of harpies. Night in the Bluemoon Tower had been colder than expected, far colder, and the Arisen wished she had brought along a warmer cloak. Griffon feather, perhaps, or the direwolf furs. But it was too late now. To her left sat Selene, also shivering, and the two of them huddled close together for warmth. To the Arisen's right sat her Pawn, wrapped in mage's robes – but her body was still and colder than the wind.
Their meals lay discarded on the ground, a sorry stew of greenwarish and mushrooms. Not even Selene's cooking skills could make such ingredients taste good, and certainly not filling. They were all hungry, had been hungry for days, now, but the trek back to Gran Soren still had a ways to go and they would remain hungry a good while still.
Out of the corner of her eyes, the Arisen saw Selene rubbing her hands along her bare arms. She still wore that green dress of hers despite how much the Arisen argued against it, about how cold it would be, and how little protection it offered, and put on a cloak at least, will you? But the dark-haired girl had refused each time. Stubbornness, it seemed, had been the first human trait she learned. The dress, Selene had told her, had been a present from her former master.
Damn that pang of jealousy.
"Come here," the Arisen said, opening her arms.
Selene crept into her arms and the Arisen hugged her tight against her body. Her flesh was warm underneath the paper-thin fabric. You are mine, the Arisen thought but did not say. With Selene's every breath the Arisen's body, too, shuddered a bit, in sync with the other's rise and fall. By the light of the fire Selene's skin was milky white, and flawless, and it seemed unbelievably perfect next to the Arisen's own skin with its countless battle scars. Pulling the cloak across both their bodies, in the warm shadow it offered, the Arisen rested her cheek against the space between Selene's neck and shoulder.
"You should sleep," the Arisen murmured into her skin.
"So should you."
They sat watching the flickering of the bonfire. The shadows it cast danced against the crumbling coliseum walls as they themselves had once done. The bones of the gryphon still lay in the far corner, bone-white under the moonlight, and the bones seem smaller now, more brittle, so small that it seemed impossible they belonged to the same beautiful beast they fought so long ago. At a point on the opposite end of the chamber stretched an outcropping of rock. Salomet had fallen to his death there not two hours prior. His ring burned inside the Arisen's pocket. Such a petty little thing to go so many leagues for. There and back again, there and back again. Back in the demesne the royalty would be sleeping in their beds, blissfully full after a dinner of roasted pork in sauce as they lay atop their harpy feather pillows.
"You should be there with them," the Arisen said aloud.
"With who?"
"Home. Back at the castle." A beat. "Or Witchwood, or my house in Cassadis. Anywhere, really, except here."
The dark-haired girl's body became taut in her arms. "Am I…am I burdening you?"
The Arisen pressed her lips against the soft flesh of Selene's neck. The tip of her tongue darted out to taste a single dot of flesh, tasted something far sweeter than Cloudwine. Selene shuddered, and with a soft Oh fell limp in her arms.
"Of course not."
Selene's words came out hot and faint. "I don't…wish to trouble you. If I'm a burden – "
The wind fell to nothing and in that instant the only sound was the crackling of the fire. When their lips finally parted a fine line of saliva still connected them, and Selene's eyes were dazed and glossy and unfocused.
"I've told you, didn't I?" the Arisen said. "You will never be a burden." She drew a finger across Selene's lips, watched as her nail made indents along the blood-red lips. "You don't deserve this kind of life. You belong in a castle, where your beauty can be admired by all the masses, or locked away in your forest, to be admired by the Maker alone. In a year your hands will bear calluses and your skin will turn hard and brown, and your hair will turn brittle and fall out like weeds in summer. This kind of life is meant for pawns, not for humans."
"What about you?"
"I'm not human, either." The Arisen guided Selene's head towards her own chest. "Can you hear my heartbeat?" She slipped a hand down the neckline of Selene's dress, slipped it through the valley formed by her breasts. "I can feel yours."
The dark-haired girl turned as red as harspuds. The Arisen laughed, smoothed her palm against the heat of Selene's skin, watched her turn redder, and withdrew her hand back into the cold night air.
"You make it too easy to tease."
"I just want to be with you," Selene said when her tongue finally worked again.
"And I with you."
For a long time more they watched the fire.