From M20
Fuck, but my head hurts.
All of me hurts, actually. Lee Ann dearest, perhaps you're finally getting too old for this shit.
That's ridiculous, of course. You're only as old as you think you are, the saying goes, and I realized a long time ago that that was true.
Going by the calendar, I look younger than I am, feel older than I am, and stopped aging a long time ago. The play of years on human calendars is a trick of the light – one of the first tricks I'd learned to turn on its back.
Like a stranded turtle, Time kicks its legs but goes nowhere unless I choose to pick it up and set it on its expected path again.
Every so often, though, that turtle knocks you down and tramples you flat with all four feet. I feel like that this morning, and I'm not quite sure why.
It's not the dancing. I'm used to that. Or the hike – that's my favorite thing in the world, except maybe dancing. It's not the sex, though gods know it was passionate enough.
The storm is in my bones. Then, now, and always.
Well, yeah. That would explain a lot.
Lightning flickers underneath my skin – needles, tongues, fingers, fists, a rush of stars exploding into nova to blot out the thrusting of my father's cock – but all those eternal Nows are distant to the person in my skin today. We shed our skins like serpents, washing through the molecules every seven years until only memories hold the energy of what we are together in a construct I call Me. I can choose which Now I live in, and so as much compassion as I hold for the little Me's that I have been, I'm not that person anymore. Right here – this now, this Me – is the only one I want to be.
Although I could do without the headache…
A mental shrug, and it's gone.
Still… huh. It was there for a reason, so…
Time to check things out.
Shutting my eyes, I let the pain ease back into my skull, then expand my senses out beyond that pain, beyond my skin, beyond Ryk's sleeping body and our tent, out into the dirt and trees and coiled power of the forest and the mountaintop. The essence of the breeze and every dancing drop of water in the mist.
Oh.
Him.
What's HE doing here?
I guess I'll go find out.
Slipping out from under Ryk, I savor the glide of skin over skin, the little hairs across his arms and chest, the puff of living chemistry in this stranger's morning-breath. The tent still smells like sex, like us, so powerfully that for an endless instant I fall back into the scratch and push of last night's rituals. It'd be nice to hang forever in those moments, but I've apparently got shit to do outside. So leaving a little bit of dream inside his head, I push Ryk deeper into Maya's domains. He's still asleep, so I'll leave him asleep. If I need Ryk later, I can wake him from a distance without making a sound.
Right now, though, I think this visit's just about me.....
Sliding from the tent's warm shelter feels like an act of sacrifice. Throughout the clearing, a cold cloak of early morning mist shimmers with the light of a distant sun. Thunder burns across the break of dark and dawn, the grumpy roll of elements in their beds. Stretching out the morning stiffness, I zip up the tent door, plant my feet in the dirt, shut my eyes, and reach my arms to the hidden sky.
Off to the side, hidden by the mist, he's there. A dense presence, more solid than the hills. Without turning to look at him, I reach tendrils of perception out across the space between us. He's alone, as usual. I smile at the thought of the mud on his shoes. My own feet, rich with trail-dirt, pad lightly on the rain-thick soil. Through my soles, the earth welcomes dawn. I'm in my element here. He's not. Still, it's never smart to turn your back on his kind.
