ADC: C1 – The Sun, The Moon and A Cabin In a Vale
Introduction:
A tempest in time took her to him, then him and her to here, a cabin by a lake, in a valley, in a mountain, in a place that no map remembers.
Be forewarned, these writings may trigger some issue or issues that you have, either by the language used or it’s content in general. If you are one to get bothered by every little thing, just close it now and step away from wherever the hell it is that you are reading this.
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————————————————————— After Days Chronicles —————————————————————
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Chapter I – The Sun, The Moon and A Cabin In a Vale
The sunlight revels through the leaves of the trees embracing the silhouette of a girl in a ramshackle chair.
She’s a little smaller than average, graceful, in an uncoordinated way, with blonde hair that falls fluidly, almost halfway down her back. There’s a star away look, in her glacier-blue eyes, that makes her appear younger than her years, and oh so much younger, than the sorrows that she’s seen. Her face is airy and thread worn. Yet, there lies in it a countenance of steeled determination, hidden ever so cleverly by a day dreamy gaze, that obscures the soft glow of a fiery, calm resilience.
Calloused, dexterous fingers smooth the wrinkles in her garment, as she methodically eyes the body, of the stranger, laying in the bed beside the chair where she sits.
For seventeen days she’s been here, alone with her thoughts and chores. In silence mostly. Save, for the sounds of the life outside and the, more than occasional, groans of agony from that same prostrate form. Urgent sounds, that prompt a rush of adrenaline and fuel her fatigued and strained body towards action.
The light, fondly, touches upon her pale skin, caressing through the gossamer fabric of an old lace curtain, a relic that she’s fashioned, quite nicely, into a practical sundress. The vision, within the sheer threads that she dons, whisper of points and curves, hinting reverently at the multitude of scars, that call her skin home. Scars, that rival those on the body of the man, that writhes in pain, in the makeshift bed that she sits vigil over.
So, she reaches for the rag, in the wooden bowl at her feet, and tenderly washes his traumatized skin with care. Tendrils of steam rise from the ivory satin cloth, hinted with the essences of mint and clove, and other spices and oils that she’s mixed together to aid his healing. The cloth touches him softly. His body trembles, sighs, then settles again as her fingers delicately guide it along every curve, tracing lines along paths she now knows so well. Her breasts swell and ache as the purled fabric teases upon the more rigid flesh of their tender protrusions. She fights off the desire it instills, but relishes in the energy it invokes within her. Focusing her will on her calling, she strengthens her shoulders and exhales, fortifying her attention on healing and not the seductive calling of his flesh. Flesh that glistens, with the passing of the rag, as her hand smooths over every tempting inch.
A moan, different in message than she’s heard before, escapes his throat and tempts that resolve. She grinds against the chair unconsciously. There’s a shift and a stirring in a particular muscle, the one that’s just on the edge of the swabs cooling touch. She can scent her own heat building and wiggles away, once more, from the urge that calls her focus to that restless place within her, that inner sanctum where her desire is tenuously anxious and growing. For far too many days, she’s been aware of the others heat too. It’s an aromatic aura, like musk, clean and heady and tinged with saltiness. It mixes with her own fragrance and makes her skin go flush. Her mouth waters and her skin tingles.
She dips the cloth, one last time, in the bowl and washes his face, paying delicate attention to the almost fully healed wounds, still raw, on his cheek. Finished with this ritual, she rises from the chair and walks out of the cabin, reverently spreading the cloth along the cabin’s weathered porch rail.
Her arms reach to the sky as she sways and stretches. The wind whispers around her, teasing her, exciting her nerves, causing shivers that will the fine flaxen hair, on her legs and arms, to spring to life and rise, in an attempt to capture the last warmth of the waning sun. Pulling off the sundress she half skips, half runs, to the misty falls that cascade from the cut in the mountain and flow down to the pond, nestled at it’s base. The water pulses down upon her, buffeting away the pain of her toil, heating out the stress and carrying away the salt and grit from her chores. Dewy rivulets dance their way down her body, not in a rush, but with a slow, caressing, playful descent. They trickle and smooth across her ankles and glide off her feet with a hint of sadness, then scramble across the stones and become one again, in the pooling pond that nuzzles, comfortably, around her toes.
