The docks are crowded by the tightly wound streets and closely packed buildings of The Pink District, as it is sometimes called. Public houses and tenements stand shoulder to shoulder with rowhouses whose windows are covered by the most sumptuous, and yes usually the most gaudy, of fabrics. Soft lanterns hang, casting colored glow to the crowded streets below, lighting the lover's path and the labyrinth of thieves' alleys.
     Amid this bustling and hustling nest of corridors is The Red Orchid, both brothel and public house (as many are) and on Sundays a part-time teahouse where the girls all pretend to be ladies and the ladies all pretend to be whores.
     The docks are full tonight. The ships have come in laden with returned treasure and pirates have been scattered to the rim islands. There is celebration everywhere. The whores are busy, the rooms crammed full (and the whores no doubt as well), and the sailors are jubilant. So are the merchants, whose treasures were saved (and not only that, returned). Everyone's in high spirits except for the young man who is the cause celebre' for all of these ... celebrations.
     A blackbird sat on your window for an hour. It sat there, waiting not for corn or grain or crawling snail. It sat there only so you would notice it. Iowerth's calling card, the navy throated rook. You knew what it meant, you've come to know.
     Meet me...
     I need to see you...
     The Red Orchid has become the home for your trysts. First, dalliances with the girls and drinks so that the gossipmongers have their meat for the night, and then you and he slip out into the shadows that suit you best, disappearing in the many alleys upon the many rooftops until you reach an apartment. Quite the conspiracy.
     And there, says the appearance of that bird, is where he will be waiting...

     It would not have taken an hour, save that he has needed to distract himself. He has needed you - but he has not had you, and so he has had to find other alternatives...
     It did not take long for his mother to notice his restlessness, and to inquire as to the cause of it. Tiernan has had to make excuses, and to learn to appear even more patient than ever before. He has, through his excuses, managed to prolong their visit, at least - from two months to three. It is, to him, not enough; nowhere near enough. But it is a start. It buys him time. Him, and you...
     He was building a new creation when your messenger came, and that was the cause of his absorption. Not until he needed something from the other side of the room did he notice the blackbird - and then? And then all tools were cast aside. He threw himself from his work as ardently as he'd thrown himself into it, looking himself in the mirror. He has his vanity. He wishes to impress you as muchly as you have impressed him. But he does not wish to keep you waiting, either.
     Not when you and he have already been so apart!
     Tiernan has hastily changed from his work clothes, ignoring the faint smudge of oil behind one ear in his distraction. Leon has been set to guard his chambers; his mother knows, after all, that ordinarily he never goes far without Leon, and will think him in the palace. Clad in black trousers with a white silk shirt, he's thrown a rust-colored velvet coat over it. It's all rather askew, as if he's just rolled out of bed, his hair still a bit untidy in his haste. It gives him the look of already having been celebrating. A head start on actually meeting you.
     Tiernan wanders through the streets with curiosity and impatience alike. Celebrations. Festivals. What has happened? He's heard snippets, but he's only strained to learn more when he heard your name. And now he pushes through the crowds of celebrants, concentrated only on his thoughts of you and of finding you. But in he makes his way to the Red Orchid; by now he's a known face, if not well known - and he looks for you.
     "A round for the house on me, in honour of His Highness, the Crown Prince Iowerth," Tiernan says loudly as he steps inside. His coinpurse jingles fatly at his hip, and fingers dip into it to toss gold to one of the girls. "A pair of pretty golden maidens to drink with us, to his health! Your highness," and he bows. To you...

