Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock...
     Minutes have turned into hours have turned into days. I have spread the passing pools of time. I have spread them out and away from me, dropping the measurements into puddles of shadow. And I have not been idle.
     He was wrested from you by a force which neither of you could deny. Things ... happened ... and chaos wrought its way across his heart.
     Why did you have to say you loved me right before you left ...
     Why did I have to answer ...
     It has driven me a little mad, ever since. For days, I sulked. Until mother 'remarked' upon it, in her usual fashion. It reminded me of the need for caution, and since then, whenever I venture forth, I am a model prince. There's hardly a nymph in the place not swooning after me, for all that I'm not of this royal family. This displeases mother - but her displeasure's focused on them, not on me. I am polite and correct to a fault and show noone more interest than her. And she is again pleased.
     Of course, every moment I can, I am in my chambers. I am with you, my prince, in my thoughts. I wonder if you are thinking of me as ardently, as desperately. It breaks me, this passion. I try to plan, but I can make no real plans without you - without knowing what I do not now know.
     He has redecorated his rooms. The walls, once pale blue, are now silvery-grey. They sparkle faintly with every reflected beam of light. The furnishings are still opulent, the large bed hung with gauzy black drapes. And he wears black - black and silvery-white, his dark hair untidy and pushed back from his eyes. Barefoot, this Prince of Winter and of Diamonds. Bent, this prince, over his work - a simple wooden worktable and a low bench, it makes him hunch as he fits a tiny gem into an equally miniscule socket.
     Magic flows about him, an unconscious extension of his unique ability. Tiernan has been busy, perhaps a little mad. Let noone say that he has not noted your absence...

     A curious thing is noted in the sky. Not just one murder of crows is in flight around the palace of the Newest Queen, she whose Kingdom Remains Unnamed, but rather a whole slaughter. There are some fifty navy-tipped crows in air, curving against the wind and alighting on the North Tower, crowding the windowsill, even covering the witch's peak roof of the tower.
     Perhaps it is a moment of vacation on their migratory route. It is not so strange as to be utterly fantastical. But really... fifty?
     Wings beat against the windows of you chamber, and the deft beak of one of the crows picks the lock on the window and opens it. Caw, caw, caw. The birds scramble in, flopping onto the floor, rooting around for valuables. Ooh! Gems! We've hit the big time, boys!
     But one in particular, the king among crows, chases the more opportune of the mercenaries away from the gems and strolls forward, looking at you. Looking at you like he knows you. His black head cocks this way and that way and he peeeeeeeeers at you for a good long time before he hops up on your work table, showing the small silver capsule around his left talon.
     The message reads...
     I have traveled across several worlds to find you. Bright lights in a big city, a red stone palace in the middle of the dragon's belly, the rounded glittering globe of a magical nation and her seventeen seas. I am waiting with a promise. Tonight, we shan't be found...

     He looks up in startlement from his work, swearing as he sees the potential for days - weeks of near constant work going down the drain and off in flight. Fifty ravens flying around the room; fifty rapacious beaks to make off with his hard labour. No wonder Tiernan's put out.
     But one beats him to it; before he can wreak violence, with magic or otherwise, before he can even bid his creations scurry to their own defense, a king of birds is intervening. ...with a message...
     All of a sudden his attention is undivided. The capsule is dived for, grabbed, opened. The message is ... devoured...
     His skin goes red and flushed, his hair standing up rather like a cockatoo's. Each word is committed to memory, and he rises to his feet, looking down at himself. He does not need to shave, at least, but his clothes... "Leon," Tiernan says aloud, "you and the others, you stay here. Defend yourselves if you have to," he eyes the other ravens warily. "I ... have somewhere to be." He takes a deep, somewhat shaky breath, turning to the king raven. "Do you lead me to him, or is it for me to find?"

     The birds begin hopping up to the window, waddling out to take flight, beaks strangely lacking in stolen booty. The raven's commander remains behind as his followers flop and plop their way out, cawing as they go. He cocks his head at you, peering at you with one eye and then his other. His beak opens and he lets out a cackling drawl as he hops off the worktable.
     Is that your answer?
     Or this? With a fluttering of wings, it's Iowerth who stands there in black garments, holding to a shadow out of the window's view point. He puts a finger to his lips and smiles. Shhh... say nothing now. Meet me in the cave. You know the way.
     The raven king hops to the windowsill again, giving another cawing cry as he flaps his wings in preparation to fly.

