The Gilded Calling
The Gilded Calling-
Chapter One
「☽ ♦ ☼ ♦ ☾ 」
The sun bathed the pristine city in such a warm light, that it sparkled as if it were crafted of gold. There were many reasons that Alamut was called a sacred city and this was one of them. It was a paradise nestled within the mountains, a kiss from the gods on a seemingly harsh terrain. Beneath the scalloped edges of gauze hood that adorned her body and wrapped her in an otherworldly mystery, Tamina titled her head up to note the progression of the moon. Twenty six days had passed since the siege and the change of her entire world. Twenty five days ago, she had for the sake of upholding the promise of peace and protecting her people taken Prince Dastan's hand in marriage. Alamut was now a city under Persia's flag, a city like many others before it that had abandoned their own to fly new banners from the towers, and the princess was now a mere regent in it. In her own city. To some this was mockery, this was asinine but Tamina was undaunted and indifferent to it as she, as well as the other guardians, should be wary of time itself.
Twelve days since the rest of the army had departed and with it went the two princes, brothers at arms by marriage, two brothers of blood that she knew little of and her new king. Now only Dastan and Persia's laws remained in the wake of the army.
Dastan. Oh what a great deal of emotion that name had attached to it, just as many as meanings of the name as well. One called him a hero, another the term story, lastly trickster. How very apt all three were and she as the ever observant princess could see it. With no other in the room but herself, Tamina smiled as she pressed her back against the curve of the very large window where the heat of the stone beneath her roused her body into comfort. She imagined that her prince's arms would be just as comforting and by all assessments that her handmaidens and the waggling tongues of gossipers had made he was more then plenty capable. Yet she as both undeterred and not used to the either the idea or implications of running into a man’s arms for comforts, did not know for certain. Tamina had not known them, or his embrace, or touch on any accounts. Nor had he forced his position. Even on their wedding night, when she felt nauseous with the weight of what was expected of her, Dastan had placed a single kiss atop her lips and said how she already had his heart. That he was then content with simply giving it to her. All too casually, he had bid her goodnight, and snuffed the candle on the side of the bed that he had claimed then seemingly gone to sleep.
He was so very different from what she might have judged him to be, which was simply, some arrogant stomping prince as all the others, all the suitors in the past had been. For the record, if such a conversation were to pass, there were far too many suitors who had come calling. Yet Dastan remained, in contrast to the others, for lack of a better words, special. Gone was the bravado of which she detested, the arrogance that so many others had show, instead she saw other qualities in is looks he extended to her, as if his eyes never wanted to loose track of her, and despite how many persons were in a room, they held her in a high regard. The room would almost magically empty in those eyes, and in the gentle way he did speak to her. She thought him kind, honest even.
Granted, when he was not mocking her as if it were some customary game of wit between them. On more then one occasion Tamina had won, and found herself wearing a contented smile with the glee of a child, Dastan would laugh. As if he were simply pleased to have seen her smile, given her that small joy. That was one of the things that struck her, aside from being debonair and handsome, was how transparent he was. His pretty eyes that reminded her of Alamut's renowned clear and pure waters, and how easily those blue-blue eyes reflected his emotions. They sparkled with mirth when he laughed, with mischief and wit when he mocked, and on occasion when she caught him while he stared yet he did not notice her shift of attention, how she eyed him eying her, almost a sadness. Were Dastan an element it would be water, transparent and reflecting. It was so different from herself, she had learned to deflect and hide her emotions at an early age, being a princess. She fancied she wore a gilded golden mask, similar to the sacred symbols that adorned her garments, her skin in paints, and it was her armor. Dastan wore no armor, it was if she could simply stare at his face with a certain brashness and read him as easily as she read scrolls in the old languages of the dead. It was undeniably fascinating.
