Kathyra
I smile at the woman across from me as the sun begins to peer in the window. Both of us wear lines of the tears that have journeyed from the darkest center of the heart and out into the light. My spirit feels as though it is barely there, no longer weighed down by the burdens of secrets kept and times forgotten. There is a hollow ache in my soul, a sweet, sharp pain, as though speaking to Giselle has debrided the wounds there, prying out the infection allowed to fester over years of silence and fear.
"That is the sum of it." I confess, my voice hoarse with the hours of speaking, the sobs that had wracked my body and left me worn. "I have given you everything, Giselle. All that I can remember, that Leron's magic did not destroy. I have...I have nothing left."
She smiles, reaching out and running her hand down my arm, her fingers lingering over the defined muscle. "What are you feeling," She wonders, "now? In this moment? Tell me."
"Empty." I tell her. "Hollow. Void. I have held onto that pain for so long...I feel naked without it."
"Thank you." She brushes my hair out of my face. "Thank you for trusting me with this."
She leans in close and presses her lips against mine. I mold myself to the kiss, into the taste of her, citrus and cinnamon, all that is clear and bright. I expect her to break free, to end the moment, but her hand threads in my hair and she pulls me tighter against her, running the tip of her tongue across my lips, begging entrance.
I open my mouth and begin the tentative dance, frightened by the heat building within my body as she does not cease our connection, pulling her lips away, keeping her hands on my skin, anchoring me in her warmth and safety.
"Giselle...what..." I ask as her hand rests on my side, fingers curling beneath my breast, sending shockwaves and sparks downward and through me. "What are you doing?" The question leaves me in a rush.
"Giving back." She whispers. "Trust me." She begs. "Open her eyes."
I open my eyes and gaze at her, naked and lovely, painted in the golden morning light. There is nothing but brightness in her eyes, nothing but desire and beauty, and I tremble from the force of it.
"Once you tole me," She speaks, punctuating her words with kisses against my neck, "that shadows create their own darkness. Here, in the harsh light of day, Kathyra, trust me. Please. I will not harm you, I swear it."
She swore to me the same vow...when I first woke from Marjolaine's attack. And she has done nothing but prove those words to me, again and again and again...but I have given her nothing but all of my pain, all of my suffering and anguish. What else has she to offer me in return, but that same darkness.
"Beautiful heart." She presses her lips to my left breast, pillowing her head there and listening to the thrum of blood through my veins.
She reaches down and pulls my hand into her own, running her fingers across the calluses on my palm. Fire ripples through me from the delicacy of her touch and my body tenses in response. Immediately, her hand begins to rove over the taut muscles of my stomach, speaking a language of intimacy that I have never heard, soothing me without words, freeing the wire tight tension.
"Beautiful hands." She breathes.
"Giselle...I do not...I don't understand. What is happening?"
"Desire, my love." She answers, as sure and certain as she has ever been. "Look at me."
I meet her eyes, falling into the deep pools of green that have held me captive from the first.
"Put your hands on me." She says, and I comply, feeling helpless to do anything else, but, simultaneously, wanting to do nothing else.
"See?" She questions, grazing my lips again. "Your hands are unbound. Your body is free. What do you want?"
"You." I gasp, pulling her on top of me, kissing her with a ferocity I did not know I had within me.
In the light of day, I can see her so clearly, so clearly that all else fades. The hollow places in my soul cry out for something else, something new, begging to be filled, and not knowing what she offers, but wanting it regardless. Wanting what she spoke of...what she has always spoken of...beautiful things. Words of wisdom. Words of hope. Words of life and living that pulled a dying girl from the gutter of the city streets, from the brokenness of a past steeped in blood.
Her lips travel down my neck, her teeth grazing against my skin, not harsh, but teasing. A pit of hot coals builds deep within me and I ache for more of her beauty. Her lips close over the puckered flesh of my rigid nipple and I cry out, anguish and ecstasy, arching my body beneath her as she tugs at the hem of my trousers. I raise my hips and let the clothing come free, joining her in a complete nakedness, a complete union.