She sighs and breathes in deep, then goes about her tasks, gathering wood and fruit and checking on the fish traps, reveling in the sight of a trout that wriggles slowly in a weave of sticks that ensnare it.
“Thank you, for your energy and life.” She solemns, “I will try and do honor to that which you give. Become spirit and be free.”
Her hand touches a stick to the fishes head and a light green spark pulses between them. A translucent blue shape, of piscean form, smooths out of the creatures body as it painlessly goes slack. The opalescent glow drifts it’s way into the waters, disappearing in the ripples with a flick of it’s tail.
Her time, as you see, is entirely consumed with activities, unplanned, compulsive and sometimes cruel in their frequency. Nursing him, has occupied almost all of her days, ensuring their survival, much of the rest. From sun up to sun down she takes care of the mundane. You can find her outside chopping wood, collecting water, or gathering food and ingredients from the valley around them. Never far from the sound of him, just in case he should stir.
When the moon takes it’s turn in the sky, it changes her course but not her momentum.
She sits at the table mixing liniments, potions and teas, or by the fireplace turning the fruits and berries into a loose syrupy manna that she feeds him. When time affords, she crafts what she can, out of the few resources the cabin has left, like the dress she wears when she tends to him, or the chairs she’s repaired with sticks and sisal that she’s found scattered across this cozy little vale.
The only time she takes for herself is when she eats, drinks, catnaps or bathes. The cool clear crispness of the pooling pond is enticing and energizing to her soul. The warm, almost hot water of the falls, cleansing and soothing to her body and mind. The short walks and the breeze on her wet, bare flesh, reviving.
So she feeds the fire and cooks the fish and thinks on the last few days, trying to put some understanding to what has happened here and why.
“What do we know?” She half thinks out loud, to the man just a few feet away. “Well, we come to this place in a ‘culiar way,” she recalls. “An energy, I’ve never felt, nor learned, nor even thought could exist, surrounded me. Then you were there, I touched out to you, then… here. We got plopped right in that stream, right there, with nothin on but the sun. Then, the energy that lift us here just left and got away, like fog in the morning. I saw the cabin, you hurt bad, so I carry you here. There’s been nothing awkway since… less, you count this place. A cabin, by a lake, in the hollow of a mountain, in a valley, I’m sure that no map ‘members… If one ever knew it at all.”
He shifts and groans and fidgets some more. She grabs the the kettle from the hearthstone, fills the little wooden bowl half way with the healing wash, retrieves the towel from the rail and pauses, for just a moment, to look out on the vale.
“If one knew this place was here, they’d be here,” she thinks to herself, “and this cabin, it’s old and lonesome, can feel that. And this valley, it has way of it’s own, it feels live… crafty.”
Softly and on tippy-toe, she breezes back to her stirring companion, sits down, strengthens her back and takes up the task she’s come to know so well.
She is, essentially, alone in this place. With the exception of the wildlife, that scurries outside, her mind has few distractions to keep her from her charge. Sure, there’s the bird, that comes, to eat the pickins, that she gives and the rabbit, that’s taken to sitting on her lap when she sits by the short grass chewing straw, but their conversation, is somewhat lacking and they offer her brain, little more than innocent stimulation and joy. Her attention is set on mending the man, who’s been wordless since he came to be within her care.
He is the central point of her activity and the primary thing that keeps her moving through the day. She is dedicated, to easing his pain and getting his body healed and is thankful for the purpose and the task.
