Prompt: #9 Heaven
Summary: The trials, the fights and the victories they have faced together have brought them to this.
A/N: This is from The Eclipse Series. After Matrimonium and before the Epilogue.
Caelum, as everyone has already looked up, is Latin for "Heaven".
Caelum
The morning rays of a new day stretch across the carpeted floor. The soft, gossamer curtains do very little to keep the light out. They cannot deny this coming approach of burning light. A new start. A new life was dawning. The night had been used to consummate the union and fulfill the promise of this new beginning. One part of their lives had ended, the solitary part, and now, another journey had begun. This moment forward, it was always to be together and never again, alone. The freshness of this is shown in the warm rays stretching out towards them now. Soon, they would awaken and step out of doors to inhale the light, fresh crispness of it. This was a hopeful beginning. Not yet though. Soon, they will venture out, but not yet. There are things more precious. There are things more pressing that make the hope emerging outside inferior and less important.
Sonnets were created to profess this praise. Poems were formed with the boasts of this passion. Yet, none seem to do this justice. None seem to describe this to the fullest. No matter how eloquent. No matter how lyrical. No matter how accented. They all paled in comparison to this. No words ever formed could ever express this. Nothing could do this justice.
"And nothing could ever replace it," he whispers in a deep and doubtless voice.
He could almost envy the dream she was so obviously having in her slumber as he watches her. There was a jealous twinge within him that it had claimed her and taken her away from him. Taken her away to a place that he could not follow. She was not to leave him, not even to a dream. Not when he was selfish. She was his as he was hers. Two halves finally brought together to become whole. They could never be shared. He wanted to be there with her, if there she would be. There was no contentment to be left with only her frame. That could not satisfy. It was more than her shell that he desired and loved. It was all of her. He could not have one without the other. No matter the form, the kindred that she was would have always drawn him. It was that inner strength and inside person that he so dearly loved.
As much as he wished her to leave her dreamworld and come back to him, he also does not wish to wake her. Her dreams were obviously pleasant ones. He who only knew nightmares before, appreciated even the most trivial of dreams. The look of peace and contentment in her face is one that should not be interrupted and the dream, the lovely dream, that ensnared her now was richly deserved. He had given her too much turmoil. So he allows her brief respite because it is one of many things that he owes her. He owes her a dream come true.
A soft moan escapes her sensual lips and he closes his eyes as he feels a rush of pleasure coarse through him from her. She may not be conscious, but he could still feel what she felt. He feels these things now as if they were his own feelings. In a way, he supposes, they are. Their hearts were so in harmony that her feelings would always be his own. She was now his wife. She was now to him as his body was to him. She was now his own flesh.
When he opens his eyes, he is greeted with the sparkling blue of her eyes. Within their depths he sees his own emotions shining back at him. It was the this. This, the thing that nothing could ever describe. To be loved as deeply and as equally as you did love, was the greatest possession in life. It is a warmth. It is a shelter. It is a heaven. Within the confines of this bed, within the sheets that cover their bodies, there is this heaven. Their shared bliss and the bright future they were to share together. That was the this.
"I could almost thank Etro," she whispers unexpectedly. Her eyes are slowly tracing the features of his face in awed appreciation.
"Why?" he inquires. He does not think he will ever hear that name without the anger. If there was ever a being that deserved such resentment, it was that thing.
"If we were brought together under easier circumstances, I do not think I would truly appreciate this gift," she explains.
"Perhaps not," this he can agree on, but he would never consider any sort of thanks to that evil.
"I could have loved you less," she says, smoothing out his confused frown as her hand traces his brow. "Because even within this moment, with my heart so full for you, I know I could love you more."
The sentiment rushes the air to his lungs because he understands that sense of fullness that she speaks of. He too, could have loved her less but he knows he could love her more. His love was not done.
"I may burst with all this love," he says lightly, to get a smile from her.
Smile she does. "Mean to the end," she accuses with a false pout, while moving to press herself closer to him.
The softness of her skin against his, weakens him. He cannot suppress the urge to touch the very same places he had learned the night before. Her fingers lower to stroke the lines of his collarbone while his hand glides across the natural silk of her white skin. He knows his eyes have darkened as they follow the paths his hands are taking. The need to caress is soon replaced with the desire to possess.
"I have been deceived," he professes.
"How?" she asks. Her voice is breathy and distracted. He knows he only has half her attention as his hands work to claim her.
"I was told once that I was settling for a girl."
She makes a sound of amusement before it changes to a gasp of pleasure. Her back arches, causing her body to lift as if in offering to him. As tempting as the image is, he does not lower his lips to kiss her. His hands continue their movements and his eyes drag over her form in silent reverence.
"Do not...tell me...I have become an angel," she manages to say between moans before paying him back with her own hands, causing him to groan.
"You and Etro have been miscast in this play," he explains. He is almost too caught up in sensation that he has to close his eyes a moment to focus, because he is resolved to say this. "You are the goddess and she is the mere girl."
"What are you?" she manages to gasp out.
He stops the movement of his hands and smiles down at her.
"The one whose lips were made to worship you," he says, as he finally lowers his lips to her body to pay his homage.