     His eyes go wide for the sight of you, but he says nothing. He is accustomed to secrets and to secret ways. His eyes are eloquent, though; they tell you of his surprise, his delight, his desire. And still, he says nothing aloud, standing there, waiting until you have in truth gone.
     Gone...
     It is so hard not to turn and simply - run to the tunnel...
     But Tiernan exercises self-restraint. There has been a lot of that, around you. He slumps on the side of his bed, pulling on his boots, grabbing his cloak, and murmuring a spell to wrap himself in mist and shadows as he departs from the room. The door is locked; it won't hold out any true spy, but a true spy will find nothing to betray him there. And quickly, his footsteps lead him from that place to where he now knows he will find you.
     How will you do it...
     He is dying to know...

     Subteneration. Obfuscation. While his brother claims the domains of such, he is not the only one with secret, darkened paths. Though, Gwilym will make it most difficult for the ship to be found. The news will be confused, set into a he-said-she-said labyrinth of cross-stories and misinformation.
     How will it be done? You will be seen all over the village, various women will corroborate your... appearance...and your libido. Some will see you playing poker with the prince and other courtly cohorts. A drunken revelry, a drunken brawl. None of it true, but all of it spoken in such a babel that Truth and Lies will no longer be recognized...
     In the cave, a black bird hops upon the stone. A cloak spreads out with the unfurling of a wing, the cloak itself feathered. He waits for you there, the work to hide your paths already beginning. Beautiful, conspiring ladies...easy to find, yes... especially for Gwilym. I should have asked for your help before, brawd. Rather than struggling alone, as if I have to solve everything.
     Outside, the sun is only remembered in the last stripe of purple and vermillion at the horizon. The stars are out, but they shall not reveal you. They burn brightly, but distantly... not as lamps shining upon your secret.

     Down stairs and through darkness, then, down ladders and onto stony floors. The gleam in his eyes is immediate, a warm glow to light his way in dim and shadowy paths. He is straining, anticipation and paranoia conspiring to make him so tense.
     Do you see it in him, as he comes towards you? Do you see that light of anticipation in his eyes? There is nothing said, not until he knows that he is in earshot, cloak going still against his back as he stops in front of you.
     Even then, his voice is soft, husky. "Io..." Did you ever imagine that his voice would sound like that? No hesitation. Just that hope, that patience shall be rewarded. You are here. Tiernan draws a deep, shaky breath. "Hail, prince..."
     Has he not said it before? I will follow you ... anywhere ...

     There is a light in his eyes, despite the darkness in the caves. To see you, his heart finds itself. But there is calculated restraint. "When the last of the pink is gone," he whispers. We will go, his eyes finish. It will just be a few minutes. But...in a dark cave, hidden from all others... it shall not be so bad a thing, shall it?
     He moves toward you, the black-feathered cloak whispering against the stone. The pendulous moments hang there, the remainder of daylight slipping away. His hand slips against you waist, and his mouth comes up to your own. Such an approach, confident, knowing what it wants.
     "Hail to the princes," he tacks on with a grin at your mouth. He glances back to peer out of the cave. The pink yet remains... but it is darkening, the world... and soon you and he will be on the move. His hands lift to your face, cradling it to him for a kiss as intense as it is sweet. Open-mouthed he breathes your air, sighs 'Duw', and tastes you again.
     You are so handsome. You crush my heart. You squeeze me and drain me and fill me all at the same time. Who could stand Love, if this is how it feels?
     Perhaps that is why it is best expressed lying down...

     I love you.
     He does not say it. He does not think it even; the words are in no fashion uttered. Your hands to his face, his to your hips; he grasps you there, for a moment only, then pulls you closer with urgency lending him strength. One brief moment of impatience is all he allows himself, and then the motion is stilled and he only - touches you, holds you, his strength turned inwards to self-control.
     His mouth parts against your own, and as you taste him, he tastes you. Tiernan echoes your sigh with one of his own. He suckles at your mouth as if the sweetest honey could be found in the crevices and cracks at the seal of your lips. And he only pulls back when he needs to breathe.
     He looks at you, then, chest rising and falling in a brief ragged syncopation. And for a long time, it feels a very long time, Tiernan doesn't speak. Finally, though, words occur to him. He speaks them, softly, quietly. "Next time," he whispers, "don't stay away so long."

