Sometimes I don't know if the music I'm hearing is actually playing softly in the background, or maybe in the neighbor's bedroom, or if it's something ringing in my ears. It starts when I speak your name around your tongue and it rolls like the sea. Right over me.
...And the tidal wave has stopped...
I'm on a little skiff, drifting, moving as the world moves me for a while. Like a little boat on the wide ocean. This way. That way. To the rhythm of my fingers moving through your hair. I don't know if I've been sleeping, or even if I'm sleeping now. When I open my eyes -- at least I think they're open, they seem to be -- the darkness is still pitch. My arm shifts and I roll and... oh yes... I feel you there, still wrapped in me where we settled when we stilled.
Some nights we just stay in here -- other nights you jump up with sudden... weaving on your mind. You'll have a new finished tapestry in a week at this rate.
Davydd takes in a breath, exhaling it against your shoulder. A breath of your name there, the drag of his smile.
You called me and I came. I don't know why really...no other has been able to move me. What makes you different than the others.
I cannot say it happens all the time. Sometimes, I stare, and the world is a void to me. A blank grey of nothingness. I walk, I knit, I cook. I touch flowers...they are one of the few colors in the nothingness. My hands wring around threads of illumination. Yarn wakes me. And sometimes you. Sometimes, I hear your voice, when I am alone in the nothingness. No others can I hear. They are no longer figures, even. They do not even move. They are part of the grey haze that surrounds me.
But you, I sometimes hear. It is like my threads or flowers. A ribbon of color I can see and follow. I don't know where it goes.
But, it is a voice with color. Maybe someone else is out there. I do not have to look at my own hands on yarn or flowers for inspiration, for some scant hope that I will not be trapped in this grey for all eternity, alone.
Sandrine barely moves. You know it, yet it is imperceptible to any one else. Her eyes were closed until you spoke her name, and she tried to smile in response. The motion of it slithered into her shoulders and into the tiniest flicker of her fingers at your chest.
I should let you sleep. God knows I could use it. The magic giveth and the magic taketh away, as they say. Did you taste too much, drink too deeply? Sometimes I do not think I stop you soon enough. A sip, a sip should do it. But when you swallow, I just have no desire to stop you.
And I didn't mean to wake you...
Can you hear all of this rot, by the way? Or am I just muttering to myself. In this haze, I know so little. My skin is still warm, I still taste you, I draw my bottom lip in to enjoy it. Am I humming?
You would tell me if I sang in my sleep wouldn't you. I do sometimes, I know. I have to.
(And he is humming now, earthy sound, held in chest, softly, clinging to throat. A haphazard tune that he plucks from the aether. Or may it is plucking him....)
A large hand moves warmly over yours, lightly covering, holding your hand to his chest, and Davydd lies still, after one final readjustment, and his free hand smooths over your skin. The line of your back.
One day, we will light a candle... when it is this dark, I don't know if I'm coming or going...
And Davydd quite nearly laughs out loud at that. Or at least, he thinks he does. (In actuality, he only exhales a quiet groan.) Green eyes blink -- for now they are truly open -- and he lifts his head slightly, peering at you leaning against him. And his hands give you a gentle squeeze.
"What is so funny?" Sandrine asks. One day, you must learn telepathy. In truth, she would rather never have to speak again, if she could. Locked away, as she is. Your rustling and her own senses picks up your humor, though she believes it an instance, not your permanent state.
"Hmm?" the sound reverberates in the dragon-emblazoned chest and Davydd lifts up his head again, eyebrow cocking up, "...ah... oh, nothing," comes his voice after, earthy in tone but airy in whisper. "I couldn't tell if I was thinking aloud or just... mumbling to myself..." Thinking aloud. Does he know telepathy?
Well, he knows the ways of speaking without speaking...
"I didn't mean to wake you," he says aloud this time, or repeats himself. Either way. The bed squeaks as he half rolls again, bringing you both to your sides, a strong thigh slipping between your own. "I was just... drifting myself... tasting you on my tongue... I think I may have even dreamed," he sounds rather surprised about that.
She is quiet again, a nod provided as a response. Sandrine is in no rush to move or speak, and she closes her eyes to the world again.
Her left foot shifts slightly, and in the roll, a swirl of her hair falls at her ear. The sheet that covers you both rustles faintly, and in the kitchen, electricity buzzes slightly through the circuitry.
The central heat comes on with a click and whir, trying to keep up with the chilly winter nights.
"When will we go back to Powys?" she asks, another simple noise in the penthouse's symphony.
"Mm, how about at the first blush of spring. That's when she's at her best," fingers make a study of your hip, along your waist and the round of your breast. All a part of ...owning you. As he does. "How did a three-day trip turn into months? Strange...but... I like it here, too. I don't mind wintering in the city so much. Bit warmer here." A bit? A lot.
"Still... we should go to your Lappland. I haven't forgotten," Davydd notes, finger tapping the end of your nose as he murmurs, following words with a kiss, "... you spoke about it when you came to me."
His mouth brushes against your own, there is a tug, a claim laid there. You know how these things can sometimes go. A kiss, a grasp, a moan of your name. So easy to start again when energy is renewed. "We should go... name the season, Sandrine," your name -- as it was when he moved against and within you -- is spoken half-within your mouth, the trill of the R sliding against your tongue.
"I want to see it," he whispers again, but this time... in old Norse. A simple sentence.
It is another second before Sandrine's mind catches the shift. Blue eyes open and she draws back from you slightly. The following blink clears her confusion, and she relaxes, not knowing what to say.
And so, nothing comes forth. Sandrine lies beside you, still.
In the pitch darkness, or near pitch anyway, there's the flash of a smile. Does it give off light? Does he? If you were to 'look' at him, no doubt you'd see the evidence of it. Though, the brilliance would be somewhat muted from earlier. He would have a nearly vampiric-looking aura just about now. "Merry Yule," he whispers again, even though Yule was nights ago now. But maybe the Norse is... something of a gift for you. For him.
"And we can go back to Powys as soon as you like," Davydd mutters in English, flecked as it is with his northern Welsh accent. "Just you say when, cariad, and we'll go. I've nothing to attend to here..."
There's nothing in London for me. There never has been. Other than friends and distraction. And then you. Maybe I should just stop coming back...
(Now, how often have I said those bloody lines?)
Posted by rowan at June 18, 2003 04:49 PM
