Please read this A/N!:
This chapter took longer than expected to get out due to unforseen circumstances. Thank you all for sticking with me and being so patient and supportive.
This chapter is dedicated to Danni-Bunny, who has been my number one supporter from the very start. I hope this temporarily satisfies your cravings for my M-rated works. At least until I can write chapter 5. ;)
Shoutout to SenchaTunes, whose music got me over the hump and inspired the majority of this chapter. You can find her stunning arrangements here: /senchatunes
A huge thank you to my wonderful betas for this chapter, A_Reptile_Dysfunction and ReisPinkOveralls00, without whom it would not be nearly as beautiful.
***MORE AUTHOR'S NOTES AT THE END***
"Usako."
There was that name again. It had been floating around for some time now. Had she heard it before today? Who called her that?
Three little syllables, so simple, repeated over and over; suspended in her hazy consciousness like campfire smoke, slow and lazy as it rises to a diamond sky. Creeping closer to the surface of her awareness. Again they sounded, again and again, thumping in her chest, rubbing warm circles against her cheeks, coaxing her into their adoring caress.
All at once, Usagi became violently aware that her world was shaking. Her eyelids strained against the swimming images and her every muscle ached as she continued to slam against the hard surface that seemingly surrounded her.
But it wasn't the Earth, she realized. It was her. Her own body was convulsing with nauseating clenches, every muscle seizing, vomit threatening to climb out of her throat. Her flesh was stinging, burning, a million shards of ice buried in her very cells, duplicating and multiplying into an exponential force. Somewhere behind the all-encompassing agony was an awareness of a more acute pain in her forearm, the one place of her body that felt alarmingly hot.
The walls that restrained her tightened, holding her flailing limbs snug against her shaking frame and minimizing the blows, preventing further damage to her battered body. A gentle hum of energy buzzed in her bones as a golden glow appeared on the other side of her clenched eyelids, soaking through her skin like thick, delicious honey. It engulfed her, swaddled her in reassuring warmth. Slowly, the tremors wracking her body receded and the biting pain with them. Soon, her discomfort reduced to a dull ache, her convulsions a subtle shiver. The fire in her arm extinguished. And then, as quickly as it appeared, the healing light dissipated.
There was a soothing hush in her ears as those protective walls stroked her arms–
Not walls. Hands. Firm, strong, gentle, warm hands. Safe hands. Healing hands. Loving hands. Long fingers tracing remembered paths on her skin. The heat of a bare, chiseled chest pressed against the length of her naked back, skin to skin; the source of her warmth. It was new, yet familiar, like the notes of a melody long forgotten played over a distant speaker, dancing in the back of your mind, unable to place just where you had initially heard it, but your feet remembered the steps.
Usagi's brain had yet to fully return to reality, her soul drifting somewhere between the past and the present, floating along the ethereal waves of time as her body temperature continued to hover dangerously low and his hands rubbed determinedly against every inch of her naked skin, the friction stroking to life the flames that lay dormant beneath.
—
His warmth radiated through her like the cherished sunshine, both tingling luxuriously on her bare back in a weave of peace. A precious breeze tossed her tresses about the grass and tickled her skin in tandem with calloused, skilled fingertips, the result of years of combat training. They traced down each vertebrae of her spine, over the dip in her lower back and the crest of her bottom, across her bare thighs. She squirmed as he found an especially sensitive spot, a languid giggle bubbling up from her relaxed throat.
"Stop that, it tickles," the Princess chided.
"That is precisely why I am doing it." The vibration of his voice was deeply sensual, soothing and exciting her simultaneously.
She released the blades of grass she had been fondling in her fingers, watching with idle interest as they floated away on the wind. Pulling her hands beneath her to prop up on the blanket, she took a good, long look at the man beside her. His obsidian hair ruffled in the same breeze that danced with her own, twirling it into an uncharacteristic, charming messy mop above sapphire eyes as deep as his planet. His olive skin, unshielded from her gaze, stretched over the expanse of his toned chest, his muscled shoulders and enticing, corded neck. The Prince's whole body, from lean arms to impressive thighs, was on full display for her appreciative gaze and she found it hard to believe that she herself was a goddess when the most godlike creature to ever exist now lay before her.
Their only company was a solitary oak tree. Its heavy branches spanning in all directions would have offered respite from the hot sun if they moved just a few feet to the right. Not that she wanted it. This woman from the Moon loved the sun and the way it heated her through to her core. She loved the kiss of the wind, the prick of the grass. She loved everything about her forbidden trips to this miraculous planet and its Prince, and she would not miss a single, luxurious experience, her "fair complexion" be damned.
Her gaze lingered on his tantalizing smirk, those beautiful lips that tugged at something behind her navel, reawakening a part of herself that she thought had been fully sated just minutes before.
"Should you wish to keep your hands, I suggest you keep them to yourself," the Princess warned, her powers no secret to either of them.
A true Son of the Earth, the Prince was not one to follow orders, clearly, as here he was on the wrong side of the castle gates, shirking his princely duties to lay naked in broad daylight with the untouchable Princess of the Moon. His smirk flashed into a devious grin and he traded his gentle caress for a possessive clutch of her thigh.