     It was more than a week. A short time, in the scheme of Things. But, a quarter of the time he's been in your life. When you're only eighteen, a week can seem interminable. It is with the full-force of that interminable week, that seven-day eternity, that Iowerth gives his mouth to you, allows it to be suckled, taken however you like, letting you determine how it moves, and where it goes.
     You of so few words. You are more taciturn than I am. Who would have thought that possible? Not Gwilym, for certes. Eye to eye, Iowerth stands with you, his hand brushing against your face. He stops short of another kiss, turning instead to look at the sky. "The last of it is gone," he breathes.
     "Come," Iowerth turns, his hand to your clothing, he tugs you after him, tugs at the cloth that will shortly be flying from skin and flesh to floor. He heads for the mouth of the cave, drawing his black feathered cloak close to him. And with my brother's assistance, the way will be as cloaked as I...
     People pass on the village piers as you and he move along the stones of the shore, skirting past in darkness. His hand still on your shirt, your cloak tugging, Iowerth leads you hastily in those shadows toward the pier and mooring for the Draigamore. He moves through the shallows of the bay, the water making no sound as it is displaced.
     And he leads to the ladder that hangs over the side of his ship, the sheltered side whose face does not face the shore but the sea. He motions you up first. Go, go... and I will follow you...

     So short a time - but so long. With such driving, dire need. Why do I need you so much? It is sensual - sexual - but ... it is more. Knowing that you are here. Even across the room in a crowd, torturous as it is, I can make do, as long as I know you are near. As long as I know that I have you.
     You tug at him, and his feet are already moving - to you, with you, as lightly as if through the steps of a dance, a duel for show, for play. "Lay on, your highness. I admire and envy your cloak of many feathers."
     His footsteps are so light, so quiet. And he follows you to that ladder, looks to you as if to be sure, and then he precedes you willingly enough. Black cloak to hide silver and white silk shirt. Black trousers and midnight boots. Leather and silk; he denies himself nothing save what is denied him. Such as you...
     Up he goes, and he turns, peering down to you. Tiernan's dark hair falls into his eyes and is ignored. "Come up," he calls softly. "Quickly, then... I am here..."

     He is already on his way, making quick work of the climb. He has the ladder memorized, no doubt. It is his ship after all. Once at the railing, the captain throws an arm over the golden rail and swings over, landing softly. And when he does, to him it has the sound of victory.
     No one will quite recall when the ship was last seen. So much was happening. There were fights in the alleys. There was a high stakes poker game on the piers with the quartermaster and guards. The princes were in the parlors...well, a number of parlors. Oh, you don't say? The ship is gone? Well, maybe the captain took it for a bit of a stroll. Or his father, aye. The high king, twas his, you know, before he lent it to his boy...
     The ship begins moving as Iowerth commands it, the water beneath carrying it away, ropes that kept it moored untwining, falling away silently. Silent running...silent running away. The dragon sails remain mute, but slowly do they also ripple, fabric made of a thousand-thousand wings.
     She will not find us here. She will not find us anywhere. And everywhere she looks, she'll be frustrated. You may have to pay for it eventually, but love won't it be worth the price?
     Iowerth glances to the shore, making sure the getaway is clean, and then he leads you toward the stern of the ship and the captain's quarters. He leads you down the spiral stairs, that amazing quarter with the map of the worlds on it. The lights are doused, only a few hanging lamps are lit, glowing soft red and violet.
     As soon as you and he are off the stairway, he is in your arms. He is at your mouth. "I am sorry I was gone so long... I couldn't get away sooner... as it is, I had to call in a favor." He pauses to grin. "Or two...but... it will be worth it. Hmm? Oes," he answers for you, his mouth playing at yours, parting your lips with his, he suckles your tongue. "You forgive me?"

     He watches the shore recede from any and every passing porthole, brief glances only. He does not want to take his attention away from you. His mother is receding, and it is as if a weight is being lifted. Bit by bit, finally he can breathe.
     I want to be alone with you...
     The center of your attention; you, the center of mine...
     How quickly my world has come to turn around you. No slender spire of metal or wood, but a long-formed young man of flame and sea and royal blood. And yet, here you are - at my center. Striking to my core as surely as when I take you into my flesh.
     His thoughts make him colour, and with cheeks as red as windfall apples, Tiernan looks to you as you bring him to your arms. "Nothing to forgive," he murmurs. One hand lifts to drag his fingers through your hair, and he inhales so that he might exhale, your name carried on that warm breath. "Iowerth. I know there's times when ... we will be parted. I do not like it, but," a lift and fall of his shoulders, his other hand at the clasp to his cloak and allowing the shrug to carry the heavy fabric away. "I at least somewhat must entertain reality, yes?"
     Reality, and not just fantasy, where we could each and every night be tangled together. A world where, however hidden our love, it would glow from us in our union. Instead of stolen moments, stolen nights.
     Hush, Tiernan. Do not let your despairing nature take joy from you. This cup is not so bitter. He kisses you as you kiss him, tongue winding its way against the compass marking the depths of your mouth. "...Yes, I forgive you. If you will forgive me for being inconvenient."
     Inconvenient, this love. Consuming, too. Why hide it? I will not pretend - we have pretense enough...

