Floating carpets come and go, lifting and falling, bobbing bodiless in the mostly empty chamber. The Chamber of Aspirations has become less of a gathering room and more of a healing ward since the Sentinel's return, with angels coming in care-taking waves to check on him, to get him whatever he might need, others to ask him questions in those moments where he is able to answer.
Those are becoming fewer now, the questions. Perhaps they have asked all the questions they have. Perhaps he has been repeating himself...
Christopher, Sentinel of Aspirations, reclines on a large floating carpet, the largest in all the hall. So large, in fact, it is like a flotilla, with its own cushions. There is a pot of flower tea balancing upon the flotilla, held upon a lap tray. It wafts the scent of paradise with every lift and every lower of the grand thing.
Silver eyes watch the patterns in the glass ceiling of the basilica. "It is almost time for my update from the front," he murmurs. Though no angel is standing nearby, those who are able to hear him surely do. Besides, isn't God everywhere? "I hope it is good news today..."
"The best of it," comes a familiar voice, one that causes the attendant stars to quake.
"Oh, he's here! He's here"
"We were waiting!"
"Look Sentinel, see who is coming!"
On this place, the Ethereal, he is one of many. Oh, yes, an archangel, but all must defer to Blandine and his counterpart across the Marches. All are a little less when they enter the plane of dreams.
"Alright, settle," Soldekai laughs, an unexpected announcement. And he thought he might surprise you.
In the room, dusky-ashen form appears, replete with large, expansive wings. His arrival is from action, perhaps from some other part of the Marches. There is a quiet Thank you to no one in particular, but it is more than likely to the Archangel of this realm, to allow another archangel, and an active, weaponed soldier, to simply materialize here from the current Front.
Across the archangel's back rests three swords, one actually in a sheath. Soldekai tilts his head to the side, as if inspecting you, then smiles.
"He's here... he's here," Christopher starts in, chiming the stars chiming until it becomes a cacophony of adoration. And the form on the great flotilla of a carpet begins to move. It is hard to do what he wants to do. What he wants to do is to stand and greet you.
What he can do, is roll over onto his side and begin to push himself up. There is such a swelling of Love. He needs to see you (though it is, as ever, impossible to miss you). He needs to feel you with him. "Soldekai... it is a surprise...You Are," Christopher murmurs, and through his own weakness, he smiles radiantly.
Everything is given to that smile. The whole of his heart -- he makes it visible to you. "I have been keeping up with what I can. Every scrap of news of you, I have asked for it. Ishrael has graciously seen to it. And here you are." Now, I do not care what may happen to me. I have seen you. It is enough.
"You have the most beautiful laugh. The heavens sing when a malakim laughs. That is how we know we are on the right path. There is no sweeter song than that..."
"Ah, your laugh is," Soldekai greets, floating up so that his face is near yours, "...hey, you should rest," he encourages, frowning at the moving.
"We...don't have much time," he whispers. "An hour or so. And I have permission..." Soldekai grins, "...to take you on a short trip."
"I have not traveled in a while," he says, and there is excitement there, his hand reaching up to move its energy along your cheek. There is a smile for that, but he does wonder just how he will get anywhere. Perhaps you can see that deliberation as he moves to sit up again.
"We should go, then.... yes? And," Christopher grins, a sudden starry leap upon his mouth, "...do not tell me where...I want to be surprised." His wings, long ago transformed to brilliant strands of light now dulled by his own lack of forces, the colors rippling in his slow restoration, stretch, moving as if he will move under his own power. What there is of it.
"Alright," Soldekai whispers, closing his eyes at the touch. He rises slightly and slides his hands beneath you, picking you up as he rises higher, above the floating carpet.
"Don't worry. I will take care of everything." Eyes look to the canopy of attendant stars, and he says, "And you shall keep this to yourselves."
"Oh, yes," they say, "...we promise!"
Soldekai holds you close, looking to your face. For a moment, he stares, forgetting what he was about to do. It's been too long since you've been in his arms, but he's not about to say that here and now. The sentiment is in his eyes as he smiles again.
