by R. R. Banks
Something had changed within me and suddenly I didn't know where I fit anymore. The walls and crevices that had always welcomed me and had never inspired even a moment of fear now seemed strange and I wondered if I was going to be able to continue on with my solitary life in the way that I had for so many years. It was amazing how much something as simple as stepping above the ground and experiencing the presence, companionship, compassion, and betrayal of other creatures could change everything that I knew about myself, the world, and my perceptions of existence within it.
I slid down the vines on the tree, letting them carry me until my feet hit the solid wood of the tree branches. I looked down at the reflected sky, the black expanse streaked with the murky, pinkish grey clouds that broke up the sky and muted the stars both above and below me. For the first time I found it as strange as the Klimnu, the Denynso, and the humans had found it. I had always known that our world was a mirror of the one above it, and that what we saw was not what they did, but it wasn't until I had actually stepped onto the ground and saw, for the first time in my entire existence, the sky stretch over my head rather than at my feet that I felt the odd tug within me that said I was questioning something.
Just as I had told Elianna when she nearly fell into the sky through the stone floor I had created for them by reflecting the wall behind them into the expanse in front of them, the entire existence of my kind was based on belief and trust. We had to believe from the very first moments that we drew breath that what we saw was what it was, that it would behave the way that it was meant to, and to never question it. Questioning, wondering, even for a moment, could mean death. In not questioning, however, we never encountered the possibility that what we thought we were reflecting, how we were perceiving a situation, could possibly be wrong.
I was wondering about that now as I stood at the very edge of the reflected sky and pondered what it was that I was seeing. If that was the reflection of the sky, did that mean it was only the reflection of the sky as I perceived it? What if I didn't believe that it was the sky, that I believed it was glass, would that make a difference in how it behaved? Could it be that what I was seeing was not actually what was on the floor of the caverns, but what was being reflected by the caverns, meaning that there was something else actually there?
I knelt down by the edge of the sky and experimented by dipping my hand down into it. Like it always had, my hand slipped beneath the edge of the tree and into the cold space. I withdrew it and reached for one of the clouds. Holding tightly to the vine, I leaned slightly forward so that I could scoop my hand through the pink and grey streak that was like a faint wash of paint across the blackness. When I pulled my palm back, I watched as the pink and grey melted into cold water against my skin. It was just as I would expect it to be.
I sat back against the tree and closed my eyes. I remembered what I had thought I felt when I was standing in front of Bannack. In him I had seen the same desire and need for me that I had felt for him. I had believed that that desire was as intense and irresistible for him as the feeling that I had when I looked at him. I could only believe that because I had no other option but to believe it. Now, though, I realized that I did have another option. I could question what I believed about Bannack, and if I could question that, I could question what I believed about everything, including that the sky was all that existed on the floor of the cavern. Holding onto that feeling about Bannack, the realization that what I had seen in him wasn't really what was inside him, but what I wanted to see, I opened my eyes again and looked at the floor of the cavern.
This time I didn't see the sky. When I looked at it in those dark, silent moments I saw a pane of glass. No longer were the stars struggling to glimmer through the clouds. Instead, I saw only darkness, as if I was looking through it into the abyss deeper in the planet. I closed my eyes again, took a breath, and when I opened them I saw an expanse of thick, white ice.
I reached out over the ice and felt the cold rising up off of it, tingling against the skin of my palm. Releasing the vine that had been tethering me to the tree, I stood and stepped out onto the ice. The cold was almost painful against the bare bottoms of my feet, but I reveled in it, enjoying the sharp, undeniable feeling that told me I had created what I wanted to from my own perceptions. What I had told Elianna was absolutely true. She hadn't believed that the floor would be solid, so it turned back into what she had been told it was, and what she believed it to be, the sky. When I believed that sky to no longer be the sky, but glass, it had become glass. And now it was ice.
I didn't need my mirrored compact anymore to create what I desired. I only had to believe in my ability to change my perceptions and the perceptions of those around me, and I could create whatever I desired.