     Iowerth chuckles, his smile is broad and sure. He doesn't do it often, but when he does it makes him brilliant. "It is the nature of...love to be inconvenient, Tiernan." His hand tugs upon your clothing again, he leads you past the neighboring door and to the bedchamber...
     ...It has been prepared for you, for this. As he closes the door behind him, you can feel the ship passing the coastal reefs and shelf and heading out into the open sea. The windows have been opened, the view unhidden. Past the glass, the white-capped midnight waves, watery indigo and deepest blue. And stars. There is very little light within to interfere with that view. Just a few oil lamps hanging suspended by magic, floating and bobbing like the glass weights fishermen use to hold their nets.
     The large bed has midnight sheets and coverlets. They have been pulled back, prepared for you and for him. And for no interruptions. Upon the night stands, heavy bottomed glasses, suitable for a rocking ship and bottle of brandy already opened and wafting apricot and cinnamon flavors in the chamber. Several other, smaller glass bottles rest there. Oils for the skin, perhaps... or to make the way more smooth between you.
     Iowerth closes the door behind you both. There is no need to lock it here. He reaches up and removes the feathered cloak, turning to stride toward the bedside.

     His boots are discarded at the door. To one side; even careless, he doesn't get that clumsy. Barefoot once again, he pads after you to the bed, eyes bright and alert, taking everything in. And again, he flushes. Touched as well as desirous. "You have been ... thinking, I see," Tiernan murmurs. He is not so very far behind you.
     There are no more words for a few moments, as he watches you move, then moves as if in counterpoint. He loosens his shirt, but does not yet remove it. Sits on the edge of the bed, but does not lie down. His eyes never leaving yours.
     "I have ... missed you a great deal." The words are admitted, restrained as they are. Tiernan leaves his eyes on you, admitting what he does not say, if you are clever enough to read him so well as any of your books, your maps, your charts.
     I have missed you...
     I have had to relearn loneliness, and it has a bitter taste, one I did not like at all...
     "Leon has many new cousins," Tiernan adds lightly. He watches you with a hunger, of a man starving himself in patience, knowing that the end of his fast is approaching. That the food will be all the sweeter, but perhaps almost too sweet to be eaten. "I have been thinking of you and of us."

     "You and I... we are guilty of thinking too much, I think." He smiles in the low light, the humor clinging to his voice. Quiet, his voice holds a depth to it, a depth that has everything to do with the extent to which he missed you, and needs you.
     Iowerth tsks, motioning for you to stop undressing yourself. "No... I want to," he murmurs. "I have been waiting a long time to unwrap my treasure." His hand smoothes against your cheek, then along your neck. Iowerth stands, straddling one of your thighs. His outside knee going to the bed, he moves you back to lie upon its surface. His straddle remains intact, only now he sits at the juncture of your thighs.
     "Hmm... oes, well... I thought you might want to have some food and drink, there is brandy for now. If you are hungry, the feast will make itself known." His hands tug your shirt away from your trousers, pulling it up until you have to lift for him to remove it altogether. Coppery hair hangs forward as he looks at the body he has revealed.
     Silence comes between you, but it is not uncomfortable. It is weighted with the separation that has been. One hand drops down to smooth against your skin, massaging and pressing, then dipping to the waistband of your trousers.
     "Does he?" Iowerth grins. "Perhaps I shall have my own Leon, then. Finally. No longer needing to steal your own." Periwinkle sparkles in his wink, the sea-foam green of his eyes rolling back to reveal that lavender coral color. Your shirt removed, his hands dropping it to the bed, he places a finger against your mouth. His eyes seem to do more than gaze at you. They look through you, past your skin and to the source of the energy that binds you together.
     "I missed you, too. I was... crawling out of my skin, wanting to feel you next to me. In the quiet, I wished you were with me. It is the quiet that most reminds me of you. That... stillness... that is so crowded with what you feel...with what you need."
     Iowerth doubles over, his mouth seizing your own. The kiss is wild. It states its hunger plainly. It is broken only for breath's sake. He closes his eyes, his mouth unable to help its wandering at your jawline. "What... have you been thinking... of you...and of me..."
     His hands pull at his own black silk, pulling it free from the leathers, untying the cloth, his shoulders twisting out of the fabric. Twisting, as he has been, in his own skin.