His arms surround your neck, his Self held securely by your strength. He will move in your power, even as he is held in your love of him. It strengthens him. If he had to fight again right now, he could do so after such a look you give. "Ah, a secret surprise. This is getting better. I needed this..."
Christopher glances upward to the stars and winks, holding on as his lover leads him ....to wherever he wishes to take him. "Our little secret, fellas..."
"Okay, Sentinel, yes, alright!" they respond in kind.
Soldekai returns from his reverie and calls the most essential of himself. Suddenly, the Chamber looks like his own citadel in Heaven, and beneath you both, his sigil gleams, immediately shifting the space again.
In a flash, there's dimness and the the loud sound of wind and water. But light soon glows in the space, revealing it as the chamber you share at the mountainside in Iceland. Outside, the seas rage particularly loudly, as if a storm has come to the coast.
Again, his heart leaps. You can feel it so distinctly as you hold him. First you, now this. His emotions swell again and his arms hold you tightly. "Soldekai," he whispers, his mouth at your ear. No titles of Archangel here, nothing so formal. "Am I sleeping? I am, aren't I," he smiles a little. "And this is a dream, right? I know this one..."
"I don't care," Christopher says suddenly, his head turning, his eyes taking in the sight, "... I don't care if I am dreaming and I am still on my carpet waiting to hear from you. I am also here... in your arms... and in my favorite volcano on earth..."
He's in the space, near the bed, but Soldekai continues to hold you. He grins to know that you're happy, and he looks around the chamber to make sure things are well. He turns you in the process, in order to allow you a full view.
"May I have a kiss now," Soldekai politely asks, rooted to the black floor. "I was good, Sentinel, and waited this entire time..." Away from the prying eyes of Heaven and the Ethereal plane.
Your question was polite, but the kiss is not. It does not have to be here. It can be full here, it can be passionate here, it can be the expression of longing here. Unfettered, it blossoms at your mouth, full of the emotion of his ordeal and your war that followed.
"You should not have to wait, and do not have to wait here." Christopher smiles, his fingers moving against your cheek. He kisses you again, more gently now, more savoring of what time the two of you have together. It is precious, this time. As all time is...
On this plane, there's no need to remain dusky in his tether. Soon Soldekai turns into a real boy - man - mortal to the touch. He smiles, his green eyes flickering, but soon returns to an eager kiss that requires him to roll you up towards himself. The world moves when he begins to walk towards the bed, his eyes closed. Another kiss follows, and then another, each with a gasping breath between it.
"Tell me," Soldekai whispers, "...if you are too tired..."
Even if he were, he would say nothing now...
He does not kiss like a tired man, like a being ready to expire. if he were to expire, would there be any better way than with you, in your bed? Christopher is solid on this earth, though he does not have the energy to slip into something more mortal.
"I have missed how you feel... how you taste...everything...I've missed everything..." His mouth parts beneath your own, one kiss becoming another, syllables swallowed unspoken, but the sound lingering in his throat. "Remember... when we first made love in Clearwater," Kit smiles. "I have never wanted you more than this moment now. Even after watching you play basketball..."
"I am not too tired," Christopher says, parting the kiss to grin.
Clearwater. Soldekai's greedy kisses pause for an instant. "I couldn't tell you how much I wanted you then. I didn't know what it meant - the things that were happening inside that body." He smiles. "It's the same now," he agrees, a knee sinking into the black bedding. Once he feels it, Soldekai slowly bends, easily moving to place you gently upon his bed. His mortal form is unscathed, as it has been resting while he struggles across the ethereal plane. Soldekai's hair falls forward slight, a cut is needed, shading his eyes. "I am glad you're not tired," he blushes, a fist burying into the bed on either side of you. One knee in the bed, other foot on the floor, Soldekai hovers a moment, looking at you to make sure you're alright in the recline.
He settles upon the bed, his smile curving as he does. To feel this again. This, and all the memories of us it carries. His hands lift, landing upon either side of your face as he curls upward, his body bending easily. Kit's mouth parts to yours again, warmly welcoming you.