But, having him here is a triple edged mercy, one side good, the other two, more than a little unkind. Though his presence offers her little time to think on her solitude, it also grants her very little rest. And the body, though average, in almost every way, teases at her mind and her intimacies. Especially, when the fire’s light tempts upon his skin, enhancing his form, wistfully, with it’s hypnotic tempo and shadowy dance. She watches as her hand moves over a knee, up over his thigh, transfixed on the bare skin left glistening behind the satin cloth’s path. She has memorized every muscle and sinew, every bend, of his still listless form, every scar, every hair, every bend.
Still, sometimes, she is taken by surprise. Like when her hand touches a sensitive, pleasurable nerve and there’s a certain throb, to a certain flesh or when he moans, the way he did just a short time ago.
For quite a few days she’s felt that too.
The task complete, she splashes her face and fights off her desires, finishes her meal, rises from her chair and crushes some berries and herbs, anything, to distract from these unyielding yearnings.
She crosses the threshold and steps on the porch, removes her dress and just stands there, feeling the air and the sun, or the moon, or both as is tonight’s case, flow across her skin, embracing her in their energies. She closes her eyes just to listen to the sounds of life, around her. The water babbles in the stream, steadying her thoughts, the birds gently sing their songs, giving her joy and the leaves rustle a calm into the air. Then that stirring calls her back. It always calls her back.
She grabs her frock and puts it back on nimbly, and listens again to the sound, because she thinks she’s mistaken or that maybe her ears are playing tricks, but she thinks she hears a word this time. It’s been so long since she’s heard a voice, other than her own, that it takes a minute for her brain to translate it and even longer for her heart to register it as real.
And there it is again.
‘Where?’
She drifts across the floor, softly, takes his hand in hers and whispers, as she kisses his forehead tenderly, “Shhhhh , It’s okay, hush now, you’re safe.” and she strokes the back of her fingers from temple to chin, “Shhhhh, just rest, don’t fret.” “Shhh” and she, once again, starts to hum.
It’s the same lilting lullaby she’s used to both ease his mind and keep her own thoughts at bay. There’s more color in the face, she notices, and his hazel-green eyes close and he eases away to a more comfortable sleep.
“Cheep! Cheep!” she hears from the cutout of a window.
“Almost there,” she hushes, to the bird on the window sill. His head cocks to one side in curiosity. “You’ll see, he’ll be up on his feet, feeding you seeds, in no time.” “If they do such things where he’s from.” she wonders aloud. “So run along now and go play, I’ve still got some work to do here, Let’s let him rest.”
There’s a flurry and flutter as the bird takes flight, tweeting and chirping on his way to his nest. The wind from his wings cools on her neck, sending a tickle down her spine that makes her shiver and wiggle as she settles in the chair, once again, to embark on her nightly vigil.
The shadows inch lazily along the floor and the walls. A frantic rustling of fabric, then a tapping on the floor catches her ear. The shakes start upon him. And with a rush, they come on him hard. She crosses the room, with steps that defy her exhaustion, grabs the quilt, from the mantle over the fireplace, and makes her way back to his side. She slips off her gown, with an elegant ease, folds it and places it, neatly, over the back of the chair. The muscles of her legs flex and ripple, as she slides onto the patchwork of rags and pelts and nuzzles up against him, to give him her warmth. His breath teases on her cheek as she gently covers his body with hers and pulls the blanket over them both.
The touch and the heat of his skin against hers, awakens the tempest inside her anew, so she does, what she does, and she hums.
The fireplace crackles, sparks fly in a hurried unison up the flue, ash and ember fall to the the stone and dance, his spasms wane. Tendrils of smoke reach out from the chimney and get swept, up and away, in swirls on the breeze, his body, relaxes and stills. The humming subsides, his fever breaks, and his body settles into a calm.
She giggles, as her belly grumbles with hunger, even though her mind aches with the same ferocity for sleep. She stands from the bed, careful not to wake him, slips on her dress, walks to the table and sits with a thump. The fruits and tea taste a little bit sweeter, and she allows her mind a little time to wander.
