(Ophelia)
***
"Holy crap!" Koharu shouted.
We made it to Flor the night before, but the small town's scenery was hardly visible under the dim moonlight. Soft plants tickled our ankles, toying with them with a dainty grace unlike the bluntness of the typical grass.
We found a few dirty towels and used them to make a bed over the greenery, and we figured they'd be more comfortable than a rusty bench and cleaner than an alleyway.
*No, I'm not going to ask what those were used for. Sometimes, I like ignorance.*
Not that we could find many of either structure, though, as Flor was much like the rural Altair in which King Hikaru grew up. The buildings were spaced out, hinting that much of the land was private property. There were only a few stores chained together like metal links, but there was no way of telling the difference between the houses and shops when they were all homely.
Sleeping away from a plethora of life, my only fear was getting trampled by a farmer's rogue cattle or impaled by an upset longhorn.
The same natural sensations greeted Koharu and me in the morning. They calmed me much more than those in the artificial and vibrant cities, and I was glad to avoid the blinding lights that surrounded us like halos, gradually becoming smaller and trapping us within.
I hadn't noticed until then how dirty we were. Under the incinerating sun, we were weathered down by the elements and covered in a sheen of sweat and oil like washed metal. It was even more noticeable how unkempt we were when my longer hair clumped into knots as dark as the moonlight.
I did not know about myself, but Koharu smelled faintly of rotten food, likely from the alley in which we sat while in Hallisville. I could not insult her for that as I probably reeked with my unhealed wounds. They did not hurt as long as they were not directly touched, but it was hard to avoid bumping them occasionally and triggering their intermittent pain.
*If they smell like that, are they even healing correctly?*
Scrunching my nose, I was too scared of seeing any seeping green pus to check.
Under the faint sunlight of dawn, though, it was easy to forget such things and get lost in the beauty of the town. It was a rainbow of every type of small flower that could be found on the plains.
From bluebonnets to buttercups to milkweed, the sparse greens were filled in by colorful dots until the beautiful optical mix of colors became radiant and elegant. Dew trickled down their stems and shone brightly, adding to the ethereal effect so that it seemed our world was enraptured in the power of magic.
It was that with which Koharu was enamored, and I could not bring myself to say a word about it.
Perhaps then I understood why she wanted to wait in some places, to take in the feeling of intimacy with nature. It was a wonderful experience incomparable to anything I saw in the past year besides the excitement I felt at Caelum—that wonder of swirling colors and riled up emotions leaving both love and awe suspended within. I realized how powerful the movement of the stars was then.
*Maybe holding up my side of that promise wasn't too bad.*
Koharu stared at the orb with her imperfectly beautiful smile, and that lighting made her godlike with her skin glowing under its rays. It blended perfectly with the morning hues as I observed her momentarily, soon finding she turned her head to do the same. The grin scarcely left her face and simply grew bigger when she chuckled in her prideful manner while catching me in my shameless state.
"What do you think?" she asked as the wind whisked her hair into a swirl. It framed her face like a prized painting.
I unconsciously leaned towards her, mixed into that heady feeling of early morning and the aforementioned aspects of our situation amidst the soft flowers in the field.
"Beautiful. Gorgeous."
She raised an eyebrow. "What's beautiful, hm?"
I didn't say a word but instead stared her down with half-lidded eyes, glancing at soft lips stretched over her face. I looked back at her gaze as I nudged my nose forward to point.
*You. Always you. Even if you completely derailed my statement!*
A quick giggle escaped from her mouth.
"Do it," she told me, clearly not in response to my gesture.
My eyes trailed up to hers before she closed them and grabbed the collar of my shirt so that our lips pressed together. When I eased my body, my eyelids fell shut, and I sank into the sensation of a kiss, seduced by her adventurous and cheeky personality.
It was then I felt like I understood her, and she understood me completely. Really, it was inexplicable, almost haunting.
Somehow, with all the heart-to-hearts we had had, we were on the same wavelength with no secret motivations. We had to find a way to reconcile our current poverty and need to get home with her reasonable desire for freedom after being imprisoned her whole life. If a gesture expressed that sentiment better than my words, then so be it.
We moved away shortly to punctuate everything with a few breaths—noses and foreheads lying against each other—before we moved in again for a more heated kiss. It consumed each of our breaths, and I was dizzy from the speed of it all.
*Harmony.*
It was musical like that.
I slid my hands under her shirt and up her torso until she shivered lightly, rows of goosebumps rising in the wake of my fingertips. When I dragged them over her breasts, a deep moaning noise arose from her mouth as she tensed up, and I smiled almost arrogantly against her lips as she moved closer to me, molding herself to that touch. She was a statue that became pliant clay as we melded together.
*Tell me more through the way you react to me…*
It all felt so nice as the warm sensation piled up in my stomach. I stopped before it became irresistible to act upon that temptation, pulling away from her body and halting the sounds that poured from her mouth incessantly, melodically.
Greedily, she leaned towards me again, but she stopped herself when I didn't reciprocate. We both breathed heavily, hardly even a few inches from each other as we locked eyes, and she parried that sharp gaze by moving an inch past my cheek.
"Do you see what I've meant?" she whispered, referring vaguely to the forgotten sunrise that was drawing to a close.
Placing my hands atop the towels, I told her, "I think I get you now."
*I knew it before, actually. I just didn't have the words for it.*
"Do you?" She placed her chin between the knuckles of her index and middle fingers.
I rested on my palms and stared up at the cerulean expanse before me. The stars sheathed themselves in light blue, and the sun greeted us and brought the town alight.
*You're envious of other people who got to live free lives, but little did you know you got to live the freest life of all under the sky with only the stars to answer to. I won't let my guard down to that just yet, but I treasure every moment we have living like this because my sanctuary has always been your prison.*