Her fingernails rake the skin of my inner thigh, light, without pain, as she moves her lips to my opposite breast, imparting the same tenderness. Breath comes short and harsh and fast and sweat breaks out on my skin as I feel her fingertips softly whisper over the hair between my legs.
She lifts her head. "Tell me your desires, my love." She says. "What do you want? What do you need, trickster?"
"I...I do not know." I gasp as her fingers move lower still.
Giselle smiles as she lifts her hand and paints her lips with the evidence of my desire. She leans forward and kisses me, letting me taste my own want, letting my mind see and understand the emotions I cannot convey with words. Offering me surety once again."
"I look at you," She whispers, "and I find nothing but beauty."
Gentle, she enters me, lingering for a moment as my entire body goes rigid, expecting harshness, expecting pain, expecting to find some remnant of the agony I had poured into her soul for surely, surely she cannot take such a thing within herself without returning it in equal measure.
"Look at me, my darling." She urges, beginning to move her fingers in a flowing, tantalizing rhythm. "Look into my eyes."
I gaze at her, and find her countenance aglow, her lips curved in a gentle smile, her eyes gleaming. "Before you," She distracts my mind, letting my body take over, letting me feel on every level of perception, "I thought myself content. I thought myself strong enough. A lone warrior, fighting her own battles, knowing no need, knowing no lack of anything. Oh, how wrong I was."
"Giselle," I reach out and cup her cheek, gasping as she curls her fingers up, touching me intimately, offering only pleasure and kindness and warmth.
"I wanted to save you, trickster." Tears fill her eyes. "I never thought...that it was I...who needed saving."
"I did..."
"Everything for me." Her pace increases and I pitch forward, unable to control my reactions, amazed that no fear blankets me, that no pain follow from her touch.
"You gave more purpose to my calling than I thought possible." She whispers against my ear. "You looked upon a woman of mixed blood and saw nothing but my soul and my spirit and you...you opened your heart to me."
A strange sensation takes over as Giselle leads me to the edge of a precipice that I have only ever guided others towards. The muscles of my legs begin to tremble, my back spasms in the same sweet rhythm of her hand.
"So let me give you this." She offers. "Let me take your pain, and give you what you have given me, though you knew it not." Her strokes are slow, powerful, deep, intense. "You fulfill me, my darling."
There are tears in my eyes now as she withdraws, leaving me nearly empty, desperate, shaking and helpless to do anything but meet the burning emotion in her eyes.
"I love you, Kathyra."
A single thrust of her fingers and I fall, overwhelmed as my vision goes dark, as I begin to sink towards the hollows in my spirit and soul, expecting the embrace of pain, the cushion of fear and finding...finding only light. Giselle's love envelops me and surrounds me, opening eyes blinded by years of torture and loneliness and sorrow. Comfort rushes in and takes the place of doubt. Peace floods over the raw, abraded earth, washing away hatred. Love swells over fear, drawing it within itself and extinguishing it, burning so bright that I can see nothing else.
"No shadows here." Giselle whispers as I weep in her embrace. "No hidden thoughts. When you open your eyes, my dearest, there will be nothing here but me, and the love I have for you."
I dare my eyes to open, and the world is new in the soft sunlight. Giselle's eyes glitter with hope and love and tears of her own.
For once, I can find no apology within me...all wrongs I have done, she has forgiven...she has erased it all. The demons that assail me now shall never find me weak again, or she has taken my pain, and strengthened me against it with the knowledge of her love.
"Giselle, I...I love you."
"I have never doubted that, trickster." She offers a slow, languid kiss. "Never once."
"I do not know how..."
"Then hush." She presses a finger to my lips. "And let the world be new for a moment. Sometimes, Kathyra...the sweetest song is silence."
I snuggle deep into her embrace, letting her arms wrap around me, letting her love surround me, watching through the window as the sun continues to rise...on a new day.
On a new life.
