Seven Thousand Star-Petals
Title: Seven Thousand Star-Petals
Email: tori.siikanen@gmail.com
Fandom: Tanith Lee's Biting the Sun
Rating: Nc-17
Content: They're flying.
Disclaimer: This is fanfic. You should read the original books. They're good. This post is a glossary to the slang, and this post is the first chapter.
We are taught how having love works. We know all about it by the time we leave hypno-school, and there are six hundred and seventeen love manuals written specifically for the Jang. We're not barred from reading those for Older People, though they mostly cover things that Older People do, like orgies. I haven't read all the love manuals and honestly a lot of it is the same thing, only written for the era and the fashions of the time. Right now Jang interest in apparatus is becoming fashionable again, and the flashes report stories about the new features of the Delight Palace putting in some piece of new furniture or other. I really like visiting the floaters or using the underpools, and I tried a star-swing a few vreks ago. But we had none of those things in Saz's bird-plane, and there was no manual that even hinted at what he and I were to do.
Saz guided me, my glar in this as he was for lightswords. When I got caught up in confusion about how I could know so much about having love and feel like I was doing everything wrong he soothed me, caught me up in his arms again and went back to kissing sunlight on flowers, sometimes as the sunlight, sometimes as the blossoms.
Every Jang manual has instructions on kissing. There is one that is just about kissing, one named Seven Thousand Star-Petals. That one is groshing. It's poetry. I've read it over and over, savoring the beautiful words describing the pure open beauty of sunlight on flowers, the trickling bliss of the gemwing's landing, the best ways to give the kiss of invitation, and how it should be answered, how to give the kiss of answer, and what you can say in how you hold your lips, in where you put your breath before and where you touch before the kiss is given, and how you touch afterward, and what you speak in a sigh. And there were stories, gorgeous stories of lovers speaking volumes with their eyes and their lips and a touch. I read it over and over, watched so many fabulisms based on pieces of it.
My adoration of Seven Thousand Star-Petals is a bit floopy, to most Jang. Old-fashioned. Sentimental. And awkward. So many of the kisses can't be done in an afternoon marriage, or a three unit marriage, because they're too intimate and demanding. It's too soon for such promises spoken on the skin, too eager. And often by the time you marry for vrek the moment for them is gone, and you've moved on to exciting things. Rarely have I been moved to bring the verses of those kisses to a marriage, afraid of odd looks or laughter, however good natured.
But I've never married anyone for vrek.
Saz had read that manual as much as I had, and the swooping feeling of flying in his bird plane matched my elation, my amazement at being given the quill-feather's touch at the notch of my throat, the silken puff of breath and gliding lips as he whispered endearments into my skin, writing them into the hollow at the clavicle. Words I couldn't hear, that I wasn't meant to hear or ever ask about, but I seized him and gave him my own reply to the open palm of his hand--so bold!--and he stared at me for a whole split with a look of awed joy before snugging me back down into the cushions of his couch.
I used to call this the amusement before having love. I was wrong. This was having love, and it was sweet and terrible. It made me ache and want more while wailing inside that it would have to end, before we'd even taken off our soft groin pouches (the gilded and gemmed cages thumped to the fur-of-silk carpet in half a split, though, and my sensor harness, and the armguards.) Saz's clasp landed on a shelf, and his half mask was dazzle-paint--he switched the dazzle off, but left the deep aged bronze and sable base as it was. We lay in the cradling net of my braids and the pillows, our knees hinged together and had love with our fingertips, had love with our lips, had love with our breath and the velvety fringes of Saz's hair, loose and curtaining around us. And when I caught myself wondering if I should feel like a woman while shielding him, my hands leaning heavily to pin his as I followed the sunlight of his kisses, or like a man gathered up in his lap, my arms around his neck as I gave him the caress of praise, that tracery of kisses you give to a woman's face, showing her what about her design you found the most groshing, when I faltered in confusion, my glar would guide me back to the beginning again to lie side by side, to the very first touches that begin the first time one Jang has love with another, if the one you've married has any manners at all. Some don't.
"This is beautiful," Saz said, tracing over the flower-wings painted on my body, following them with his lips - over arms and shoulders and my chest, along the tickling skin just under my ribs, breaths warm agony. I would paint myself every unit. No - I would wash it off, so the next time would be special and rare, so he would know that i wanted the gemwing's landings across my skin, that I especially wanted his touch.
"I was inspired," I answered. "Saz."
"Ooma-kasma," he answered, and the bird-plane spun in dizzy happiness.
"Say it again."
"Ooma-kasma," he said, and circled his tongue around my navel. "All the stars of my night. Say it to me."
"Ooma-kasma," I answered. "My rising dawn," I added, and he surged up the bed to kiss me again, again, burning like the sun. I tried for his hand but he drew it away, his fingers trailing along my skin, down to my hip even as he rose up to lie beside me, settling my thigh between his.
"We don't have much time," he whispered.
"No." I nearly wailed it, but he hushed me with his hand - calloused on palm and fingers, like mine but not mine, deliciously derisann and other - wrapped around me for one slow stroke.