Your presence invigorates. There is strength in his fingertips, and there is life in his kiss. His lips tug at your own, pulling you with him as he reclines again. Slowly, his hands move to find purchase elsewhere. There is desire in his fingertips. "My brave love... let me please you. Let me give you a hero's welcome," he smiles beneath you.
Is this not the prize most commanders seek in the midst of or at the cessation of conflict? To be in the arms of the Desired?
Shaking his head, Soldekai blushes still. He considers himself no hero. But encouraged, his other foot lifts from the floor, and he settles along you. He cannot stop staring until his hand draws along your side to thighs that he's not seen in months. Soldekai gazes at where his hand stops, considering now his fortune.
It is a sudden prize, to have this time with you. He was stunned, when in the middle of a meeting held out towards the Far Marches, a message arrived to demand his time. An angel of Dreams hurried out to the battlefield during the quiet, to deliver a message.
Plans done, Soldekai left the meeting in haste. Time is everything, and his window short. Permission was given not only for him to cross the Marches again, but to manifest within the Tower walls itself. Into the Dream itself. An honor in that, and he was keenly aware. But his mission, this time, is simple. To have a moment with the Sentinel he loves. To give the Sentinel some comfort that the others of the Tower cannot provide. Even Blandine knows this. Yet to remain in the Tower, well, not so possible and not have every part of Heaven - and Hell - lapping at the stories. So allowance was given to whisk you away to Iceland, if only for an hour or so.
Certainly this is what any commander wants: in the midst of high battle, to have a respite. Such was there for the demigod Achilles - shall it be any less for one of Laurence's affiliate commanders and an archangel of his own regard? So Soldekai assented to this moment, knowing it should not be so long.
When he leaves his hand and thoughts, Soldekai finds yours again. He slowly gives his weight to you and the bed behind, less worried that he should exacerbate a delicate situation. His mortal form has shown his desire since manifesting in the room, and now in the safety and security of his own tether, Soldekai gives in, his hand reaching behind to press your knee outward as his kisses continue at your chest.
Confined to his chamber, unable to move from his bobbing carpet, his thoughts were on you. His imagination conjured such scenes of war that made him ache that he could not be there, could not help more, could not be with the one he loved so dearly. You had come and you had saved him, he told himself, when he and Andrealphus could do little more than prop one another up.
In all the questioning he endured (and it was, indeed, a matter of endurance), he had his own questions. What of the battle, he asked, what of Soldekai? Ishrael The Incorruptible humored him, bringing him news, what news there was to bring.
There were moments where Christopher thought he might expire, but for the fact he knew there would be news of you. When all of his strength was gone, he realized there was more at his disposal. There was you, your love of him, and his love for you.
Those things are in his eyes, written upon his expression as surely as your vows are carved into your Being. Your hand touches his thigh, and it moves as you will it, the strength and the beauty of it acquiescing to you. Angelic sings from his mouth, whispered words of love and pleasure, more skilled than all the courtesans of sultans this, and his thigh lies wide and open to your touch.
Hands, fine as only God could make, lift to rest upon your head. The cherub's fingers sink through the softness of your hair to pad against your scalp.
"I love you in the infinite," comes the lover's voice you will recall -- curling expert in sound as his fingers do against your skin. "How could I do anything but want you... always...Soldekai..."
The acquiescence makes him smile. It moves Soldekai's emotion, brightening the intensity that was beginning to draw over him. "We could not be different in this," he agrees, turning his face in your hands to kiss the palm of it. "I think They understood this," the mystical They. The Archangels above archangels. The oldest of them all. He does not know the whole of it, not as you might. But Soldekai is nothing if not a believer in The Plan. Everything has a Way.
"I am sorry that I am late, Sentinel," Soldekai explains, the intensity returning to his gaze. "I know you understand. It is through you that I am so busy. But know this - you are in my very Essence. I cannot Be, without You." Do you understand this, though? It is far more than a lover's words of devotion. "And so I try to complete, what you have wrought."
