Author's Notes: One of the ridiculous songfics I wrote in 2006 to a Gin Blossoms song. Heavily edited, but still not quite quality literature. ;D It occasionally makes me smile. Oh, old teenage writings...
Rosethorn sighed as she sauntered down Winding Circle's namesake path. It seemed such a mundane task. Behind her lay the Hub, where all her worries and concerns were presently contained. Those interdisciplinary meetings ate at her mind. What would she do when all the pressure completed its steady build up and had to escape somehow, as pressure was wont to do?
She prayed she'd lose her mind; at least then it wouldn't be so muddled and misty, like a ruddy Water Dedicate's. With a grin, she kept on her way to Discipline Cottage. She was leaving the pressures behind her in that tall glass building: it could collect her stress the way it did sunlight and mercifully, despite the glass, no one would see it. She just wouldn't go throwing stones was all.
Sunlight. An ironic thought as a drop of rain splashed across the bridge of her nose. She looked up at the sky: cloudy. It must have clouded over while she was stuck up in that stuffy building. Rosethorn at last smiled at the rain; it was appreciated, as the temples hadn't been naturally watered in some time.
Up ahead, a tall figure in the green of Earth strode down the path, whistling and smiling away. Rosethorn's smile transformed into a grin.
"Lark!"
The woman looked up and winked, toying with her curling dark locks. "Rosethorn, m'love."
"Where are you off to?" Rosethorn inquired.
"To pick up some fire."
"Some fire?" her companion questioned further. Lark had reached her by that time; the woman bent to scoop Rosethorn up and hold her, firmly but gently.
"You."
There was desire in her dark eyes. Rosethorn melted into them as she smirked in a wry, almost dirty way.
"You haven't the faintestidea how much I'd value the release," she remarked, her eyes lighting up in kind.
"Haven't I?" Lark murmured. Her voice was low enough to be felt as vibrations through her chest. The humour of it combined with the intent of her gaze made Rosethorn keenly aware of their contact.
She regretted the need for her next words: "Put me down, Lark, or they'll be talking about us at the next meeting."
Lark feigned a stricken look and clasped her chest once she had released Rosethorn. "Not again."
Rosethorn's lips twitched. "You could have the decency to pretend at shame."
"I can't," Lark stated decisively. She smiled down at Rosethorn, gaze somehow both affectionately warm and heated by her passions. "Not if it means being the slightest bit ashamed of what I do with you. I'm shameless." She ducked down and pressed her smile to Rosethorn's short-cropped hair. "And most times, so are you."
Rosethorn's cheeks were slightly less pale as Lark pulled back. When the woman's fingers brushed Rosethorn's, she held them fast, locking their fingers together. She took the rest of her journey down Winding Circle's namesake path in good company, her stresses half-forgotten and her pent-up pressure building toward only the sweetest of releases.
Hours later Rosethorn roused from her deep, comfortable sleep and sat up in bed. The cloth of the sheets seemed to embrace her; the mattress seemed particularly soft.
The sky was dark through the window. Stepping carefully out of bed, so as to not wake the slumbering bird beside her, she walked to the window.
A flock of dark birds flew across the sky and all its shades of blue and black. Amongst the group there was one light—almost virginal white—bird. Rosethorn smiled. It held no great meaning to her, just a bunch of loony birds flying in the rain, except that the sight offered her comfort.
She looked to the bed and her face softened to see the sleeping form of Lark. Rosethorn couldn't fathom where she would have been without those steady, gentle arms and meticulous hands. Fertile ground, she thought, to the closest she would ever come again to putting down roots.
Even Rosethorn had to concede after a moment that she was indeed rooted, beautifully planted, in a way she never had been before—not at home or since. She hadn't known then—before meeting Lark—how lost she'd been, how she had drifted about as a seed in a storm's grasp. But if home was where the heart was—
"Mmm, Rosie?" Lark mumbled into the near-darkness. Rosethorn could hear the slight smile in the woman's voice.
"Coming, love."
Rosethorn walked to the bed and straddled Lark at the hips, leaning over to brush her thumb lightly over the woman's cheek.
"There you are," Lark said slowly as she smiled up at Rosethorn.
"Here I am," Rosethorn replied as she steadily dropped her face to Lark's. Their breath mingled and warmed the other's mouth; they both smiled at the heat as their lips finally locked.
Rosethorn grinned as a choice struck her. Love her tenderly or…do something else, with a bit more oomph? The thought of her driving a wagon came to mind: why not drive? There was nowhere to hide in this dark and intimate room; she could let her passions out as she pleased, and all without shame, just as Lark had teased.
"Ready to have some more fun?" she asked as she wiggled her hips from side to side over Lark's, then up and down. The woman laughed in response and put her hands over Rosethorn's undulating hips.
"As always," she responded in a purr and sat up to kiss Rosethorn.
"I'd be incredibly tame if you weren't so insatiable."
"As it should be. I never, ever want to see a tame Rosethorn."
The clouds shifted and bathed the room around them in ethereal silver light. Rosethorn bent to smile into Lark's golden-brown collarbone and lap at the dried sweat there. Sometimes, she decided, the only way to realise how lost you are is to find the right sign—whether it be by moon and stars, or something else.
With the way Lark's face lit up at Rosethorn's exploratory touches, she concluded that she had found the right sign indeed. Just as Rosethorn took delight in seeing the 'Discipline Cottage' sign every day—the one Lark had painted—she was equally excited to visit and revisit the sign she had found in her new companion.
Judging by the speed of Lark's low, shallow moans against Rosethorn's neck and the grasping hands upon her back, Lark agreed.
Thank you for reading! Any reviews are appreciated immensely.