Her lips were a subtle glory at first, hesitant and light. When he returned her kiss, her lips became more urgent. Iveren knew what the consuming hunger of the Void was like. The sudden strength in her arms and the fervor of her embrace spoke of another hunger, another need that he'd forgotten. Then, she rolled out from beneath the hides and he started to remember.
Iveren embraced her again and rolled his head back as her mouth found his neck. Ahn-Ahru's teeth ran lightly across the base of his throat. Her fingers gripped his sides, his arms, his chest as if she was in danger of falling if she didn't keep ahold of him. She was making his head spin and he wasn't even moving.
Her skin beneath his hands was hot, almost feverish. Iveren knew the potency of his Charms and knew she couldn't be sick but he marveled at how her body burned against his. He felt his way down her back, tracing the ridge of her spine until he reached the base. She swung a leg across his hips and his hands found a hold on hers. Iveren broke the hold of her mouth and took a moment just to look at her.
Ahn-Ahru was not like any woman he'd ever seen before. Her tan was all-encompassing, suggesting a natural skin color, and her nipples were strangely lighter in color, almost a pale pink. The black-brown of her hair fell across her body, parted at the neck, framing the lean, toned body without concealing any part of it. She was soft like a woman, from her pleasingly wide hips to her surprisingly full breasts, yet she was hard too. Tight muscle lay beneath the appearance of vulnerable femininity, from her arms to her legs and stomach. Even the space below her belly button all the way down to her sex had definition. And, except for the strange curtain of dark locks on her head, she was completely hairless...even down there. He'd never seen such a thing before.
Her breath quickened under Iveren's scrutiny. Did she like being looked at? She shifted and he felt the trail of warm slickness she left on his stomach. She definitely liked something! All other thought fled when Ahn-Ahru's backwards motion halted against his cock. The pressure of her ass against it made it throb almost painfully. His body had slumbered so long...he wondered if he could survive being this alive again.
With her hands on his chest, she pushed herself up a little. Iveren rose on his elbows, moving her back, and he closed his mouth over one of her nipples. He could feel her shudder. The bud was as delicate as it looked, yet stiff against his tongue, a perfect parallel for Ahn-Ahru. She was balanced across his waist, not quite sitting on him and definitely not relaxed. His cock was pinned between her legs and he felt her wetness across the base of it as he suckled her.
Ahn-Ahru's hand took his and urgently pressed it against her sex. She groaned as she rubbed herself against his fingers. Iveren ran his tongue across the edges of her nipple in a circle while he tried to think of what to do. Certainly, he'd had sex before but not with a woman like this. Not with one who wanted...what she wanted.
It didn't seem to matter. His fingers pushed across an unfamiliar terrain of slick flesh and she only moaned more. Iveren pushed a finger inside her and her whole body flexed, outside and in. Ahn-Ahru's pussy felt so soft but the grip of her muscles around his buried finger was surprisingly strong. It was another parallel to the woman herself and she fascinated him with her rich contradictions.
Then, she reached behind herself and took hold of his cock. Iveren felt himself harden into steel as she slowly squeezed him. He pulled his finger out of her pussy and groaned when she pushed her ass back against his sex. Ahn-Ahru straightened and then she slid down his length.
Iveren's hands came to rest on her wide hips. The woman with purple eyes and a sad face seemed past all her pain as she rocked back and forth on top of him. So was he. How could he have forgotten this? In a life that had become so crowded with death, nothing put a lie to the Void like being with this woman. He knew the Philosophies, hated them, and he burned his doubts away stroke by aching stroke. Her quiet whimpers as she thrust herself down on him silenced the Whispers in his mind until all that was left was the burning need to spill his seed into her. It was a natural need and it was the best proof that death was not the whole answer.
He ground his teeth and fisted his hands to avoid coming. It was almost agony, for this wasn't a stray orgasm to satisfy an urge. This was affirmation that life had a point. But even if he was a monster, Iveren wasn't selfish. Ahn-Ahru needed to be more than a vessel, just as she needed to be more than a weapon. If he could just concentrate...
...there. The Exalted woman who'd almost died last night never seemed more alive than she did right at that moment. The pitch of her cries rose, her rising and falling hips slowed even as they grew more forceful. He could feel her dampness trickling down his cock every time she rose up. Ahn-Ahru's hands pressed against his stomach and a powerful grimace broke the tragic lines of her face.