     The party has been moving on without him for the most part. The buxom girls with their hands full of tankards, the tankards full of beer, pass in and out of the crowded lower rooms, the public house is packed tonight. The madam and the barkeep are both tickled pink (and gold with coins!).
     Your offer causes a roar of praise and agreement. Yes! Someone else to buy the drinks! And the crowd parts to let you in, no one paying a pin's worth of attention to either you or the prince, not with such flowing alcohol, such low necklines. A girl on the stool has a male hand down her bodice, others are giggling and running upstairs and to other chambers. In the center of this commotion, an eddy of ... it's not calmness per se, more like aloof impatience... sits the crown prince and hero of the day, Iowerth Rhudd Draig. He lowers the pipe from his lips, blue smoke puffing from it and then his mouth. It, and the air around him, smell of cloves and nutmeg.
     A pair of golden maidens sidle up to you, slipping their arms through yours as you make your way to the prince. Oh, but he is not in the mood for the simpering, giggling, silly girls. Still, he must give the ... semblance of interest. Iowerth's mouth makes a crooked smile and he nods to you, the pipe going back to his mouth. And anyone in eyeshot might see his gaze raking up and down and think the girls shall be full of the prince in mere moments. Only you see the focus of his eyes, that flash of periwinkle.
     That raking stare, Tiernan, is all for you. It's as good as a groping hand, that look...
     "I've a better idea," the dragon prince croons, "... save your money for cards, prince." He winks at you and rises. His coat is on him, likewise the pistols he used in the fight. His hair is windblown red, but layered so that the tangles aren't too severe. As he rises, he slips a hand around a pretty girl's waist and bends to kiss her ear.
     That bend, prince, allows his hair to brush against your shoulder (she being so much shorter). That motion was for you, not she. "Come on... there's a room upstairs... I have been given the best suite in the house tonight, and all the prostitutes I can eat." Straightening, Iowerth turns to lead the way.
     The military clothes highlight his strength, but also the tension in his body that exists beneath.

     You receive a faint smile and a look which hides tension and understanding behind a blue and steady flame. He knows. He understands, yes, how you feel. He feels the same.
     Too many people - too many bodies. Too few who could begin to comprehend...
     Tiernan slides his arms around the girls' waists, bringing them to you as if to gift you with them, his smile as aloof with self-mockery as ever. It grows crooked with your scrutiny of him, a hint of colour entering his face - ah, anticipation. "Cards it is, then," he says easily, releasing one of the girls to you with a brief pat to her rear. As he pulls his hand back, it brushes your wrist - a gesture shared between the two of you, holding such private significance.
     The other girl's squeezed in closer to his side, though only for a moment. "All the prostitutes that you can eat? Does the kingdom even have that high a number?" One dark eyebrow lifts, but he moves to follow you, that Prince of Winter and Diamonds. As you go, as he follows, Tiernan turns for a moment to the crowded room. "A cheer for his highness! Long may he rule the waves!" His free hand gestures upwards; and then, with woman on his arm for accessory, he whirls back in your wake to follow you.
     He has said it before...
     I will follow you anywhere...

     A wry smile spreads upon his lips, curling at the corners as his arm curls around the fair-haired ...well, for lack of a better term...wench. "May he then come to rule the cards as well...I'm feeling lucky, Tiernan," his voice rolls out, "...very lucky..."
     Oh, indeed...
     Up the narrow stairs he leads, past the second floor with its rooms full of girls doing their best to earn their pay and the sailors their best to spend theirs, and up to the third floor, where the noblemen and other VIPs are usually entertained. Tonight, with such demand of the working class, there are a few of the more boisterous here. He leads even past that, down the narrow hall to the very end chamber, specially reserved for him.
     A ringed hand grasps the bounteous behind as he ushers the blonde with him into the suite. The suite! It is a very comfortable chamber. A couple of chambers, yes? It is a suite. There is a roomy and sumptuously (if gaudily) decorated living room, with a door that leads to a bedchamber.
     Iowerth begins removing his captain's coat as he enters the chamber, his head inclining. His eyes have locked to you. He glances to the girls. "Before this begins in earnest, ladies," he announces, "...I do have a matter of ...military importance to speak with the Prince here. Why do not the two of you go downstairs for a time." And he pays them anyway. A toss of pirate gold.