     He has anticipated that; he loosened his shirt only, and that, it seems, with a certain male appreciation for how it now looks upon him. He is again still, one hand lifting to cover yours as it sweeps against his cheek and throat. "Food and drink can wait," Tiernan murmurs. "For now, I only want you."
     His eyes lift to meet yours. Knowledge is in his eyes, put there by you, by having known you. And, suddenly, he smiles.
     There is nothing slow about that smile, nothing quiet or meek. Suddenly, he is thrown into the fullness of his youth, riotous with laughter, with pleasure, drunk with happiness, with joy. He takes your finger in his mouth, suckling at it, letting his teeth scrape lightly even as he grins, arching then up to meet your kiss.
     "I ... have been thinking of you constantly..." He is out of breath, now, on the cessation of that embrace. He falls back to the bed, watching you, encouraging you with his eyes, with little brushes of his hands, groping at your waist, at your hip, at your thigh.
     "Every moment of every day has been coloured by a thought of you. An image. A memory. An imagining. I went a little mad," Tiernan tells you, voice quiet but factual. "I looked at the stairs to see if you had come in. Noone could knock at my door but that I hoped it would be you - knowing it to be foolishness. I cursed myself for a woman, but my heart would leap when I heard your name." He breathes in and out so softly, splayed out for your eyes, upon your bed. "I wanted you then. I want you still."
     One hand closes against the covers, opening then and held out to you as an offering. "All I have been able to think about is being with you. And about the decisions I have had to make... decisions which I cannot make without you, my prince," Tiernan whispers, voice soft and hushed. "But let us save those for later. My need for you is pulling me under. I need to feel your skin against my hands, Io. I can't sustain even fake poetry with you sitting there, in reach and noone to worry about as interruption of insecurity."

     I can't explain it. What it does to me to feel your skin against mine. What it means, and that it could mean something. That simple thing, your skin and mine. Muscle and flesh sliding, grasping. To feel strength, your strength, my strength.
     It makes me drunk. That is it. I lose myself like I lose my wits on brandy. I get dizzy. And I plunge into it. Into your mouth. Into your body.
     There is a cresting wave, a sneaker wave, that pounds over him, pushing him into you. His mouth seizes yours again. It suckles and clasps. It pulls and tears noisily, letting you hear it, letting him hear it, the sound of him kissing you, needing you. With a grunt, he moves you both further upon the bed, pressing against you, pressing you against the bed, crawling against you. He thrusts, his body sounding against your own, but clothed the thrust comes to nothing. But you can feel him there, the arousal that began well before the first crow flew, but now is in full force, pressing against you past the leather.
     With a loud breath, an exhale of your name as his mouth parts yours, Iowerth lifts slightly, his hands diving to the enclosure of your trousers. He sinks to his knees as he pulls the fastenings free, his mouth already seeking you. The heated mouth finds you, sinks upon you suddenly with a louder sound.
     Freedom...here we are free... we do not have to be quiet, we do not have to think about all the angles... we only have to think of one another, and this. His voice slips inside you as you slip inside his mouth. The metal ball pierced in his tongue rolls against you as his tongue wraps and his lips squeeze.
     The ship pitches and rolls, even as you and he pitch and roll on the bed. It sends you deeper inside his mouth, it makes his weight land on you, it rocks you back and forth into one another as it rolls upon the skin of the sea.

     You call on him, and his arms lift to surround you. Here, you are welcomed. Without artifice. Without pretense or coyness. He does not pretend to anything but that he is so very, very glad to see you. Tiernan's mouth opens to yours as if he would devour you if his appetite were a little less sexual in its root, and his thighs spread beneath you; forming a cradle to your hips, your thighs as you press down and he presses up. Two immovable objects, straining in their yearning.
     His hands are dragging at your skin, touching your shoulders, freeing the last of you from your shirt. And you sink, and he groans, the sound not quiet. You kiss, and there is a muffled and emphatic noise. Oh yes, he approves.
     Each time, it is a little more intense. I fall in love with you again. Over and over again, of all things, I fall in love. If it were lust only, I could control myself - I could restrain myself. I could be cool and collected, and perhaps you would be the one less so. But it is love. It is love, and I am lost.
     His hands find your chest, dragging against firm muscles, stroking against coloured skin. A finger and thumb find your nipple and give it a light tweak. And you are smiled upon, prince.
     Until I knew you, I never knew what it was to need anything. I've always been so sheltered. And now I know.
     The leathers are snug, but not insurmountable. His skin bit by bit comes clear to you. Where there was one mark on his inner thigh, now there are two. But he calls no attention to it; Tiernan himself ignores it. Instead, he tries to sit up amid the rocking waves, reaching for you.

