Release

  “Yes, I am. It’s the best way for me to conduct the heat to your body.”

  His eyelids flickered. She couldn’t resist smiling at the hint of desire in his trembling voice. It was obvious he was desperate to see the details of her body up close. But she also knew that he was too weak to keep his eyes open for long enough. It was dark in here. There was only one candle still burning inside her tiny cabin and it flickered wildly, providing them with a limited light source, alongside the dim light from Tiegal’s eyes.

  She placed the back of her hand on his forehead. He was clammy, cold, and had begun muttering things from his blue lips that didn’t make sense. His thoughts, on the other hand, were loud and clear:

  Ma…why did you leave me? I need you…

  Elna… I’m sorry. I know I treated you unfairly. I know that you felt you had to leave the place you called home. Because of me!

  Tiegal flinched at hearing the words of loss inside his head. It was impossible to control the sweep of pain that engulfed her. It made her angry with herself. She didn’t want to feel jealousy towards his grief. It was wrong. It was selfish. The bond he shared with his mother sounded magical to her. The way Johannes had described her tenderness and warmth towards him, and towards his sister, had touched Tiegal so much that she had cried in his arms a few nights ago, never having experienced such familial love.

  But Johannes’ grief for his mother was not what hurt her. It was Elna. This obvious heartache and guilt at losing her had wrenched, so that she shivered at the sight of her changing energy release from her Derado. The colours that were now muddied with dark green and brown mists.

  This was not going to help Johannes at all. She was supposed to be saving him, not letting her stupid emotions reduce the power in her energy. She scolded herself for it, digging her overgrown nails into her palms.

  “Come on now Johannes. You have to let me get you warm. I can smell the threat of death on you. You’re scaring me. Let me help you.”

  At last, he succumbed, nodding at her.

  Breathing a deep sigh of relief, she shifted her body towards him, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and then clamped her chest and hips to his back. Her right leg coiled around his. They fit together like a jigsaw.

  “Ouch!” he managed to protest between his raspy attempts to breathe.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s the Derado. It gets extremely hot. Let me move a little higher.”

  She shimmied her body higher up the bed so that the burning hot pendant would sit parallel to the back of his head, hoping she could arch herself back enough to avoid scalding him.

  “That should be better now. You’re starting to warm up already,” she whispered into his ear. Her leg was now wrapped around his waist and she could reach her fingers around to the top of his chest. His breathing was already settling.

  “I can’t believe you attempted fishing in this temperature Johannes,” she scolded in a gentle hush. He was already falling into a deep sleep, but she felt reassured by the smell on his skin that he was safe enough to rest now.

  Her body still felt strong and firm as she clenched her thighs against his hips. It seemed that, she too, was out of the danger zone. The Derado had managed to do its job without sending her away from him. Still, just to be sure, she reached across to release it from around her neck.

  Once they were settled together in a comfortable and warm position, she closed her eyes and rested her cheek against his skin. He was starting to smell like him again: baked bread and sweet pastry with a hint of maple syrup. It made her stomach growl with hunger just thinking about it.

  This was what she had yearned for all these years. This enormous sense of satisfaction that came with holding him like this. She had dreamed of such closeness all her life. It was her fire blending with his, and it was so much more powerful than any release that Tandro had promised her, just as she had always believed it would be.

  There was just one barrier she still had to overcome, they both did.

  If only you could you relieve yourself from the burden of this guilt you carry. If you were not so broken, so damp inside? Then you could enjoy your fire. We could enjoy it together!

  She knew Johannes would awake feeling shocked at how they were lying here together like this, but she would explain it all to him tomorrow. It was clear how much he desired her. It was also abundantly clear that something he had buried deep inside of him was preventing him from letting himself go.

  Still, she couldn’t think about that right now. Her body was starting to feel the effects of her energy release. Her eyelids dropped down, shutting out her eye-light so that they soon lay wrapped together, in complete darkness.

  Elna, like a pebble: solid and familiar and of this earth.

  Tiegal, like a bubble: unstable and unpredictable, and from somewhere unknown

  Elna, a pebble, too easily kicked and displaced

  Tiegal, my bubble, too easily consuming me and colouring all that I know

  Johannes’ thoughts were loud and clear. He was constructing a poem of some kind that was on repeat in his head.

  Tiegal removed her hand from where it stuck to the hairs on his sweat ridden chest. The sun had already risen, now seeping easily through the thin sheet that Johannes had pinned to the square window he had fashioned from wood. She slid out from the covers in a backwards motion, quickly retrieving her clothes.

  Her Derado lay upside down on the floor. It must have fallen off the bed during their fitful sleep together, when Johannes had awoken with more shivers.

  She looked it at now, turning it over so she could run her fingers over the details. It was a stunning piece of jewellery. The niobium metal that made up the collar section of the neckpiece reflected a luminous pink shine, and the rose gold triangles that fitted over it complimented the colour perfectly. She had tried to explain to Johannes how the mechanics from her world had discovered that this metal would change colour when charged with different amounts of electricity. He thought she had been talking about magic people, alchemists who could change stone into metals. She had laughed with him about that. Of all the things he could have called magic about her stories of Tandro, he had picked up on this!