"I am proudest of you, Christopher, Sentinel of All Aspiration, Hopes, and Dreams." Of Everyone.
He understands. It is there in the galaxies of his eyes, the shooting comets of sudden illumination. His fingers curl at the kiss, a ripple that moves throughout his form and through his soul. In his own intensity of emotion, Christopher leans upward, turning your face to him, bringing his mouth to yours. The acquiescence is demonstrated again -- a giving by taking.
"You are not late," he whispers there, mouth open and playing to yours. "You are here, we are now..." Christopher opens his eyes, the silver spiral galaxies sparkling there. For you. And for this time, there is nothing, no battle, no war. This moment is interminable.
His hands move from your hair and scalp, trailing over neck and shoulders, fingers curling against the mortal skin covering the eternal strength. "I am most grateful... for your love... and for those words," he smiles. "Now, tell me how handsome I am," the smile goes ribald, vintage Kit.
Ah, well. Soldekai's eyes roll to the heavens, as if this is already known by everyone. "Handsomer than Flowers' greatest rose; more spectacular than my own eyes; as sweet and gentle as any Janus breeze; and as desirable as..." Soldekai's brow arches, "...as Desire itself. It is You, that."
Flowery language is not his thing, but Soldekai makes a stab at it, only for you. He grins at his own awkwardness, knowing you know it for what it is - the language of a soldier. Not so metaphorical, but things that he knows.
Christopher grins, his laughter is musical. "Than even your own eyes, Brilliance? Say it isn't so. Not brighter. I am the reason for the brightness, the glint in an Archangel's eye." Yes, that is it. Yes, that pleases him.
Thighs lie wide and welcoming, his arms looped around you, entwined as a loyal lover's should around his beloved, and his eyes, his mouth, his entire aspect is turned to desire, to love, and all its expressions. Christopher does not speak. His form and figure are saying how he feels loud and clear.
A foot lifts, the leg to which it belongs curling around you to allow his toe to draw spirals against your skin, dipping between your legs before settling flat upon the rounds of your rear.
Even with the last gasp of energy, he is wonderfully expressive in the art of love...
The quiet leaves little else to ponder. The moment is here, arrived upon silence. Soldekai smiles again as he's embraced by legs and feet, and his head lowers so that he might kiss your ear and breathe the scent he's missed.
So little time. How...interesting.
Soon, a kiss will become many. Thousands. Who'll know the true number of it? Kisses wax insufficient, and bloom to a desire for more - the mortal body's desire to know what it has missed. A joining beyond all others. And when the mortal body can go no further, Soldekai will still want more, something that may only take place on the Celestial. A melding of Essence. To occupy the same place at the same time. To join...infinitely, essentially.
But until then, when time and privacy are on his side, Soldekai has here. Between the thighs of the ethereal. Wrapped around it and held deeply within. It will suffice in this hour that he has.
Without his realizing it, Soldekai gives his mortal weight to you and the bed. His kisses turn into a coiling that wends around you and rolls you upon his chest. Legs splay confusedly, disappearing into the inky darkness of the coverlet's folds. Perhaps his feet are cold.
Perhaps ... as a reward... or perhaps even when he is ...requested to appear before the Council...perhaps then you and he will be able to have another moment, one not felt in years now. So long, he can barely remember what it was like to burst apart, cataclysmic, in combined essence, and to feel you put him back together again.
The mortal blending, though a faint pantomime of the celestial lovemaking -- and for you particularly frustrating, perhaps -- it is wanted, longed for, and quite pleasurable in its own right.
Dreams are perhaps uniquely suited for such endeavors. For are not dreams but fantasies of a kind? Are not fantasies tinged with Aspiration? It makes him delightful, a delicacy to be known by none save you...
As your weight presses to him, his mouth coupling with your own, no space between you now but the exchanged breaths that must pass for the mortal, Christopher's legs lock around your hips, pulling you to him and him to you, creating a fulcrum... a deus ex machina...
Posted by rowan at May 15, 2005 01:32 PM