     Indeed...
     Feeling lucky - or just getting lucky ...
     The girl with whom Tiernan 'dallies' precedes him on the stairs, wiggling a bit to show off her curves. If she's upset that she's getting the lesser prince instead of the crown prince, she doesn't show it; she giggles and minces and never notices the jaded weariness in her audience's eyes. He pats her bum nonetheless, in polite appreciation, heading into the suite with you.
     "Very nice," Tiernan murmurs appreciatively, looking around the room. "They are certainly glad to have you back, your highness. Though not as glad as are we," he adds with gallantry, offering a bow to the 'ladies' and to you. They, of course, giggle. And then you wave gold, and their eyes follow the gold.
     And they depart...
     Tiernan is on hand to close the door behind them, and bolt it, yes, bolt it too...
     "You wished to speak to me on matters of military importance, my prince?" His voice is softer, now. There is a caress in the words, in the blue gaze that Tiernan locks onto you as he walks away from the door and to you. The rust-colored coat is pulled off - allowed to drip from his fingers to the floor. Forgotten. "I am yours for instruction. What," a dark eyebrow lifts, in that way already familiar to you, "would you have of me?"

     You and he, you have prepared the crowds for such times as these. Card games, private conversations. There is nothing amiss here. Especially among princes. It is not unusual for princes to pass an hour or more in cards, wagers and private conversation. Politics are not for a prostitute's ears.
     Or at least that is what Iowerth believes. His brother, he is sure, has other opinions...
     He removes his sword, and the pistols too, setting his armament upon the table as you approach him. He wants to smile, he wants to scream, he wants to press you to the wall or any other hard surface and show you how much he has missed you. "I decimated them to still my heart," he whispers. "But not even canons shooting could soothe me. There is... only one thing for that..."
     It has bee a long and very hard week. Though the pun is atrocious, still the fact remains. How missed were you? How desired were you? How frustrated has he been that all of the attempts to see you over the past week had come to nothing? It is in that kiss, the parting of his lips and yours to his, his tongue spreading them like his hand between your thighs to open you to him.
     We shouldn't here. It is risky. But ...Life is risky...
     Iowerth pulls you to him, him to you in a sudden meeting of male flesh. "How long do we have, do we have all night?" Or is she looking for you. Will she look for you again? His eyes are mostly periwinkle lavender in his intensity, the sea-foam green pressed to the outsides yet again. Ah! That is it! His eyes are like the coral and the sea that bears it. Purple shells and sea-green waters...

     He presses himself to you, strong working hands grasping at your hips. He cannot get close enough. He cannot, simply, get enough. His lips part as if he'd drink from you, steal your words in hungry, devouring press of mouth to mouth. When he pulls back - and he does so only so little - it is because he has to in order to breathe.
     "I have been unbearable," Tiernan murmurs against the corner of your mouth. "Impossible to live with. Even Leon has complained. I had to pull myself inwards again, but my only thoughts have been of you." His hands climb against the silk that covers your flesh, and he leans against you with splayed thighs, hips rocking just slightly in against yours. His desire is made manifest.
     "I do not know how long. I slipped away. I left Leon to try and divert her, that she'd think me still in the palace," your lover whispers to you. His mouth continues to travel, to steal kisses, plucking to your mouth, your chin, the edge of your jaw. "I hope we will have time. I need you as I have never needed anyone..."
     A hand is tangled in your hair, and he has stopped speaking. He has stopped, because his mouth is pressed again to yours, Tiernan's other arm twining around your waist with considerably more interest than either golden maid could hope to receive.

     It quickly becomes a wrangling. Arms, hands, legs, mouths. Boys that have been parted, cruelly by time and circumstance, begin to wrestle. Silk is parted, shirts opened by tugging hands.
     And a small voice at the back of his head says: We should not indulge this here...
     His hands go behind you, cupping you and pulling you to him. "It will have to be an exercise in silence," Iowerth speaks against your mouth, only the barest of sounds leaving him, his eyes half mast gazing to you through the bronze. "I do not know," he smiles suddenly, as wry as the whispered tone of his voice, "... if I have the discipline for that."
     But to stop now. To leave now. To climb onto rooftops and dance across the city to the hidden apartment. How can he? How can we? Iowerth tugs your shirt from your pants. Maybe after... after I at least taste you.
     Pressing the cloth away from your skin, Iowerth bends his head, his mouth surrounding a nipple as his hands unfasten your pants and slide quickly within. Who would bother two princes talking of politics? When the princes have provided for drinks? When the revelry is this fevered?
     "Duw," he groans against your skin, "...I've missed the taste of your skin... the heat of it..." His hands likely need not do much to inspire your flesh, but they move and slide all the same.