  It was impossible to deny that the Derado was alluring. Even she felt drawn to it whenever she held it.

  It even made her feel a small sense of loss for her old world, a familiar loneliness rearing once more. She had made it all the way over here, to a whole new world, one that had already changed her, and yet, there were some things that would always stay the same.

  “Erm…morning!”

  She turned her back towards the sheepish voice coming from the bed. Johannes was blinking at her, frowning in confusion. Reacting quickly, she hid the Derado behind her back, mindful that she had promised him she would never activate it again.

  “Do you remember anything of last night?” she dared.

  “Well, I know I knocked on the door and kind of fell into you?”

  “Yes, you did, because you were shivering like crazy after trying to wade into the river and catch some fish! I dried you off and you fell asleep in the bed. You look much better now. Your lips were blue last night!”

  “I’m, well, I’m so sorry Tiegal. But, really, you didn’t have to give up your bed for me.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Oh, I see.” He looked hopeful, unsure, and concerned, all at the same time.

  Tiegal couldn’t help herself. She had to laugh. She needed to release something easier, and lighter, from inside of her.

  “You were extremely cold Johannes. Your body was running on a dangerously low temperature. I needed to warm you with my body heat.”

  He didn’t need to remember the colour glow, or the Derado. It would only frighten him more. Johannes widened his eyes at her. She could see he was feeling under the covers, no doubt checking if he were still wearing his trousers.

  “I took them off because they were soaking wet,” she explained, not daring to look him in the eye.


  “Of course, yes…erm, thank you.”

  Tiegal groaned. She hated this awkwardness between them. They had been so peaceful and easy together, from the moment she first jumped into the river with him on her first day here. It felt strange to think that this night had confused things between them. Crawling on to the bed she sat herself next to him. His complexion was still pale after his near-death experience but there was enough colour in his cheeks that she felt satisfied he could manage a small conversation before she set off in search of breakfast for them both. There were some apple trees at the edge of the wood that no one seemed too interested in. She had been using these as her main source of food energy for the last few days.

  “Can I ask you something Johannes?”

  He turned his body so that he could face her more easily in the bed.

  “Did you and Elna ever do intimate things together? I mean, connect in the way that animals do? I know you kissed her. But, I wondered, anything else?” Her words were rushed. She had practiced saying them many times in her head, but now she was allowing them to come out, she couldn’t stop herself.

  Johannes sucked in his breath. It was an odd action, one that Tiegal found hard to place.

  “I thought you could hear my thoughts?” he questioned.

  “I told you…only some of them…when you are very tired,” she explained, careful to reassure him that she was not constantly invading his every thought. He averted his eyes from her gaze.

  “So, I guess you must have been listening to me last night then? If I was so drained of energy?” He sounded cross.

  “Why are you so angry?”

  “I’m not angry Tiegal. I’m scared!’

  “Of what? I don’t understand. Please tell me what you really think. It is all so disjointed in your thoughts and I know you don’t like me digging into your head too much,” she pleaded.

  “It probably sounds disjointed because I am disjointed! I don’t know what to do! To make sure I don’t…”

  “You don’t what?”

  She could hardly breathe as she waited for his answer.

  “I don’t want to break something again.”

  She shook her head at him, determined to let him see her frustration.

  “I am not going to break. Is that what you mean?”

  “No! I mean that whenever I have something of value, I lose it, or break it. At least, that was how my life was going until you appeared, and, well, everything changed again.”

  “Was that a good thing though?”

  “How could you even question that Tiegal?”

  “Because you never, well, touch me!” She turned her shoulders away from him, embarrassed by her own honesty. “Yet I can hear your thoughts about this Johannes, and how you want to. That is what I don’t understand. You have the choice to kiss me too now! Just like you did with her, when I saw you together that time, from across the river. The first time I appeared.”

  Johannes shook his head and then swivelled his legs over the edge of his side of the bed. He nearly fell over as he stood up, but just managed to catch his fall on the wooden crate by the door.

  “Elna and I never did anything intimate other than that kissing. And only that one time! Her family kept her under tight control. She was never allowed to go very far, or to meet me for very long either.”

  Tiegal nodded, determined to display some empathy:

  “Being under tight control. Now, that I can understand. Poor Elna!”

  “Well, yes, but never mind her now. Look, I want nothing more than to kiss you Tiegal. I’m just scared to let myself get too close. My relationship with Elna was complicated. It was burdened by other people’s expectations. And my love for you would be complicated too – if anyone discovered us together.”

  Her entire body reacted to his words: goosebumps appeared on her arms, her stomach did a strange flipping movement, and her knees banged together uncontrollably.

  He said ‘my love for you!’

  “It’s just that I know how easy it is to lose people in this world. What if I lost you too, either in this world, or to the one you came from?”

