He peered upwards, and in less than one second, he was distracted by the natural beauty of the stars overhead. Emi had already been more lost in the cosmos than she was interested in the resolution of the house. It was the peak of night and they had plenty of time before the sun would rise. A blessing as well as a curse.
Iggy glanced back at the house where the argument was still occurring. The group was more or less fuming, pointing their fingers at Baine, shaming him. Still, Baine didn't seem threatened or insecure, so, Iggy shrugged his shoulders and straightened his back. "Fuck it," he sighed. Unconcerned with everyone else, he set off to find things that were free to take. Things like branches, plant pieces, long grass, and other natural things. He grabbed a branch that was the length of his arm with bunches of green leaves and he snapped it in half like a twig. He shattered the bark and found the clean light brown and green insides. He peeled strings out of the wood and wound it around his hand.
Emi hovered over him, curiously watching as he scavenged through the yard. "What are you doing?"
He glanced up at her. "I like it. I'm going to make something out of it."
She smiled, bent over and pulled a hand full of long grass out of the earth. Chunks of wet dirt fumbled from the ground mass onto the tops of her shoes and she giggled to herself. "I'm not sure if you and your whole family is crazy, or if it's just you. So, I'll play along until I can decide for myself." She perked her shoulders up. "I mean, where else would I go? I'm an orphan, now. I'd better play in the dirt with the only other orphan around here." Then, like a white dart, she flew past him, running wild around the corner of the house. Her voice filled the night. "This way! Into the garden of shadows!"
Iggy bolted after her, laughing and forgetting everything else. They came to a place in the yard that was just as she had described. The garden of shadows. Every plant overgrown and dangling outward, shielding the two of them from the night sky like a heavy umbrella. Emi stood ankle deep in the brush, plucking small white flowers from the vines and collecting them in her hands. She looked over her shoulder and held a flower to her cheek. "Do you like this?"
He smiled. "Yes."
Behind her in a section of heavy willow branches, there was a faint glimmer of light from the ground near the trunk of the tree. The light looked like many tiny little candles alight. Iggy's smile melted into a simple opened mouth and he went around her.
Her gaze followed him. "What is it?"
"I see something…" He passed her, snagged the nearest branch and folded it in on itself. A path was now open into a small patch of red poppy plants. They were fully opened scarlet cups squatting on thick green stems with a color red that shimmered and burned all at once. It had a living breathing vibrancy to it. Iggy focused on the edge of a single poppy petal. Then, just like looking through a piece of red stained glass, everything in his vision became colored with it. He fell onto his knees and stared at the magnificent flower in awe. He could see forms and figures just fine, but it was all empty of its own colors. His fingers reached out to touch the fragile flower, but his arm moved meticulously slow.
Emi's hands smoothed out the wrinkles along the tops of his shoulders as she came down behind him. Her chin sat in between his shoulder and neck, and he could feel her warmth on his back. "How pretty…" she cooed. "I wonder how they grow in such a secret place."
"What is happening-" his brain was emptying "-to me?" The thoughts in his head were slipping away, becoming a silent room. All he could feel was warmth and the heartbeat pounding against his back.
"What do you mean?" Emi pushed forward past his shoulder to look into his face. His eyes were in a trance, wide open without the reflex to blink. "Iggy?" She pinched his cheek and sat down at his side. "Iggy, are you phased out?" She searched his face, finding no response except for the trance. She rubbed his upper arm with the back of her hand. "Is it because of these red flowers? It won't be good if the others found that out… they're already so upset." She waved her palm before his face. "Can you come out of it?"
His hand skidded across the ground, flung up, and snatched her by the neck. He whipped her down into the flower patch onto her back and pressed on her shoulders with his palms. Her body dug further into the earth as he planted himself over her. They were in a position that he had never been close enough to anyone else to have done. As she resisted, the flush in her cheeks drove him further out of himself. He pulled the sleeve off of her shoulder and exposed more of her soft skin. He leant inward, mouth open, teeth bared.
Dreading the pain to come, she pushed back. "Please don't bite me!" His nose grazed the soft side of her neck in procession, and out of desperation, she sliced the tip of her finger with her tooth and hooked it into his mouth so that her fingerprint laid flat over his tongue. Through the piercing, her blood dripped easily out of her and into him. Her blood was irony, sweet, delicious, but not something that could be healthily lived off of. He swallowed, taking in another piece of her.
A distant sound similar to sloshing water played over and over in his head in a repeating rhythm, until it became a solidified pattern of shhhh, shhhh, shhhh. Then, like a snap, his vision cleared and he found himself staring wide eyed at the curve in her white neck.
"Close your eyes…" she chanted into his ear, "close your eyes… close your eyes."
Her finger was drying up. With the sharp edge of her nail, strength, and courage, she spliced a small notch into the flesh just above her collarbone, then with one hand behind the neck, she drew him in and pressed his lips against her wound.
Iggy shut his eyes and covered the hole with his tongue. He could taste her sweetness and heat, yet now he could see nothing but blackness. He lifted his tongue and sucked out what was left before she healed. As he did so, her back lifted up out of the dirt and her breasts curved up toward her chin. A gasp escaped her mouth and became the loudest sound in the silent night. Her breasts pushed into his chest, and he could feel the hardness of her nipples through her dress. He pulled his lips away and, just as abruptly, she flattened back against the ground.
Their fingers were tightly intertwined on one hand. As he peeled himself off of her and came back onto his heels, she came up to sitting, too. Dazed and even faint. Her mouth opened and revealed a deep cut was closing on her bottom lip.
"Did I?" Iggy squeaked, gesturing to his own bottom lip. "Did I do that to you?" Her face glowed hot pink and she shook her head 'no.' Without her intending to, her bottom lip tucked inside of her mouth and the cut lined up perfectly to one of her sharp teeth. He laid his free hand over her cheek and looked deeply into her fidgeting lips. "You… gave it to me?" An idea that he hadn't ever considered.
She trailed her fingertips over her lips and the tip of her tongue. She stared at his chest, yet didn't appear to be looking at him at all. "Yea," her voice was distant, "I did. It felt really good..." She pressed the back of her hand into the side of her neck. Her eyes gleamed. "I stopped your thirst reflex, too. You heard me!"
"No…" he shook his head and looked down at the earth. "I'm sorry… I-"
"We should be lifelong partners," she interrupted. "Just as Baine told us."
"What?" He looked up at her in disbelief. "You're kidding, right?"
She tilted her eyebrows and twisted her lips. "What? Am I not good enough or something?"
He was quick to shake his head. "No, it's not that, it's-"
"I don't see anyone else around here to play the part. Do you?"