     There is a hiss of expelled breath, the effort made to stifle a groan. This is dangerous. But he is helpless to it. This need, this drowning...
     His hands skim over your waves, dabbling at your stomach and then lower. Clasps, fiddled with, so that he might grasp you. "I have dreamed of this," Tiernan whispers, skin so suddenly flushed to ruddiness. "I have missed you..."
     Only a month? Has it truly only been a month since blue eyes met lavender eyes with such intrigue? It has been lifetimes. The seconds spent apart have been as eons, and the hours spent together as moments only, lost in time. There - ah, yes, there. His eyes roll back behind almost closed lids as your mouth finds his nipple, and he surges forward against your hand.
     You are warmer than the sea, but he is drowning within you nonetheless. Wordlessly, his lips part at your neck for a moment, and he clutches you to him as if to shield you from some blow. This fevered pitch cannot possibly last, can it? "We run so much risk," Tiernan murmurs to you. But his hands do not stop...

     "I know," he breathes in your mouth, his mouth suckling strongly, rolling that ball against your with a soft chime of the compass arrow. A soft groan sounds against your lips. "We should go." Iowerth sighs, "God damn it. No..."
     "Not yet..." he shakes the notion off, his mouth dipping to your neck. His mouth parts wide, teeth scraping your skin. He leaves it red wherever he goes. "I can't let you go yet," his hands move against you. Quickly, slowly, encompassing, squeezing. A thigh comes between your own, his hands going to your hips. His mouth brushes your own, rolling his tongue against yours as he backs you toward the sofa.
     "Think to me... what you would want to scream to me," he whispers. "Think to me... what you feel...and I will hear it... I and I alone, Tiernan... no one but I..."
     No one, Tiernan, but I...
     His voice issues against you, even as his mouth widely parts your own, his hands returning to your length. With it, a wave of the sea. A sound of the sea. A wind of the sea.

     That intrusion into his mind almost undoes him. Blue eyes go wide enough that there's the roll of white all the way around; then it's as if the blue widens in turn, to swallow up white and black alike so that there is nothing but azure. And still he clasps you. He cannot do otherwise. Cannot, highness, cannot.
     You back him towards that cushioned surface; he is beyond caring if there are cushions or if there is only a wall. This is bigger than I. The first words to resound in your head. You can feel the urgency in his thoughts. There is a sigh in those words, a groan that is filled with such yearning.
     His thighs spread for you with such readiness, such eagerness, his hands dragging at your clothing. He wants you. He wants to see you. To feel you. One, bare against the other, flesh to flesh, soul to soul.
     I have needed you so much. There is a pang there, loneliness echoed and redoubled in his need of you. Tiernan lets his head fall back, a purr of pleasure as your mouth ravages his skin. His hands knead at your back and blunted fingers drag along your spine, feeling every moment of tension that long and lonely nights have conspired to put there.
     I never wish to be parted from you. I do not know what to do about it except this.
     One hand comes around to grasp you, squeezing as he looks up with half-closed eyes, lips parted as if to close them would be to banish the feel of your mouth from his. Tiernan watches you for a moment; a moment as long as a drop of water rising and falling again into a tide pool from the tip of a wave.
     Tell me, comes the whisper from him as if against your ear, what you would have me do... my prince ...