Methodically, but unaware that she did it, Tamina toyed with the golden chain about her neck. Only time, like the minute held around her neck, would tell what would happen between them. She felt very strongly for the man now but had yet to identify what precise feeling it was. Emotions on this level were foreign to her, she had heard them as terms, by names but had very little understanding of how to classify them. The princess was certain that Dastan knew these things, knew them from the minute that he had met her. That was the reason why he had said all of his choice words to her in the throne room, then in the garden, and when he returned the Dagger of Time. It was both questionable and yet not at the same time. When she held the blade, Tamina had sensed that it still held the sand within it by the weight. Still Dastan had known things that no other mortal, other then a guardian should have known. Could have known, unless he, unbeknownst to the rest of the world, had altered time itself? That was the benefit of holding time within one's hands, only the wielder of the dagger, once the ruby atop it had been pressed, realized that time itself had been altered. That should have distressed her and yet it did not seem to. Tamina had elected to trust Dastan, after all, he returned the sacred blade with nothing more then a gentle smile. Perhaps that was too naive, too accepting, yet that was a decision that her prince would say, was so characteristically her.
Dastan was prone to trouble. Of the three brothers, the eldest was the philosopher, the second the warrior, there was nothing left for the last child other then to play the imp. For many years he excelled in that role, he dragged Bis up and down with him. Yet he had taken very deliberate steps to avoid trouble now that he was here. What mistakes he was prone to make as a bachelor did not seem to suit his new life style in Alamut, with Tamina as his wife. It felt so very much like deja vu, a term that he had not fully understood until now, yet it was so fundamentally different. They had been here once before together for but a few hours. Perhaps it felt so familiar, as this was the life that he wanted with her. A quiet life that lacked the excitement, the noise and threats of the previous one. That journey that he had taken with Tamina had changed him, more for the better for then the worse. The prince had realized that his previous life, the life before her, was selfish. Rather childish. He regarded rules, as if they were mere guidelines and the only exception was if those rules were uttered directly to him by his father. He sought to constantly, as his most wretched uncle had reminded him, to prove himself as a worthy person to have been raised from the streets. As something more then an urchin. His father once had called him a prince not of blood but of character and spirit, and Dastan was intent to prove that Sharaman was right when he had made that judgement call. His morals and honor enforced by his princedom said that Dastan could not shame the very man who had altered his life so fundamentally, who had given him everything he had now. The same could be said for his for his princess.
Tamina taught him many things, though she had no recollection of it, among them was selflessness. She had devoted her life to the dagger, to protecting it and simultaneously protecting the world. She lived her life based on what was asked of her, what was expected of her, in absolutely and sharp contrast to Dastan. With no other option the priestess in the hidden valley that the enemy had know of, and slain the other guardians, she had decided that she was ready. That the path was destiny. She decided to take the risks, knew the consequences and the weight of them. She barely hesitated when she spoke of the ultimatum: to offer up her own life in return for the original payment. The one person that Dastan could not afford to loose, the one person left that he loved, was willing to die for the world. For it's safety. Yet, as she seemed to say so often, destiny had other plans. Surely that was the point of it all, the point that the gods that he had no reason to believe but suddenly seemed in acknowledgement of had wanted to show. Man was not as corrupt as they had believed. There was still kindness in the world, the priestess seemed to personify it, Dastan had shown it when he insisted on accompanying her. Man was in now way expected to remain static, the nature of man, along with being an enemy of time, was to be fluid. Man could change. He changed from a child, to an adult. Tamina changed. That man that he had once been, much like Dastan had already said, was not the person he was now. By her account, it was too short of time for a man to change the time it had taken between the invasion and their walk in the garden. Yet it was the perfect time to change. No matter as stubborn as he was, Dastan could not chalk but another thing up to coincidence.