I walked across the ice until I reached the expanse of dark ground on the other side and continued forward, not glancing back over my shoulder to find out what happened to the ice when I looked away. The corners of the cavern still looked strange, but I forced myself not to look at them. I kept my eyes focused ahead and climbed my way down into the second chamber so that I could go back into my house.
The solar panels hadn't had the chance to power the lamps since I had left, so I had to rely on the soft glow from my skin to illuminate the room around me. I walked into my bedroom and removed my dress, not bothering to dress again as I made my way out of my house and toward the hot spring toward the back of the chamber that I had adopted as my bath. I sank down into the water, allowing it to soothe my muscles and ease the tension that had built within me.
I dipped my head back into the water to wash my hair and then braided it into a long plait down my back, and then twisting it up so that I could knot it around itself. The air of the cavern was cool around me as I climbed up out of the hot water and made my way back to my house, allowing my skin to dry as I walked. I felt like I was moving through a still, untouchable image, as if nothing was moving with me or responding to my presence. It was as if the emptiness inside me had extended out and taken the energy and light from everywhere I ventured.
Once I was back inside my house I reached into the bureau against my bedroom wall and pulled out a nightgown. I was just dropping it down over my head, intending to crawl into my bed and allow the world to disappear around me, when I heard a voice echoing through the cavern.
Chapter Eight
"Loralia!"
Bannack wrapped his arm through the vines hanging from the trees and called out to Loralia again. His eyes were focused on the massive expanse of ice that stretched across the cavern where the reflection of the sky had been when he was last in the underground world. He screamed for her again, not sure if he should even attempt to step on the ice, and remembering what she had said about believing in the reflection in order for it to be real. Considering he had no idea what it could possibly be reflecting in order to appear as a block of ice, he couldn't bring himself to believe in its ability to withstand his weight.
Finally Loralia appeared on the other side of the expanse much as she had the first time he saw her. Her body gave off the same soft glow, but this time it wasn't being entranced by the glow that made him want desperately to cross the cavern and be near her. This time it was knowing that she was inside that glow, emanating it from her smooth, soft skin and her hypnotic eyes that made him need to get over to her. He could feel his body responding with almost painful intensity and his heart pounded just knowing that she was close again.
"Bannack?"
Her voice sounded confused and she didn't step any closer to him.
"Loralia," he said again, "I need to talk to you."
"I don't have anything to say to you," she said.
The words made him feel like his heart had constricted and he couldn't force any breath into his lungs.
"Please," he said, taking a step down the trunk of the tree and toward the edge of the ice, "I just want to tell you that I'm sorry. If after that you want me to leave and not ever come back down here, I will. It will be the h
ardest thing I ever do in my life, but I'll do it if that's what you want, as long as you just let me talk to you for a few minutes now."
Loralia looked down at the ice and saw it breaking. Long, fine cracks appeared across the surface, forming patterns like lace until the pieces started to melt away, disappearing into the blackness of what was once again the reflected sky. She had created the ice to keep him away, but the sound of his voice and the desperation in his words told him that she hadn't been wrong about what she had reflected from him. It was questioning it that had brought her to the truth, however, just like questioning the sky had brought her to the ice that now melted into the stars. She wondered if outside it was raining.
"Please, Loralia," Bannack said again, "Let me come over to you."
There was a moment of stillness between them and Bannack watched as her eyes explored the sky that now stretched across the cavern, and then lift to him. He was worried that she was just going to tell him to leave and that he would never see her again, or maybe that she would make a floor for him to walk across and then make it fall away right when he was in the middle of the room so that he disappeared to wherever Jem had gone when he fell during the battle. To be honest, he really wouldn't have blamed Loralia if she decided to do either. He realized now how horribly he had treated her, and if she refused to have anything to do with him after it, it would be completely justified.
Loralia's slim, graceful hand lifted slowly to her neck and rested on her compact for a few seconds before she loosened the chain and took the small silver compact in her hand. She opened it and focused it on the wall behind him just as she had the first time that he saw her. The sky disappeared, replaced by the dark grey of the stone.
"Is it safe?" he asked.
"Is it?"
