Summer breeze makes me feel fine....
I do believe I've taken more vacation time this year alone than in all my years of service to the Dark Lady combined. Looking back on that term I can't tell if it was the inclination of the opportunity I lacked; more likely the latter once Khaavren and I were at each other's sides. Oh yes, we spoke of stealing time to idle about together. Now we have rightly earned it and this idyll has been everything I'd dreamed it could be.
We wake each other with kisses and song. In the mornings I sing for them and Khaav amazes us with the clever delicacy of his breakfasts. Midday, we are busy with so many fields and flowers, collecting or tending the bounty of life Nagrand's perfect summer has given us. In the afternoon I wash their feet and they clamber unshod into a great vat to stomp grapes. Their smiles and laughter are infectious - even when they slip my loves are so happy I feel as though I may burst from the joy it brings me to see them so. They may yet convince me to join them in that messy business; but for now I am content to sit beside them and watch their antics, laughing, waiting for them to come out and be bathed again.
Come dusk we share the fruit of our labours. Fine dinners, wine or mead, a pipeful of Bliss. I've come to favour the balcony for playing violin for them: it appeals to a certain flair for the dramatic. Some evenings we pester Al'arien into taking up his flute. Khaav's mentioned learning to sing. The traditionalist in me says he's a bit old to start but if it makes my lovers happy then tradition may go to hell.
At night we make a different sort of music together, a harmony as sweet as any harp. Their voices mingling with mine in darkness, our limbs a perfect tangle, our minds and hearts and susurrant breath shared as one...oh there are myriad measures to this melody and we will play them all in time.
I could spend a thousand years in this dream.
But I fear we must wake soon. The worlds beyond our island paradise are not yet healed; there is still so much work to be done. The memory of these too-brief weeks will buoy me along through what we must do. I will do all I must and all I can to hear that laughter again.
My falcon, my phoenix, you are my Light in the darkness. Fly on - your wolf will return to you soon.
The other day I ate a bit of talbuk and kept it down. Didn't even gag much. I might never be able to eat clefthoof or pork again but we shouldn't go without talbuk. I wanted to try for them, to see if I could. It's such a silly little thing perhaps but...I'm proud.
I think Khaavren and Al'arien are, too.
I will do all I can to heal for them.
The last two weeks have been a blessing. A'dal himself could not have given a better gift; and I cannot help but believe that the only way I would be worthy of such a pure and precious thing
is if the Light meant to tell me
that I am, at least in part, forgiven.
I am so very grateful.
(( suggested listening: July is dressed up and playing Her tune. ))