     Words tumble back and forth, they drop from you both like tiny worlds bouncing off the surface of the spheres. Bodies tumble after, a mess of half-dressed luxury upon the sofa. He upon you, you around him, arms and legs and hands and mouths.
     He smiles conspiratorially, a moment of victory -- one greater than his decimation of the pirates this day -- to know that you and he shall know one another, shall have one another, can moan as much as you like, and no one will know but the two of you. A hand bracing upon the back of the sofa, Iowerth reaches down between you, his hand tugging at your pants and his, hands fumbling with purpose to tease you.
     Crawl inside me... like this... here you are.. loved. You are loved. ... you are loved, Tiernan. he admits it, in that way of his, sideways to direct. Fuck, but it is true. Mouth covering yours, Iowerth twists with you.
     Despite his need and yours, it is strangely unrushed this tangling. The writhing takes its time. It brings his fingers between your thighs. Oiled, they slip inside you. One... two... triangled three. His mouth meanwhile does not let yours go. He suckles the cries from your throat, and he gives you his own.
     Tell me you will remain with me... treasured courtier... the favorite of the crown prince... I don't want you to go. Wrap your legs around me, pull me in. His fingers slip out and are replaced by the length you've courted.
     Downstairs, and even down the hall, the revelry continues. Singing, drinking, carousing. If they only knew how these princes caroused...

     He rocks against you, dark hair falling almost into his eyes. Eyes that do not see anything except you. There is a world out there, beyond windows and doors, but he is oblivious to that world. Immune. All he wants, all he could ever need, he holds in his hand. Holds him in turn.
     He is not smiling, but only because his lips form a perfect o, caught forever forward and halfway through your name. Yes. Yes, he will crawl. He feels as if he half-crawls already, so great, so groveling is his need. He is all but abject. Where has his royal pride gone? I love you, Tiernan admits it, the words crashing out from his mind to yours as if a great shout. He cannot shout it from rooftops. He will never be permitted that luxury, the simplest and most profound luxury of a common man. I am in love with the crown prince of the United Kingdoms. It is you that I need, Iowerth Rhudd Draig...
     You slide against him, into him, and almost his moan escapes him into being aloud. Hot breath hushes against your lips, his own parted in demand. I am greedy, Tiernan admits. I will remain. I will find a way. I will make a way. I do not want to leave you, my prince.
     You press against him, into him anew, and his teeth scrape against your lower lip in answer, his hands grasping at your shoulders even as his legs twine around you. Ah, so eagerly! Morning glories and honeysuckle never clung so readily or tightly as he does to you, this dark-haired, shadow prince lover of yours. He would give you anything. Promise you anything. If only so that you would not go, that he would not have to leave.
     I could not bear it if from you I had to go...

     From the door, there is a sudden rapping. Knuckles bouncing against wood. Someone approaches. A lost carouser? Or someone more purposeful?

     God damn it...
     His hand lifts, fingers pressed to your lip as he holds suddenly so still. His body pulses within you but the springs of the sofa do not so much as whisper. The crown prince turns his head, his fiery hair hanging forward and against his skin in a partial veil. His eyes narrow at the door.
     Will whomever it is knock again...
     Will we have time...
     To speak and act the love we share...
     Or to escape out of the window should we dare...
     Iowerth takes a breath, a finger slipping between your lips as he concentrates on the door. Who goes there, wood, on your other side? Friend or foe or no one we know...

     His breathing is almost noisy, held in with difficulty. It is like trying to hold back an impending orgasm, fighting a rising tide. Something of anguish...
     Tiernan burrows his head against your shoulder, eyes closed. This is so difficult. So hard, in every way imaginable. If he could speak aloud, he would swear until the air itself blushed at his crudity. He lifts his gaze to you, suckling your finger with eyes half-closed. Teeth gnaw lightly in frustration and pleasure alike.
     Wood shivers as a hand knocks against it again, and answer is given to one who seeks.

     Two in purple come and do not go, seeking a prince whose name I do not know. Sent by one greater than he, displeasure feared from this royal she.
     You ask in rhyme and receive in rhyme, a slow wooden answer punctuated by the syncopation of a knock.