  Ignoring his objections, she jumped up onto the bed and bounced up and down.

  “Tiegal! Did you understand what I just said? I’m scared of falling for you and then losing you!” Johannes asked.

  Laughing, she stopped bouncing and jumped onto the floor into the space in front of him, reaching her arms up to wrap around his broad shoulders.

  “I hear you loud and clear. You are ready to feel love again. That’s all that matters.”

  But even as she said these words, so full of hope and excitement, she could hear his doubts. And as she looked into his eyes, she couldn’t help wondering what secrets lay hidden inside. This burden he had buried so deep inside, that even she could not access it.

  18. Promises

  Tiegal giggled, bursting with unrestrained delight as Johannes ruffled her hair. She loved rolling around in the bush with him like this, tumbling over each other in turn, collecting haphazard patterns of dry grass on their backs. She clung onto him as tightly as she could, determined to keep their momentum going, not wanting their game to end. Johannes seemed especially happy and playful today. He was full of a special kind of contagious, exuberant energy, the type she had rarely detected before. Perhaps only from the younger Tandroans - the kimberlings - in her previous life.

  It was impossible to get enough of him when he was like this. And better still, his happiness was so easy to absorb. Who needed to wear a diamond necklace to exchange your energies when you were having this much fun together? Johannes was exuding joy in her arms, she never wanted to let him go. And why should she? They were clearly good together. This was the first time she had heard his laughter – his full, unequivocal pleasure.

  It had to mean a turning point had been reached, she was sure of it. It was as though they had overcome something momentous together in these last few minutes. Amazing as it was to think, it seemed something magical had just occurred between them. A new spark, elicited from the simplicity of carefree play!

  It was almost as if they had set him free, together, and released him from the chains of the grief and guilt he had tangled himself up in. Perhaps they had opened a new door, one that allowed them the freedom to finally explore their connection, fully, and let the feelings they had for each other, flow without obstructions?

  Johannes was the first to slow down their roll, holding his body over hers, his feet jutting into the ground at the side of her ankles

  “You are one very complicated girl Tiegal Eureka. But you are my complicated girl,” he declared, in between fits of laughter that he seemed powerless to stop, now that he had finally let himself go.

  She twisted her hips allowing her to maneuver them both over again, so this time she was on top.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, letting herself rest on top of him as their rolling reached the barrier of some thorn trees.

  “I mean, you keep talking about finding your complete circle, and fires on islands, like this is something we all understand,” he replied, giving her a wink to assure her that his words were full of affection, an action that gave him a temporary lopsided expression.

  “Is it really that confusing? The way I talk?” she panted, breathing in his intoxicating smell, which was even more delicious when he was joyful like this.

  “You talk in a beautiful way Tiegal! I don’t mean to offend you. I’m teasing you. In an affectionate way, I promise. I just have to play catch up when you talk about your worlds and the philosophy of your people.”

  “Tandroans!” she corrected him.

  “Ah, yes, of course.” He rolled his eyes and smiled at her again. She gave him an exaggerated frown and then sat up, straddling her legs either side of his hips.

  “Ooh no you can’t do that Tiegal. That’s pushing my human willpower too much.” He put his hands under her armpits and gently moved her on to the grass beside him.

 
Tiegal made a popping sound with her lips in response. It was her little joke sign to him when she was frustrated by his over-gentlemanly manner towards her. He always looked confused when she did this, but it made him laugh again all the same.

  “I still don’t understand the bubble thing. I know you appeared to me inside one, but please remind me again how it relates to a type of food?”

  He stroked the side of her cheek with the back of his hand, before taking a strand of her hair and wrapping it around his index finger. He seemed to love touching her hair. She often wondered if it was his safety net, a way to distract him from the urge to touch her anywhere else.

  “Okay, let me try again. It’s like a stretchy sweety-gum? You chew it and it releases sugary tastes and then you can put your tongue through it and blow air at the same time – to make a bubble out of your lips!”

  She puckered her lips into an ‘o’ and pretended to pop something in mid-air near her face.

  “No! Still can’t imagine that at all! But it sounds like fun! Actually, talking of sweet things…you know you said my skin had a smell that reminded you of sweet pastry and maple syrup?” He raised his eyebrows at her, not waiting for an answer

  “Well…I might be able to offer you something more than just a smell because over there…”

  Tiegal squealed before he had a chance to finish his sentence.

  “You brought some more food?” She clasped her hands together in anticipation of some much-needed fuel. It was getting harder to keep her energy going on the long days when Johannes was on the farm, when she was left to occupy her time on her own.

  She watched as Johannes walked over to a shady area under some trees and reached into a brown basket. He must have hidden it there before she had arrived to meet him at their special place - an area close to the river, but still hidden from view of his farm.

  “Wait until you taste these Tiegal,” he called to her, as he ran over to where she had positioned herself by the edge of the riverbank.

  “Now this is what you can call a treat. These were my mother’s favourites,” he explained as he unwrapped a white towel to reveal two sugar-glazed doughnuts that had been braided into a plait.