Oh, Gods.
Iveren's seed felt like a moving avalanche as he lost control. He pulled forcibly down on her hips and pounded his cock into her a dozen times...and then he erupted. Iveren spurted into her twice before he felt an answering squeeze, a sudden pressure that he pushed through. Ahn-Ahru wasn't moaning now, just uttering short, demanding grunts. She ground herself down against him, as hard as she could, and she kept doing it even after the crest of his orgasm subsided into a dizzy euphoria. He watched in wonderment as she kept trying to cry out, as she looked wracked with an unspeakable pleasure.
At last, she abruptly punched the hide-covered ground to either side of his stomach, leaned forward and groaned loudly. Ahn-Ahru gasped her next breath and she collapsed across him to pant against his chest. Though the snow-covered shelter felt searing now, Iveren reached around her and tightened his arms, keeping her sweat-dampened body pressed against him.
The day passed. They lay entwined, as new lovers do and rarely do again after. She seemed to sleep on his chest and Iveren dozed himself until he woke suddenly to realize he was hard again. Ahn-Ahru's head stirred and she met his eyes as she slipped him back inside of her. The sex that followed was hard and powerful. She slammed herself down on top of him until he flipped her on her back. It was raw and primal and it was still the opposite of death.
Inevitably, as life reminded those of it who had it, that it was necessary to maintain it. It was close to twilight when she at last pulled away from his embrace and made her way to the door. Iveren watched her go, watched her pause and give her Starmetal Powerbow a look just as hard as his had been. Then, pointedly, she looked away from it and pushed out a few blocks of snow to get outside.
They took turns cleaning up in general, taking care of nature and taking care of each other. Neither of them spoke for a time. Iveren used his woodaxe to cut lumber to build a fire and Ahn-Ahru fished out his cooking utensils and started a stew with what ingredients he'd brought with him. His eyebrows rose as he watched her deftly mix and prepare the food. She was obviously experienced at cooking on the trail, maybe better than he was by the way the food turned out. She'd even softened up the biscuits and they ate silently.
And then, Ahn-Ahru began talking about her childhood and the devastation left upon Creation by the Great Contagion and the Faerie Host. She talked about her whole family line wiped out by the plague and how one day Heaven had taken her up to make sure it never happened again. Secret after incomprehensible secret dripped from her lips and Iveren listened raptly. She spoke of her bitter loneliness, the terrible things she'd done in her life and why she bore the name Sad Ivory.
"You're alive, Ahn-Ahru," Iveren said, when the stars came out and she had finished telling her life's story. He'd said nothing until then, for it was clear that she needed more than anything someone to simply listen to her. "What do you want now?"
"You." They were huddled together under his hides and the fire made her eyes seem like the magenta of the long-past dusk. "No more weapon for people who want me dead. I should have died and I live because of you. So I want to live with you."
"I'd like that," Iveren said. It was true, too. He was stunned to realize he didn't want to die anymore. All of his sins, all the weight of evil that dripped from his hands was gone. The plain and honest passion of a woman who needed him had burned it up.
"Someday, I'd like to know why you wanted to die, Iveren."
His name cracked through his body and Iveren doubled over with the pain of it. The frenzied Whispers of the Neverborn crawled out of the corners of his mind and he knew then that he should have realized something like this was coming. Every time he affirmed life, death was the result...and he'd just spent a day doing the most alive activity a man could do. His name was the final trigger.
The snow broke open in a circle around him, more than a dozen yards wide. White turned red and blood stained the ground as half of the circle bled. The pain diminished and Iveren looked across the sign of his Caste Mark drawn across the ground. Drops fell past his eyes and he touched his forehead. His fingers came away wet with blood and he sighed at the sight.
"Ahn-Ahru?" Iveren called, when he realized she wasn't near him anymore. "Ahn-Ahru?" He turned and saw she stood by the shelter, the Starmetal Powerbow drawn back. She had the coldest look he'd ever seen on a woman's face and she was ready to kill him where he stood.
"My name is Sad Ivory." They stared at each other for a long minute. He made no gesture toward a weapon. She had him cold and he would live or die on her sufferance alone. At last, tears cracked her stony visage. "Why?"