Another day was nearly over and Dastan had been on very "good behavior". Frankly there was not much within the sacred city to get into trouble over, what with the dialect difference between them. Those within the palace were accommodating and spoke Persian, as he spoke with Tamina, Dastan however did not speak the language of his new home. Still on all accounts, such would have impressed his brothers, this new found resolve, but it would take more to impress his princess. She was the one with a steely gaze who had turned away countless suitors. With a creak of the large wooden doors, he let himself into her chambers through the waiting room, into the second set of chambers. That was where he found his pretty princess, bathed in the warm light under a widow, almost a parallel of her city. Placidly her eyes were closed beneath the hood and the princess did not stir. He found it almost a precarious location for his princess to be perched, no matter how graceful she was. By the way that her cloak rippled, one leg was balanced with the weight of her body on the flat, rather wide window seal, the other leg dangled down. Still, he would not tell her to move, as she was far less content with following his orders then he was to hers. Stubborn was the more common term. She looked so serene with her profile to him, her head titled up enough that she could rest it upon the arch of the window that she had settled in in. Through the wooden latticework, the screen that she had adjusted, came a slight breeze, carrying with them the scents from the first floor garden. As he neared, her eyes fluttered open and glanced over before the princess turned and gave him her full attention. Just the way that he fancied it. Though he was a new man, more inclined to act his age, Dastan was not intending to share her.
"Princess."
He teased with that mischievous look that she recognized as Tamina smiled in return and looked amused. He truly was different, to take up that personal, comforting tone with her, as if he spoke to her as more then what she was expected to be, more then a title, but a genuine person. Dastan sat down before her on the window seal content that her eyes had watched him join her and did not flit away now.
From her lap, he collected her hands and she thought it a touch that she did not seem to mind at all despite that it still was relatively foreign to her. Dastan carried on without this observation, but made another instead, how small, and demure her hands looked in between his. The swirling paint atop it, of symbols he did not know of and could not comprehend with glittering gold that was reduced into paint. They were sacred symbols, he was aware of that much, which elevated her to an exalted place of honor and yet by the same token isolated her. The symbols were her oath, which she was sworn to, which she had proved to fulfill without hesitation. They cut her off from the world, locked her in her rooms with putrid scrolls instead of out, living and pitted her against her heart. As he held her hands, soft as they had never seen the things his own had seen. Of war, of battle, of hunger, and poverty. Tamina was blessed and would know such things, these sacred symbols atop her hands proved it so he tried very hard to avoid smudging that paint. Dastan placed a chaste kiss on her forehead as the embroidered scallop ticked over the bridge of his nose.
Tamina’s eyes dropped close as he did this, and her lips parted ever so slightly as if she had wanted to speak to him or to kiss him, though Dastan might have been more of a brazen man to think the latter. For the sake of safety, he would assume that she had a retort for him and Dastan quickly retreated, now aware that such a kiss might have been far too brazen but as he pulled back, her eyes fluttered open, and her prince recognized the look in them. Tamina was masterful at expressing emotions with but a glance, once she had permitted herself to feel them. She had grown comfortable to doing it once before, and then, much like this time had meant there was a change in their dynamic. His mouth twitched at the corners to see it, to realize it. In this look there were a few choice emotions that he had waited for her to feel. Tamina had traded one role for another, a ruler for a lover.
However, he would not force her hand this time either, to confess it. If Dastan wanted one thing for his princess, it was for her to act as her own person. Not to hide her emotions away behind guarded walls, not to pretend as if she had a heart of stone, as if she could not be hurt. The priestess was just as mortal as he, she had emotions, had a heart. Dastan recalled, with a tint of sadness, that he had seen it break when they dangled so precariously in the caverns under their feet. She had wants and needs, she said them then through her tears. In this second life, Tamina did not, should not have to forgo those needs again. Dastan was determined not to let her, what she longed for, he was far too content to help her get. All she had to do was ask, he had called her spoiled for a reason. Yet how could he say no to those doe eyes when they looked at him, as trusting as they did now?
"A man only has to loose his former self, to locate a new form in the reflection of a woman's eyes."