     His mouth freeing you, Iowerth sits up again. His breaths come from him with the surge of storms. Glassy, his eyes gleam unfocused but keen. Seeing without seeing, it seems. He pulls the leathers free, tossing them off the bed.
     So heated for you, he did not have the forethought of removing his own boots. He does so now, struggling out of them, kicking them off. Unclasping the leathers, he begins to wiggle free of them, his tattooed length unfolding from midnight, their midnight marks swirling in magic aroused. Blood engorges him and turns midnight blue to deepest violet.
     He slides the whole of his body against you, thighs, stomach, hands, mouth grazing you as the ship tosses him against you. And the energy pitches once more, rising and rolling over you. As much as he wants to take his time, he can't. Not now, not after a week of thinking of this and more, of all that has transpired and what may transpire in the future. It is too much.
     Leaning, reaching to the nightstand, he takes a glass bottle, unstops it and pours it over your length. The drizzled oil golden upon your skin, magicked to warm upon landing. Both of his hands clasp your length, creating an oiled grasp that slides and presses around your length.
     Your thoughts fly freely between you. He hears you give them to him, much as you have given your body. And he returns the favor, giving you his thoughts, his body. I did not know either... I knew that need existed. For others. Not for me. I did not expect this... I did not know this was out there...that this was what it was... and now that I feel it.. now that you are beneath my skin, I understand ... I burn... I need... I love...
     Well-oiled, your hardness shines in the low light. Iowerth repositions himself, straddling over you, his weight borne on the balls of his feet, crouching over you on the mattress. His eyes close and he shivers inside and out as he moves you against him, then slowly lowers himself upon you.
     The ship makes the first thrust as it falls upon the side of wave then lifting. Iowerth closes his eyes for a moment, his voice pulling tight from his throat as you fill him. But they do not stay closed for long. His hands upon your chest for balancing, he begins to rise and fall upon your groin.

     You take him and he cries out, a soft, harsh sound, ragged of breath and whipped by soundless wind. Is the ship moving? He could not say for sure; he is so mired in you, lost in you (literally, now) that all sense of perception is skew.
     His hands lift to take hold of your hips, pulling you a little more towards him, one hand sliding against the flat of your stomach to then wrap firmly around your member. His thumb moves a little, teasing, and he groans again; you feel so good, there's no hope of him maintaining any tease. Subtlety can go to hell for a night.
     When I'm not with you, I try to think if I could live without you. And the picture seems desolate. Hard. Survivable, perhaps, but not bearable. And then you come into my life again, and I realize all over again how hard it would be. They are pillow confessions. Tiernan would not say it, save that he is within you, enveloping you, you are against him, on top of him. One arm curls around you protectively, demanding. Stay with me. Only that, please. Stay...
     You rise and fall, and he makes a low, guttural sound in his throat. Pleasure so good, so intense that it is almost pain. Tiernan slides his hand along your length, his other hand kneading now at your thigh, at the tension of your buttock where it curves away from him. My light in the darkness, he calls you, my love. My lover. Mine. I had never wanted to have anyone before...

     Such things would never be said in the clear light of day, never admitted except under the duress of delight. Oil slips over your fingers around him, smoothing the way even as he smoothly moves on you. His legs create a fulcrum, and he quickens, rolling his hips in a circle as his rear crashes against you.
     Iowerth smiles down at you, his mouth canting sideways as he lifts his hips, pulling himself off of you with a rolled sound of pleasure. He is cruel -- can he be this cruel as to stop?
     Who said he's stopping...
     His hips draw away, his length slipping from your hands and suddenly he fills you, rolling on you with the pitching of the ship. His thrusts are fast and furious, his hands burying themselves in the dark, silk bedding. "Light... in the darkness..." he repeats at the edges of his grunts, "... moon or star?" he teases with a groan. Iowerth rolls his eyes closed, losing his words in the sudden slapping of his body against you, his hard length within you.
     You call me... and I can't help myself from answering. If there is a beacon, it is you, Tiernan. I am only a wave. Side to side, circling, he thrusts and writhes. He lowers his body onto you, letting you feel his weight and then, as the ship rolls on the waves, he rolls over, pulling you on top of him. Iowerth withdraws his hips, his length pulling out of you. He spreads his thighs widely beneath you, opening himself to you.
     Yours for the taking...