"I was the champion of my tribe," Iveren said. "And since my people were a tribe of the Tear-Eaters, excellence brought me to the attention of the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears. She offered me power to protect my people and their interests. I accepted."
"You...chose to become a demon?" Ahn-Ahru's teeth were bared in a snarl but her anger was betrayed by the steady streams of water from her eyes.
"Yes. And I did terrible things in the Lover's service, Ahn-Ahru. That's why I came here. I wanted to see the great trees before I died. Ever since I was a boy, I'd always heard stories of the great redwoods of Halta. I guess I'll never make it to their borders but I can see the trees well enough now."
"Yes, they are." For some reason, her voice was even more choked. A profound sense of empathy almost made him reach for her. But she still held the Starmetal powerbow. "I see now, at last." Ahn-Ahru laughed bitterly. "No wonder the stars showed my death. Your fate might be written in the Loom but your Charms aren't. You healed me, didn't you?"
"I came to die and lived. You were going to die and lived. I don't know what that is," Iveren said. "But I know what I feel."
"And I know that I have spent centuries killing your kind, wherever you spring up!"
"Then you've killed enough of...monsters like me. Don't be their weapon anymore." Iveren held up his hand to stall her angry protest. "Let me live until dawn. And after I die...I want you to promise me something."
"What?" she asked.
"Live." Her eyes dropped at the word. "I want you to live, Ahn-Ahru." Iveren took a deep breath and let it out, watching the mist billow away from his exhalation. His soul would be leaving in just the same way soon, before Oblivion claimed it. "You've told me of Sad Ivory, the Chosen of Endings who died in battle. Let her stay dead. Why not let Ahn-Ahru live for a while?"
"I can't promise you that," she said and she sobbed openly in front of him. "For a...for a single day, I turned away from my destiny. And my Maiden Saturn reminds me of my duty...in the cruelest way possible. I should be used to it by now. There's no room for love in my life, Iveren." He flinched at the name. "You've just proved to me why it's so necessary I continue."
"I'm so sorry, Ahn-Ahru." Iveren hung his head. "I just wanted to die for my crimes and I wanted you...to be one last good act. I didn't expect you to change my life, you know."
"I didn't expect to fall in love with an Anathema," she said. "I guess we're both sorry."
After that, there was nothing more to say. Through the night, he tended to the fire and made no effort to escape. She never put down her powerbow but she did drop it. Maybe Ahn-Ahru knew he wasn't going to run. Or maybe she knew that, in the end, she was giving him what he wanted anyway.
The stars passed overhead and slowly night sky yielded to a brightening radiance in the East. The two of them watched the inching crawl of lighter blues, reds, yellows, and finally pure white as the Sun stretched and began His rise through the sky. Iveren squinted at the brilliance but refused to look away.
"It's magnificent, isn't it? The Sun, I mean." He didn't look at Ahn-Ahru but he felt her looking at him. "I always hated His gaze before...but I know He can see the sinner apart from the sin now. We were Solar once, Ahn-Ahru. The truth of the Abyssals is that we were stolen from a Jade Prison underwater by the Deathlords. A 100 of us were taken by the Deathlords, 50 were given to the Yozi's and the rest escaped. The rest escaped."
"And they're the reason for the rise of the Solar now," Ahn-Ahru finished. "I knew there was a connection...but I didn't know it was this. I didn't know how it happened."
"Now you know. I'm the real monster, Ahn-Ahru. But once...I think I can almost remember it. Once, I was someone beautiful and glorious, someone so pure and good it makes me want to weep. I know I can never be that person. I know what I deserve."
"You deserve a home, Iveren." For once, Ahn-Ahru's naming of him didn't hurt. "And a wife, a family, the things I know you've dreamed of. So do I. Iveren..." He looked away from the Sun, toward her, and saw her with an arrow ready. She was crying again. His tribe would have considered it weak but he saw the strength in that face, in the hand that held the bow. She was going to kill him, even if it broke her heart. "...I love you."
He nodded once and turned back to face the Sun. Iveren impulsively threw his coat aside and pulled off his shirt. He lifted his arms and closed his eyes, basking in the searing light of his real Father. Iveren smiled once, remembering the frozen woman he'd found and the one perfect day of his unholy life.
And then the Void took him.