"I do not get to see you nearly enough. As such, I shall touch you when I want to touch you." His voice was hard, but playful, and she intimately knew the tender heart behind his dominating presence.
The Princess swallowed the lustful smile that threatened to blow her cover, despite the fact that she was almost certain her heartbeat could be heard like horse hooves all the way on the other side of the castle walls.
"You will do as your Princess commands," she ordered, freeing her leg from his grasp and pinning his wrist to the blanket between them. Her loose hair cascaded down her back and she reveled in its freedom. Rising to her knees, she threw one leg over his hips, straddling him, and felt him grow hard beneath her still swollen core. "Or else I shall wait a whole week before I return."
His smile vanished, a grimace in its place, exposing a set of perfectly white teeth and narrowing his cobalt eyes. "You wouldn't," her lover challenged, bringing his hands to her hips and pulling her to grind against him.
She did her best to resist, to cover the hitch in her breath at the blatant contact, but it was useless. They both knew she couldn't go more than forty-eight hours without visiting him. And he was no better at loneliness than she was. Her heart resided here, on this planet, with her Earthly Prince, and she left it behind each time she returned home.
With as much vigor as her soul allowed, she once again removed his hands, this time pinning both above his head, weaving her fingers through the blades of grass, her nipples dangerously close to his mouth. She placed a light kiss on his temple and he arched to maintain contact with her folds.
"Of course not," the Princess conceded, releasing him and trailing her fingers up the smooth undersides of his forearms, bringing her forehead to rest against his brow. "But it is fun to play, isn't it?"
She straightened up and flung her impossibly long hair behind her shoulders before raking her nails down his devastating figure. "Will you behave? We both know I am not large enough to hold you down."
All pretense gone, a cheerful smile radiated from his face, as warm and bright as the beaming sun above them. He locked his hands beneath his head in a show of compliance, the picture of satisfaction.
"Yes, my Princess, do as you wish with me."
With a mirroring smile, she plunged down on his length, groaning in pleasure at the relief his length gave to her throbbing need. They made love for the third time that afternoon, their bodies and souls entwined, bearing an addictive energy she could never fully comprehend. Her heart and her core full to bursting, she rode him until she couldn't any longer, the muscles in her thighs spent from their love making and the excessive gravity of this planet, and she collapsed onto his chest.
But he wasn't finished. Neither of them were.
The Prince of Earth rolled his Princess expertly beneath him, the strength of one arm holding her impossibly close, never breaking the connection of their bodies. Not even as the sunlight dissipated and the scene changed, earth and grass exchanged for fine silk and exquisite pillows, drapes of white and silver nearly enclosing them in their own little world. She needed him. Desperately. It had been too long. And watching him from across the room for an hour had been divine torture, her mother's expectant gaze monitoring her every move. Silver light gleamed through the windows and caught in his eyes, dancing off his irises in iridescent blue that never wavered from her face. He hitched one of her legs behind the knee and secured it over his shoulder, diving even deeper into his Goddess.
That was what she needed: to be even closer to him than she already was. So close that they no longer felt like two separate bodies. Just one being, one complete soul. An irrepressible moan sounded on her lips and he swallowed it, burying her sounds of delight in his kiss. When she quieted, he slipped one hand into her hair behind her ear and stroked her lobe with his thumb.
"They will find us if you cannot be quiet." His words were admonishing, but gentle. And correct. Their absence at the banquet would not go unnoticed for long, and her ecstatic cries would lead her senshi right to her bedchamber. These secret trysts were always far more difficult on the Moon and she cursed her overprotective guardians in her mind. It was much simpler for him to slip away from his various tasks than for her to evade the most highly trained warriors in the solar system.
A deep thrust of his hips brought her back to him and her hands found their way to his hair, securing into his thick locks. He closed his eyes at her touch and met her with another irresistible thrust.
"How can I possibly be quiet when you are doing that to me?"
The Earthly Prince burrowed into her so deeply that it felt as if he was reaching right through her body and breaching her heart over and over again in the most agonizing, gratifying, delectable way. She stared into his eyes just as she stared at that blue orb in the endless sky every night that she was not with him, the glow within each of them seemingly her source of all life. If he stopped thrusting into her, she would perish. If he ever left her world, she would cease to live. She knew that to be true as surely as she knew her own name.
And she told him such. After the sheets beneath her evaporated again and her face pressed into the icy marble of the outer palace walls. After reaching her peak and moaning on the fist she clenched in her teeth to stifle the sound. After he shuddered out her name and collapsed against her back with kisses to her neck.
After he pledged his love and fealty in her ear. After she straightened her gown that he had fisted up against the palace pillar. After he replaced his pants and his armor.
After long, plaintive kisses hidden in the alcove while the cry of war echoed from somewhere much too close.
She told him she could not live without him. Promised him she would not live without him.
She saw the understanding in his broken eyes and the resolve in his stone features. She watched as his knuckles flexed white around the hilt of his sword. She choked back a sob as he promised to save her or lose his life in the process.