The moon light casts images of the leaves on the sill, the table and the floor. They shift and flicker with an narcotic cadence. Sparkles, on the waters of the brook, call her into their captivating grip. She thinks on the years she’s spent alone in her world and wonders what his world was like.
“Cheep!”
She looks up. The little bird curiouses his head side to side. She picks up a red berry and holds it out for him to eat from her fingertips. His tiny beak, pecks the meat from the raspberry, careful not to nip her hand. Her eyes, heavy and dry, unconsciously drift towards the man in the bed . “It’s habit,” she guesses, but it could be something more.
She returns to the chair by his bedside, and finishes her snack and tea and, with sated stomach and a sigh of relief, she arches her back and stretches, drifting off and away into dreams of her own. Visions fill her head, of flesh and light. She grinds in the chair, teased by the scents of their bodies as they intermingle and swirl all around her. They find their way deep inside her and tantalize her blood, enticing her with a carnal pulse way down in the depths of her core. She half wakens with a shudder. A moist heat and an uncomfortable throbbing grow in her, causing her to moan with an appetite that’s not for food. She is too tired not to feel it but way too tired to give in.
The chatter of the morning fills the air. The new day’s sun shines upon the eyes of the man in the bed. He wakes with a start, in a place unfamiliar. His vision is unfocused and burns in the brilliance, his ears pound with the sound of his own heart. His brain fills with remembrances, of death and agony and blood and screams. Panicked eyes dart around the room, searching for an escape, as adrenaline courses through his veins and set his thoughts ablaze. The light focuses through the window and pulls his attention to the figure in white, sleeping fitfully, in the rickety chair overlooking his bed.
Her face, alien, yet familiar, is adorned in a serenity that settles his pulse and fears. The sun’s rays silhouette her curves, as it glows upon her skin, flickering through the diaphanous cloth, offering him a glimpse of her. His pulse quickens again, at urges more rousing, more passionate, than animal or cruel.
Figments, of days past, filter through him fondly. Her soft healing touch, the firmness of her breast against his chest, the warmth of the energy she seemed to will into him, and that soft soothing melody she hummed, that charged him against surrender.
From where these visions come, he does not know. From where she has come and how they had happened to this place, he realizes he’s blind to that too. He watches as the light touches on her face and, as her chest rises and falls, reveals more to him of her subtle charms. She looks soul-spent, but beautiful.
He turns to his side and grimaces at the stiffness in his neck and shoulders, his neck cracks and he freezes in a moment of ecstatic release.
She wakes, just like she’s done every time the bed creaked under the return of his discomfort. She stretches her back, raises her arms to the sky with a stiff, side to side sway, then opens her eyes to check on his state. She smiles when she sees, he’s awake and his pain is now at ease. Her eyes spark with an energy that seems to command her body to life and, with a slow and deliberate effort, she stands from her vigil, slips off her dress, places it on the seat and drifts towards him, watching his attention embrace her as she closes the distance between.
His eyes dilate as they trace the contours of her hips and the delicate curves of her waist. They track the scars that flow from just under her chest and across her ribs, only to wane from his view behind the soft indentation in the crook of her arm. She flushes as they widen at the sight of her small but firm breasts, and again, when they touch upon the subtle mound of flaxen strands that adorns her sex. Their eyes meet again and he sees a longing, no, he sees a knowing, a burning and honest sense of things, that drowns out the distance of their ages, entwining their fates within a single thread. She leans to the fabric and grips the edge.
He doesn’t protest, when she pulls the blanket from him or as she nestles her body into his. It’s a comfort he remembers from somewhere within the haze. She places her head on his chest and exhales, content and happy. He pulls the blanket over them both, wrapping an aching arm around her. Her hand falls delicately on his chest and she settles into a much deserved and very deep sleep.
The questions in his mind somehow don’t matter in this moment. They’ll just have to wait. He brings her in tighter, brushes the hair off her face and falls into a gentler rest. One that’s finally free of pain and, kindly, void of nightmares.