"We can't do everything this time," he said, and he took his hand away - farathoom! - but only to reach for a bit of silken gel for his fingers, and that slick hot warmth was back, sliding up to dabble finger-tips along that spot just where the flare of my sex stretched past its sheath.
"I'll marry you tomorrow," I promised, hips raised and flexed to meet his hand, to push into the tight ring he made with rippling fingers, like I'd done it on the couch but so much more because it was his hand. He's watched me squeeze and twist while I wished it was him, oh it was him now, my Saz, my rising dawn-
"Say it again," he said.
"Mine," I said again, louder. I held onto his shoulder while I flailed for the gel by the couch. "Let me do it to you."
"After, my ooma," Saz promised. "This is for you. Look at me."
I did, and combed his hair back with my fingers. I watched him, and didn't shut my eyes until the very end, my fingers deep enough in Saz's shoulders to bruise.
.o.O.o.
There wasn't an after. I was trying to catch my breath and gather my wits when a terrible klaxon sounded, marking ninety four splits, the Committee-approved time for a light diurnal nap. Saz leapt out of bed to shut it off, frantically tapping in a different navigation course. I had an insumatt view of his back, and...
I squirmed when a cool trickle ran down my side. Farathoom! "There's no bathing unit on here, is there?" Thralldrap. Where would he put it?
"Just washing cloths," Saz said. Well. It was better than nothing. The dispenser unit gave me a paper-velvet cloth, warm and scented of moss-orchid. It didn't smear my painted flower-wings, at least.
"Where are we going?"
"The plane will fly to the History Tower, touch down for two splits, and then I'll take you home." Saz was getting dressed, still fiddling with the console. Across the plane from me.
I slipped into my tall boots, curled around the pit in my stomach as I touched one of the flower wings on the toe, wiping away an imaginary speck. "That would be fine."
"Ooma," Saz said, but it was me who turned away, feeling at my braids, checking for disarray.
"Ooma," Saz said, but i kept fussing until he turned me around, hands on my shoulders. I lookd down, though that meant gazing at his body. "I was startled by the alarm. I forgot that it would go off. I shouldn't have jumped up like that."
"It's fine," I said. Only an utter thralldrap would believe it. It wasn't fine at all. The cold trickle of what we'd done wrapped itself around my spine and sent chilling thoughts upward. But Saz pulled me in, and he was warm.
"It has to stay a secret," Saz said. "I hate that. But it does."
We stood together like that, barely needing to shift our feet when the bird-plane landed, but clung tighter when it took off.
"We can't tell anyone," I said. I knew that. I told myself that it made sense, as we rocked with the bird-plane's flight to Home, my stomach lurching with the descent.
Email: tori.siikanen@gmail.com
Fandom: Tanith Lee's Biting the Sun
Rating: Nc-17
Content: They're flying.
Disclaimer: This is fanfic. You should read the original books. They're good. This post is a glossary to the slang, and this post is the first chapter.
We are taught how having love works. We know all about it by the time we leave hypno-school, and there are six hundred and seventeen love manuals written specifically for the Jang. We're not barred from reading those for Older People, though they mostly cover things that Older People do, like orgies. I haven't read all the love manuals and honestly a lot of it is the same thing, only written for the era and the fashions of the time. Right now Jang interest in apparatus is becoming fashionable again, and the flashes report stories about the new features of the Delight Palace putting in some piece of new furniture or other. I really like visiting the floaters or using the underpools, and I tried a star-swing a few vreks ago. But we had none of those things in Saz's bird-plane, and there was no manual that even hinted at what he and I were to do.
Saz guided me, my glar in this as he was for lightswords. When I got caught up in confusion about how I could know so much about having love and feel like I was doing everything wrong he soothed me, caught me up in his arms again and went back to kissing sunlight on flowers, sometimes as the sunlight, sometimes as the blossoms.
Every Jang manual has instructions on kissing. There is one that is just about kissing, one named Seven Thousand Star-Petals. That one is groshing. It's poetry. I've read it over and over, savoring the beautiful words describing the pure open beauty of sunlight on flowers, the trickling bliss of the gemwing's landing, the best ways to give the kiss of invitation, and how it should be answered, how to give the kiss of answer, and what you can say in how you hold your lips, in where you put your breath before and where you touch before the kiss is given, and how you touch afterward, and what you speak in a sigh. And there were stories, gorgeous stories of lovers speaking volumes with their eyes and their lips and a touch. I read it over and over, watched so many fabulisms based on pieces of it.
My adoration of Seven Thousand Star-Petals is a bit floopy, to most Jang. Old-fashioned. Sentimental. And awkward. So many of the kisses can't be done in an afternoon marriage, or a three unit marriage, because they're too intimate and demanding. It's too soon for such promises spoken on the skin, too eager. And often by the time you marry for vrek the moment for them is gone, and you've moved on to exciting things. Rarely have I been moved to bring the verses of those kisses to a marriage, afraid of odd looks or laughter, however good natured.
But I've never married anyone for vrek.