     You pull away, and he groans his need, his urgency, his hands sliding from you as you escape him. Tiernan's lips part with a gasp, eyes half closed. And then, just as suddenly, he is filled. Taken. Ridden by the wave...
     "Moon," Tiernan gasps, barely able to get the word out. "A greater body. And ..." Breath hisses out between his teeth. Gods, how do you tease, how do you do this, when I am helpless in this lust, this desire... "And you fall ... through my fingers ... moonlight..."
     Drowning. Who can catch the moon, or even the moon's reflection? You have him tensed and scrabbling at your skin. You have set this tempo, riding him one way or another. He is unused to it - but oh, he isn't minding...
     He squirms on the bed as if to open himself to you the more deeply. To have more surface to feel your weight against. I need you, Tiernan answers you simply. I have turned myself to considering my need. I need your hands. I want ...
     What he wants is not spoken. You pull him on top of you, and he groans for the feeling of you pulling out of him; a pang of regret, emptiness, lacking fulfillment. But here you are spread for him. He will find fulfillment in you, you in him. There is no doubt of it in his mind. He slides his body against you, and then he is positioning himself, sliding so slowly into you with eyes closed tight against the sensation.
     Do you see him, how perfect he finds you? He has to force his eyes open, so that he can look upon you, his hands finding the broad expanse of your chest. His knees settle below you, and he bears his shoulders against your thighs, rolling you back with the movement of the vessel, sliding himself forward neatly to sheathe himself fully within you.
     His face has gone red, flushed. Sex and emotion, the headiest combination. You feel so good, Tiernan whispers it without voice, a slow slide ending with sudden thrust that brings his hips against your flesh. I could be like this forever and it would not be enough. Enough words. He can't maintain it; you can feel thought lose coherence, dissipate as his tension builds with another thrust, that slow-fast tempo. How long can he maintain it...

     Not since his general has he felt this. Cradled in another man's arms, spoken to like this, needed like this, treasured like this. Arms wrap around you, fingers sliding over your nipples, pinching as his own hips lift to meet you. His mouth finds you and there are no words now, just the sound of the ship on the sea, the bed creaking beneath you, the joining and percussion of bodies, and the sounds that pull from his throat.
     He sings, a low, throaty song. It has no lyrics, no discernible verse and chorus, but it is quite the refrain. Hands fasten onto your hips, pulling you into him, against him, his song growing louder.
     Such freedom...
     Where else could you and he be this emotional, this uninhibited, have the liberty to call out as you do, but on the open sea? Iowerth twists beneath you again, transitioning to yet another position. His hips twist away from you, causing you to slip from him, and he rolls onto his stomach, his knees digging into the surface of the bed.
     Give me your love, the sound of his voice grabs you from within, tugging you. Fully...now...without fear...here we can have this...I need you, I need it. O, general, if you could see me now...
     If you could see me now and knew that I had a lover you might be most displeased, most jealous. Was it not just last Samhain that we had our own bonfire? Do not hate me, general. For you have taught me all you know... and now I must go out into the world, and discover Love for myself. To know it with another.

     It is a frontier more wild than all the oceans of Chaos combined...
     How could he refuse you? When your need and his are so intertwined, becoming one. Tiernan's breath rasps in his chest, catches in his throat. You are touching him. He is within you. It is all impossibly good and right. Perfect. Such perfection.
     He looks down at you with his eyes wide, now, seeing you as if for the first time as his rhythm grows faster. He fills you and withdraws almost entirely, feeling the way your flesh slides along his edges. It draws a tortured groan from him. Perfect, Tiernan whispers to you. You are so perfect. You tear at my heart. Another groan, counterpoint harmony to your song. His hips rock down against your flash, following you, filling you and withdrawing, as a roughening tide against the shore. Io, oh, gods ... I need you so much ...
     Such heartfelt, open-hearted emotion, admission. It cracks his defenses, what few he had left. He is shedding his armour, and moisture prickles behind his eyelids, ignored. Strong, fine-fingered hands clutch wildly at your hips, at your thighs, your ass, and he turns his head to kiss your shoulder where he can reach with a grazing of teeth. Coherence slips rapidly away, spilling down over the edge.
     Soon, he will follow. Already, his rhythm begins to devolve to a bucking solidity within you, the lewd sound of him against you. What will do you with him, this boy who has followed you so quickly, so willingly? He cries out suddenly, as if it has caught him by surprise. He tightens, a hand on your thigh, one hand slipping under you to tug at your hardness as he buries himself, his weight sinking down. In and against you and around you...