"I love you, Serenity." His jaw was set. His face was that of a man about to face a battle from which he knew he would not return. Dropping to his knees, he clutched her hands in his, kissing them briefly before lowering his head in reverence. "I swear on my mother's grave, I swear on my own life, I swear on the planet Earth that I shall protect you for all eternity. This will not be goodbye. Death will not separate us. I will return to you, in one form or another, I promise."
She fell to her own knees, the cracked stone tearing her gown, and wrenched her hands from his grip, choosing instead to lift his gaze to hers, cradling his face in her shaking hands. Unshed tears shone in his painfully blue eyes while hers fell unchecked, splattering against the stone beneath them.
"Do not leave me, Endymion. I cannot bear it." Another sob ripped through her chest though she futilely fought against it, willing her composure to return, to summon strength she no longer had. Everyone else had perished, lost to the great evil that had destroyed their every hope of happiness. He was all she had left in this world, in the entire universe. And he mattered above all else.
Above her own life.
"You must stay safe, my Princess. You must live." He brought her palm to his lips as her tears continued to fall, pressing as much love and energy as he could into his final pledge. Then he dropped her hand and rose, unsheathing his sword, turning toward the sound of battle.
"No, Endymion! I will not live without you!" Her cries echoed off the crumbled palace walls, carried into the crimson sky. She reached desperately for his hand, gasping for him like he was her air. Watching her life begin to slip away. "We will go together! Fight together! I can heal them, we can save them–"
Her pleas were silenced by the blood-curdling wail of a vile woman with screaming scarlet hair.
Blood on his sword.
His blood.
Her blood.
"No," Usagi murmured. "No, no, no." She twisted fitfully, trying to shake the intrusive memory from her mind, but it clutched at her with its wicked claws, dark fingernails holding her captive.
Then a calming hush purred in her ear, warming her neck. But she was nearly immune to it. The warmth couldn't melt the ice that had crusted over her heart.
"Not again." She was whimpering, feeling the loss anew. Her beloved Endymion, dead in her arms. Then her beloved Mamoru, his still head in her lap. One and the same, yet entirely different. Unimaginable agony had returned. She was losing him all over again. "Please stay, Mamoru. Don't leave me again." Hot tears spilled down her cheeks and she shook, but not from cold.
Warmth embraced her, held her on all sides. She felt it in her back, her arms, her legs.
"It's okay, Usagi. I'm here. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
His lips brushed the shell of her ear as he spoke, his voice slowly sinking into her awareness and soothing her panic. Yet she couldn't quite break through the final layer of her consciousness. Her eyes flitted open, but she couldn't make sense of anything around her, the shapes and colors refusing to align with reality. She couldn't tell where she was or what was happening, but she knew Mamoru was there.
He was there. He kept his promise.
He came for her.
In her flickering consciousness, Mamoru was all that existed. His mere presence alone would have been enough, but she was graced by his warmth. His voice. His touch. Once again, he had saved her. Once again, he protected her. And she settled into that comfort, settled into his safe chest and delectable scent, determined to never again let him be taken from her. Regardless of how stupid the two of them could be.
Her pillow was firm–his arm?–and cradled her head just the right way, as if it was built to hold her. His other arm was wrapped protectively around her stomach, their hips fitted together like a pair of spoons in a drawer, his legs tangled with hers. Finally returned to her body and no longer drifting, Usagi felt safe in Mamoru's embrace. She was home. The ferocious grip on her muscles released and her limbs were limp in his hold.
She was perfectly content. The smell of cedar and pine crackled around her, either from a fire or his own scent, she wasn't sure. Exquisite tingles floated down her body as his fingers slipped through her hair. The blanket of Mamoru's skin was comforting, and she felt herself drifting once again, this time headed toward sleep.
Then he began to sing.
It started as a low hum, notes of earthy amber resonating in his chest, vibrating against her back, lulling her deeper. After a few bars, the notes became words. A language she didn't understand, but familiar. One she had heard before. A rich baritone. An ancient melody. A lullaby. Untrained, but clear, his voice carried her to sleep with a promise she recognized in her heart.
"Elgara vallas, da'len
Melava somniar
Mala taren aravas
Ara ma'desen melar
Iras ma ghilas, da'len
Ara ma ne'dan ashir
Dirthara lothlenan'as
Bal emma mala dir
Tel'enfenim, da'len
Irassal ma ghilas
Ma garas mir renan
Ara ma'athlan vhenas
Ara ma'athlan vhenas"
***NOTES***
When this image first came to mind, I pictured Mamoru singing a Gaelic lullaby that he remembered from his previous life as Endymion. But in my YouTube searching, I stumbled upon this, and it was just so beautiful and perfect. And perhaps the fact that it is a fictional language is even more fitting.
The song is "Mir Da'len Somniar," a Dalish lullaby from the world of Dragon Age. I beg of you, please listen to it. You can watch the video here: watch?v=URLTKeKcNPo
Translation of the lyrics:
"Sun sets, little one
Time to dream.
Your mind journeys,
But I will hold you here.
Where will you go, little one,
Lost to me in sleep?
Seek truth in a forgotten land,
Deep within your heart.
Never fear, little one,
Wherever you shall go.
Follow my voice-
I will call you home.
I will call you home."