     Shit...
     Such a mouth on you, my lord, so suddenly.
     Periwinkle and green eyes, those eyes of the deep look to you. Be very quiet, be very easy. Get up and get dressed. Quickly. He pulls from you, pulling up his pants. It's your mother's men...
     "It's good I took as much from them as I did, for all you're winning from me tonight. I'm going to lose all the gold I plundered today to a lousy deck of cards," Iowerth's voice lifts and he laughs. "A moment," he shouts to the door.
     He looks at you as he backs away. A hand through his hair, he sighs, bending to toss your coat to you. His feet can be heard on the other side of the door, approaching.
     Nothing to worry about, gentlemen...

     Fuck.
     That's what he'd like to be doing. Barring that, flaying his mother's men alive sounds rather good. Blue eyes lift to you in something of frustration and despair. How can this need be so interrupted?
     Damn the bitch, anyway ...
     He never used to dislike his mother this much. But he has never had this much to lose before. Shakily, Tiernan rights himself, pulling his clothing together. He was disheveled when he left. Now he looks as if a hurricane hit him, which is rather how he feels. With numb legs, the prince crosses to where the cards and pitcher are; an amount of ale is spilled into glasses, the cards knocked askew as if he's tidying up.
     "I'll deal next round, if you prefer," Tiernan drawls, his voice sounding so unnatural to him now, after all this intimacy. "Since you seem to be dealing all your best cards to me, maybe a change will work in your favour."

     From the other side of the door, the envoys shift uneasily. They are, after all, doing as they have been bid. "Begging your highness' pardon, but we have been sent by She Who Dwells In Midnight," one of them calls. "Is Prince Tiernan within?"
     They know he is. There were witnesses aplenty. But ... it is the polite thing to do...

     The captain laughs as he unbolts the door. He swings it open and gestures with an arm toward the other occupant. "Prince Tiernan is within. Please take him before he relieves me of all my cash," comes the following drawl. No... do not take him... not yet...
     The young boys look like they should look in a place like this... red-faced from their last women, deep in drink, looking a fright but in the best room in the house, with coins and cards on the table.
     "Care to join us in a game?" Iowerth continues, that drawl of his wry as he moves in his military array back to the table and to his drink. He takes up his pipe once more and a sack from his coat's pocket. The sack contains shredded herbal substances, clove, nutmeg and a special sort of fairy plant, black, looks a bit like seaweed. He stuffs it in the pipe and the fire starts on its own.
     Perhaps it is an odd thing to see such a young man with a pipe. But it's the seafaring thing to do. Goes with the coat and the boots, rather. Iowerth plops back down in his chair, with all the grace fitting a boy deep in drink. He looks between the guards and the Prince of Diamonds.

     "Drat," Tiernan drawls in turn. "I've got to go already? But the evening's so young, and I've not yet robbed his highness blind." He is so casual, so at ease. Nothing could possibly be wrong in his world.
     But you know the truth. You can feel it - how he is withdrawing, retreating into himself. Buckling on his shields. Buttoning up his defenses. As if they were the clothing you'd so easily drawn away from his skin. It is an internalized process, this affair...

     "Ah, thank you, Prince," the taller of the two answers with some embarrassment, "but our Queen wishes her son's presence immediately. Some matter of state, I could not say more than that. Your highness," Tiernan receives a bow as well. Don't kill us, those bows say. We are but the messengers.
     It is perhaps revealing, as to the state of the court of the Winter Diamond.
     "Ah, mother. I suppose I'll have to run along and play the dutiful son," Tiernan murmurs, dropping the cards and turning from the table. "Pardon me, I pray, your highness. I have, as ever, enjoyed our time together and count it as all too short." Such truth in those words! You receive only the flicker of a glance. But in that glance, there is the trailing of an echo.
     I love you...
     I need you...
     His smile is so easy, confident, almost arrogant as he claps you on the shoulder. "And tomorrow, you're off for a bit, aren't you?" Tiernan continues relentlessly. "Well, I'll just have to take your place while you're gone, with the ladies. Let's not leave them wanting, brother prince!" He laughs, picking up his coat and pulling it on with a wave to the two messengers. Yes, yes, I see you.
     That done, he begins moving for the door, back held proudly erect. I regret nothing save that I must depart, his thought comes to you. Aloud, Tiernan suggests to the two, "Let me just write a scrip for his highness, and I'll be right down. Meanwhile, you two just wait at the foot of the stairs, hm? See if you can find yourselves a glass."