     Perfection. The closing of a circuit. Perfection is completion, to its highest degree. To be made complete, that is the literal translation from the Latin. And you in him makes it so. Iowerth moves along with you, his hips roughly sending him to meet you. The sounds of the joining bodies are loud, second only to the sound of the intertwining voices.
     As you buck into him, his body only able to hold still against the wave you make, he squeezes you, rhythmic, until your own release subsides. He curls his hips forward, removing you suddenly. Is it a shock? No more than his twisting, pushing you into the bedding and topping you again. His thrusts are immediate and wild, perfecting your orgasm, driving it forward as he fills you.
     "I love you... in me, around me...with me... " Iowerth grunts. "You fill the darkness... it is... no longer...lonely. You fill it... my life...my heart... like you fill me..." He is strong, and that strength is coming to bear. That thickness of him inside you thickening as he closes in on the culmination of his own need. The midnight blue tattoos swirl, their vivid shapes more compelling in the motion of his muscles. They seem alive, those seadragons and oceans.
     The bed is anchored to the floor and the wall of the ship. If it were not, his motions now would be sending it against the wall. Only the mattress complains (or ...perhaps you do as well) as his body pounds, trembling tightly.
     I can't be without you... the way you sound...the way you feel... the way you make me feel... what am I to do with a night without you in it? He closes his eyes, his face twisting in intensity. As his muscles tighten, convulsing, his length twitching within you, Iowerth opens his mouth, letting loose a cry that fills the chamber. It would have called the guards in with their swords were this in the tavern, or the alley, or even the cave and any number of other secret (and not so secret) hiding places you have had.
     He is dizzy, holding still, his hands flailing, grabbing you wherever he can reach you. "Beautiful... you are so handsome... so much. I look at you and I ... can't stand not touching you... holding you... hearing you speak... those few, precious words..."

     Tiernan cries out. As thoroughly as he has filled you, now you fill him, and it is almost too much. His mouth falls open, jaw working with tension to get out words; but all that comes out are low, animal moans and cries. Oh, it is so good...
     So perfect...
     How will I ever be able to live without you... without this...
     He is dizzied himself, now. "I love you," he whispers, "even if now I see two of you." Blue eyes are disoriented, clouded with his pleasure and yours. He reaches for you, squirming under you, ignoring how that pleasure shudders at being nudged, at dislodging, and he pulls you to him with a clumsy, shuddering padding of fingers against your skin. He needs to hold you, to reassure you, to reassure himself. He does not have to go. He's still here. With you... you with him...
     "I never want to be apart from you," Tiernan murmurs, voice trembling, the notes wobbling unsteadily. One hand smoothes your hair from your forehead, his eyes seeking yours as if looking for something. "I feel the same. The darkness is lonely without you. With you, it is comforting. You understand me."
     His mouth parts at your shoulder, and he tastes you softly, gnawing once and then soothing with a kiss. If I could, I would dive into your veins and be lost there. Anything ... anything to be with you...

     Heavily, the crown prince sinks upon you. His weight is significant, solid. His arms surround you and his hips curl back, sliding himself out of you. You and he form a slow knot of male flesh -- arms, legs -- as he rolls over to lie mostly upon the bed, lying on his side and facing you.
     Salty sweet lips move gently over your own, plucking kisses from them as deftly as Gwilym Gwyn Garu picks the pockets of unsuspecting village wanderers. "I am sure distance will intervene...from time to time. But we will find ways, hmm... of minimizing it." He smiles at you. "What's the point of having magic if you can't make it work for you...?"
     Iowerth closes his eyes, feeling the tension of the world and of the past couple of weeks melting from him. "We... are a lot alike, you and I... sometimes, I think... opposites seek one another out for balance. But then, Like also seeks out Like. To complement."
     His voice begins to drift off. "Hmmm... sleep awhile. When we wake... I will have another surprise for you." In the morning, you will be in the center of a group of island chains. One of them, his...

     Your weight is a comfort to him. Your presence. Your arms. Blue eyes drift closed slowly, as if stubbornly wanting one last sight of you, even as close as you are. "Mm... yes," Tiernan murmurs, a gentle kiss pressed to your lips as he settles and sighs. "I will sleep. I have not slept much."
     While you were gone. I was too tense. And now...
     Now I could not wake from this stupor if my life depended upon it. Perhaps if your life depended on it, I could.
     One hand rubs at your hip, then settles. Ah, warmth. Comfort. "We can talk more in the morning," Tiernan decides. How magnanimous of him. He grins at you, and closes his eyes, grin relaxing to a smile and then fading out.
     One hand tangles in yours, and he murmurs, "My love. Good night..."

Posted by rowan at May 12, 2006 07:46 PM