Dastan with a wide and impressive smile that mollified her, and she seemed to forget the uneasy thoughts, she had lost herself in not long ago. Those soft endearing thoughts about law stated that what was between them was a binding matrimony that was done to insure the safety of her people, as if she were a common trinket. No one such as she was a trinket, and Tamina was not one to be bedded, wedded and forgotten. Could he ever forget her, was he capable? A world without her was a world without warmth, without the guiding light of the sun, the moon the stars. Such was what she meant to him, and furthermore the world, his world, prior to her, was a world that in afterthought looked much like darkness. With a tint a sadness. It was not a world that he cared to return to, for he had already tasted it, the forbidden fruit, the woman who no mortal was able to possess until now. Tamina, the prince had decided, would be his first and last wife. Why would he require any other, when all others seemed to fade in her presence. He was born of the streets, and not of the palace, what traditions the Persian royalty upheld in terms of harems, Dastan saw no reason to uphold. He could not identify with them, no more then he could identify with the idea of destiny.
"'Lo and behold, the lion of Persia reading scriptures. Recall that another poet then stated that, 'Beauty has developed quite a knack for taming beasts.'"
Tamina wittily replied, thoroughly entertained that he did, despite her mental casting of the Persians seem to be literate. Granted, she already thought of him as well spoken. If he were not, then these games would not nearly be as charming. Strangely something felt different to this tease, but another thing she could not put her finger on. Dastan in turned smirked, as if he had just recently learned how true of a statement that were, and not some romantic, wishy washy illusion.
"Certainly all beasts have their instances when they desire not to be beasts at all. What truly defines a beast, by our terms, could not for theirs. Silly princess, after reading all those musky scrolls you know not of humans and how they have domesticated animal, thus proving all beasts can be tamed."
This beauty before him was a case in point. She arched a brow and opened her lips then closed them, the look seemed to suggest that this bout, Dastan had won. Strange indeed. Tamina then laughed. Despite knowing her, Dastan had never heard his princess laugh. Then or now. It was a clear and pretty sound, that was just as melodious as her voice. Slightly embarrassed for doing such a thing with that earnestly, she tucked her chin closer to her breast bone and stifled another laugh as she nipped the inside of her bottom lip. He had worked himself over all of her guarded walls, literal and metaphorical. Dastan was so very fond of vaulting into trouble and situations that he did not belong!
Yet he did, belong here, belong with her. To prove himself, Dastan slipped his hands from hers, placed a few fingers beneath her chin and gently titled it upwards to look a him once more. Spurred on by her momentary lapse in reasoning, that had let him win that exchange, that let her for the first time, laugh Dastan took it upon himself to occupy her. Before the regret set in. Such a nobel prince! His princess was highly educated, fluent in five languages but did she know that a mouth, had plenty of abilities, other then speaking. Arguably, some of which were far more entertaining than others! He kissed her with all of the same passion as before, but another confessional that he loved her. It felt to Tamina as if he had waited all these days to be able to kiss her, and kiss her this way. She had waited her entirely lifetime to be kissed, to know such a passion that she had previously thought was forbidden to her. Perhaps she could have stolen a kiss, if it pleased her so, it would have been quite easily to do as she was stubborn. For the most part, her title of princess did promise she got what she pleased, provided it was in the realm of reason. It was not an entirely passive gesture that she had elected not to do so, she had alway thought it easier to not know what her life missed. Until this instance, where everything had gone soft, his lips, her lips, her heart. All were aflutter in an instant.
Certainly there was a great deal more magic then she acknowledged in the world, and he felt it too. Her lips were as soft, and full, as calming as the desert moon; the most precious desert flower desert cherub tilting her head upwards to retrieve his affections. This woman! What powerful emotions she evoked in him. To kiss her in this manner, to be kissed in turn in such a manner, how he needed nothing else. A love, a passion that spanned through time, that was the driving force of his actions till then. If this were then, destiny, it had suddenly become very sweet.