     A smile forms around the mouthpiece of the pipe. Oh how that mouth should rather move. And upon you. But it pulls fire and smoke instead. A scented smoke, sweet and potent. "Hmm... do try to keep Hyacinth satisfied in my stead. You know how pwca women can be..."
     Iowerth begins to arm himself once more, the pistols stowed in his coat, one by one. He will be heading back to the ladies, it would seem, after your departure. So let it seem. "I am off for a bit, oes. I have a family matter on the material realm. Do not envy me my adventure. I will be locked in a mortal castle for a week. I should have saved the pirates for afterwards."
     Iowerth's periwinkle and sea-green eyes flicker over to the guards just momentarily. Nothing untoward. He nods to them. So be it. Duty calls. "We'll have to have another round when I return. Maybe I can win some of my money back...night," he says to the guards.
     As Tiernan sends them off, Iowerth rises, pulling on his captain's coat and reaching for his sword. It's been a long day. It's going to be a longer night. Pipe held to the side in one hand, he reaches for a tankard with the other, taking a good long swallow while the guards do as they're commanded...

     The guards depart, and the door closes, and again the two of you are alone together. For moments only. When that door is closed, Tiernan presses a finger to his lips. Wait, he mouths. He looks down to his feet - to the crack of the door. Nothing. Then, whirling, he yanks the door open again - revealing one messenger still lingering upon the threshold.
     Tiernan smiles pleasantly to the man, and his tone is friendly. The words, however : "I suggest you get downstairs before I decide that I shall reveal your inane incompetence to my mother when I come into her presence. I shall be down momentarily." He slams the door again, in the stuttering messenger's face. This time, there is again footsteps going downstairs. But he checks again, just in case, and then he turns to you.
     "I will miss you," Tiernan says quietly, looking upon you from his position by the door. "How long will you be gone?"

     "Two weeks by mortal time," Iowerth notes. "My mother is ...having a wedding ceremony there. Part of her... continued celebration of love." How differently the term falls from his lips aloud than he moved within you before.
     He is upset, but you can tell by his sigh, the shake of his head... he doesn't blame you. Things are...as they are. We will have to endure them, Tiernan. He is telling himself as much as you. Perhaps you see that as he stands before you, bending his head. Looking at you.
     A hand comes to your face, back of his fingers stroking you and the kiss that follows is a brush of his lips only. You taste the sweetness and the potency of that ...tobacco... chased by the flavor of the beer. I will miss you... and you will be in my thoughts." His mouth twists. "Especially tonight when I am swimming in the cold waters of the sea. Go on now, before she really decides to make your life miserable, hmm?
     Go, love... and ... do not worry...we will escape when I return. For a few nights. He does not allow himself the space to think that by the time he returns, you shall have been apart from one another as long as you had been together.

     I will think of you constantly. I cannot do anything but. And I will be miserable without you, but - I will try to let misery drive me to greater endeavor.
     Your hand to his face, his hands lift to for a moment trace your cheekbones. Gaze to gaze. Gentle, that touch. The touch of your lips, his. It is maddening.
     He pulls away with such difficulty, staring at you as if to memorize you. As if he would be parted from you for years; decades; centuries; forever, rather than weeks. "Well, try not to burn down the castle in your boredom, your highness," Tiernan drawls aloud. He offers you a lopsided grin, a lift of a hand. "Until then."
     The door is pulled open, and with straightened spine, he walks out. And that is the last you see of Prince Tiernan of the Kingdom of the Winter Diamond... for some time to come.

Posted by rowan at May 09, 2006 09:49 PM