Saz had read that manual as much as I had, and the swooping feeling of flying in his bird plane matched my elation, my amazement at being given the quill-feather's touch at the notch of my throat, the silken puff of breath and gliding lips as he whispered endearments into my skin, writing them into the hollow at the clavicle. Words I couldn't hear, that I wasn't meant to hear or ever ask about, but I seized him and gave him my own reply to the open palm of his hand--so bold!--and he stared at me for a whole split with a look of awed joy before snugging me back down into the cushions of his couch.
I used to call this the amusement before having love. I was wrong. This was having love, and it was sweet and terrible. It made me ache and want more while wailing inside that it would have to end, before we'd even taken off our soft groin pouches (the gilded and gemmed cages thumped to the fur-of-silk carpet in half a split, though, and my sensor harness, and the armguards.) Saz's clasp landed on a shelf, and his half mask was dazzle-paint--he switched the dazzle off, but left the deep aged bronze and sable base as it was. We lay in the cradling net of my braids and the pillows, our knees hinged together and had love with our fingertips, had love with our lips, had love with our breath and the velvety fringes of Saz's hair, loose and curtaining around us. And when I caught myself wondering if I should feel like a woman while shielding him, my hands leaning heavily to pin his as I followed the sunlight of his kisses, or like a man gathered up in his lap, my arms around his neck as I gave him the caress of praise, that tracery of kisses you give to a woman's face, showing her what about her design you found the most groshing, when I faltered in confusion, my glar would guide me back to the beginning again to lie side by side, to the very first touches that begin the first time one Jang has love with another, if the one you've married has any manners at all. Some don't.
"This is beautiful," Saz said, tracing over the flower-wings painted on my body, following them with his lips - over arms and shoulders and my chest, along the tickling skin just under my ribs, breaths warm agony. I would paint myself every unit. No - I would wash it off, so the next time would be special and rare, so he would know that i wanted the gemwing's landings across my skin, that I especially wanted his touch.
"I was inspired," I answered. "Saz."
"Ooma-kasma," he answered, and the bird-plane spun in dizzy happiness.
"Say it again."
"Ooma-kasma," he said, and circled his tongue around my navel. "All the stars of my night. Say it to me."
"Ooma-kasma," I answered. "My rising dawn," I added, and he surged up the bed to kiss me again, again, burning like the sun. I tried for his hand but he drew it away, his fingers trailing along my skin, down to my hip even as he rose up to lie beside me, settling my thigh between his.
"We don't have much time," he whispered.
"No." I nearly wailed it, but he hushed me with his hand - calloused on palm and fingers, like mine but not mine, deliciously derisann and other - wrapped around me for one slow stroke.
"We can't do everything this time," he said, and he took his hand away - farathoom! - but only to reach for a bit of silken gel for his fingers, and that slick hot warmth was back, sliding up to dabble finger-tips along that spot just where the flare of my sex stretched past its sheath.
"I'll marry you tomorrow," I promised, hips raised and flexed to meet his hand, to push into the tight ring he made with rippling fingers, like I'd done it on the couch but so much more because it was his hand. He's watched me squeeze and twist while I wished it was him, oh it was him now, my Saz, my rising dawn-
"Say it again," he said.
"Mine," I said again, louder. I held onto his shoulder while I flailed for the gel by the couch. "Let me do it to you."
"After, my ooma," Saz promised. "This is for you. Look at me."
I did, and combed his hair back with my fingers. I watched him, and didn't shut my eyes until the very end, my fingers deep enough in Saz's shoulders to bruise.
.o.O.o.
There wasn't an after. I was trying to catch my breath and gather my wits when a terrible klaxon sounded, marking ninety four splits, the Committee-approved time for a light diurnal nap. Saz leapt out of bed to shut it off, frantically tapping in a different navigation course. I had an insumatt view of his back, and...
I squirmed when a cool trickle ran down my side. Farathoom! "There's no bathing unit on here, is there?" Thralldrap. Where would he put it?
"Just washing cloths," Saz said. Well. It was better than nothing. The dispenser unit gave me a paper-velvet cloth, warm and scented of moss-orchid. It didn't smear my painted flower-wings, at least.
"Where are we going?"
"The plane will fly to the History Tower, touch down for two splits, and then I'll take you home." Saz was getting dressed, still fiddling with the console. Across the plane from me.
I slipped into my tall boots, curled around the pit in my stomach as I touched one of the flower wings on the toe, wiping away an imaginary speck. "That would be fine."
"Ooma," Saz said, but it was me who turned away, feeling at my braids, checking for disarray.
"Ooma," Saz said, but i kept fussing until he turned me around, hands on my shoulders. I lookd down, though that meant gazing at his body. "I was startled by the alarm. I forgot that it would go off. I shouldn't have jumped up like that."
"It's fine," I said. Only an utter thralldrap would believe it. It wasn't fine at all. The cold trickle of what we'd done wrapped itself around my spine and sent chilling thoughts upward. But Saz pulled me in, and he was warm.
"It has to stay a secret," Saz said. "I hate that. But it does."
We stood together like that, barely needing to shift our feet when the bird-plane landed, but clung tighter when it took off.
"We can't tell anyone," I said. I knew that. I told myself that it made sense, as we rocked with the bird-plane's flight to Home, my stomach lurching with the descent.