Title: Candlelight Ivory
Author: Third Charm
Fandom: Babylon 5
Pairings: Marcus/Neroon.
Story Type: Seasonal Snippet
Current Rating: M
Disclaimer: Babylon 5 and all subsequent major characters, plots, and ideas are the property of J. Michael Straczynski, Babylonian Inc. and Warner Bros. The following story was written only for the purposes of entertainment. No income had been made.
Warnings: AU and AT, not beta read, slash, implied sex.
Spoilers: None really.
Summary: There are always reasons to appreciate all things, both new and old.
Author's Note: One Earth year equals 0.74 Minbari cycles. The Minbari words and phrases were found at the "JumpNow" website in John Hightower's Minbari dictionary. Though, not all are direct translations.
Candlelight Ivory
Neroon had never before understood the Human obsession with maintaining and still using their ancient buildings, especially anything they referred to as a "cabin" or "hunting lodge", and he had always been dismissive of the Human obsession to Holiday in such ancient "death traps" as he called them. After all, these ancient Terran dwellings were such fragile, rickety things; made of wood, and in some cases, wood and "daub" – a fancy Human word for mud – of all things, as they were. He'd always thought of them as over-glorified mud huts that were little better than the rudimentary dwellings of emerging civilizations. They were not at all like their stately and dignified Minbari counterparts, which had been painstakingly and lovingly hand-hewn from the living rock and crystal deposits of the Minbari mountain chains over the passing generations.
Marcus had had to literally drag him against his will to this one, in the dead of Earth's northern winter no less, and even after seeing the modern and extremely luxurious sanitary and culinary amenities he had still refused to change his opinion. Now, though, he was beginning to understand. Now, reclining as he was on a gigantic Human style bed, with his mate sated and exhausted and literally draped over him, his Human skin glistening in the candle and firelight, he was truly beginning to understand. Oh, yes, for it was not so much the connection to the past that these ancient buildings represented that the Humans cherished. No, it was the sheer decadence of ages gone by that was still inherent in them and that the Humans still longed for.
For instance, where else could you find a rug made from the hide and fur of an arctic beast so rare now that the Human zoologists were desperately trying to keep the species viable through cloning and genetic manipulation? Or a massive stone laid hearth that still burned actual wood? Or beds whose mattresses had been stuffed with the down of just as rare waterfowl and whose bedding had been made from true organic silks and whose coverings had been made from the unbelievably luxurious pelts of extremely rare Terran mammalians called sables? And where else on the over-populated Earth but at these isolated Holiday locations could you truly feel as though you had peace and privacy?
Oh, yes, Neroon was truly beginning to understand now, because nowhere else could he have seen his beloved mate in such a state. Nowhere else could he have seen all the masks come off and nowhere else had Marcus ever let go of all his inhibitions before. And nowhere else had Marcus looked more becoming than in this ancient hunting lodge, laid out on that sable bed throw that matched his equally luxurious hair and beard; all flushed ivory, glistening rose and sparkling emeralds, a carnal feast laid out in barbaric splendor just for him. The sight had been such a primal call, and it had made their loving more intense than any that had come before. Oh, yes, looking down into the sated, peacefully sleeping face of his beloved, the Warrior finally understood the Humans' obsession and began to share in their attraction for these ancient places.
End