Bannack knew exactly why she was asking. She had already done what she could do to get him across to her, just as she had done everything she could to reach out to him and connect them. Now it was up to him. He had to trust in the solidity of the floor beneath his feet just as he had to trust in himself and in her. If he didn't, there would be no way for them ever to be together.
Taking a deep breath and keeping his eyes focused on Loralia's, Bannack stepped forward. The ground was solid beneath his feet and he continued ahead. He walked in silence, crossing to her with deliberate slowness to prove his absolute trust and confidence in the floor and in her. When he was within a few steps of the edge of the expanse, he stopped and reached his hands out to her. This would be the moment, the moment when he would lose his trust and fall victim to the struggle within him again, the moment when he would let the conflict inside him rise again and send him tumbling down into the sky.
Instead, the ground stayed secure. He didn't waiver in his desire to have her in his arms and as she stepped forward to join him on the solid stone that had replaced the sky. He knew that as long as she was there with him, the stone would stay exactly where it was. The sky was transient, always changing and shifting, never staying the same as if it didn't know exactly what it wanted to be. The stone, though, was absolute and definite. It was strong and solid, and never changed.
This is what he felt now as Loralia walked toward him, reaching out to rest her cool, soft fingers against his palms so that he could hold them and draw her forward into his arms. What had once been transient like the sky was now like the stone, and he would never again allow himself to deny her, even for a moment.
"I'm sorry," he whispered into her hair as he cradled her against his chest.
Loralia pressed herself closer against him and he heard a gentle sigh slip from her lips.
"You don't have to wonder who you are, Bannack," she said.
The words struck him and he leaned back to look at her.
"What do you mean?"
"You worry that you don't fit what you are supposed to be; that you don't live up to what people expect of you. You wonder if you are really who everyone has always told you that you are, or that you should be."
It was something that Bannack had never expressed to anyone, a feeling that he had carried within him his entire life and never given voice to, even to his closest family and friends. He understood now that it was not her that had caused all of his struggle, but himself. It wasn't that he was upset about her being another species that he didn't know anything about, but that he didn't know himself well enough to trust that he could be the mate that she deserved.
"You are a warrior, just as you were born to be. You are strong, you are brave, and you are powerful."
As she spoke, Loralia's hands drifted from Bannack's shoulders down his chest. He felt her fingers exploring his body through the fabric of his clothing as if memorizing the curves and planes so that she could remember them even when they were apart. He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her against him so that she could feel more of his body and how much he needed her. Suddenly she drew in a breath and looked down.
"What is it?" he asked softly.
"Did I do something wrong? Did I try to go too fast?"
Her voice sounded thin, almost like she was afraid to ask him the questions. He took her hands in his, pulling them off of his chest and holding them between them, giving them a slight shake so that she would look at him. He hated that she thought that it was her fault that he had run away from her, and he was going to do everything that he could to show her that it wasn't true.
Chapter Nine
The look in Bannack's eyes nearly took my breath away as he stared deeply at me. His eyes were flickering from their usual greyish blue shade to orange and back, and I could feel intense, searing heat pulsating from his body. It was so hot I felt like it should have burned me. Instead, it tingled across my skin and made my breath deepen.
"You did nothing wrong," Bannack said.
His voice was low and rumbling, deeper than it had been any other time he had spoken to me.
"Are you sure?"
Bannack glanced down at my lips and then back into my eyes. Without saying anything, he leaned forward and caught my mouth with his. The kiss was even deeper, more intense than our first, like it was going beyond his lips against mine to connect us on another level. As his mouth moved against mine, he pulled me closer and I could feel the hardness of his body pressing against my belly. My breath caught in my throat and I arched my back to push more firmly against it. Bannack let out a soft groan and I started guiding him off of the stone and toward the second chamber of the cavern. I wanted to bring him home with me.
We walked along in silence and I could feel his passion growing with each step. I led him past the house that I occasionally visited, where I had changed my clothes after bathing, and through the rest of the chamber toward the large, protective chamber in the back of the cavern. This was truly my home, the place where I truly felt the most comfortable and the most at ease, and this was where I wanted to be with him.
"Is this your home?" he asked as we stepped into the chamber.
"Yes," I told him, "I have a house, but this is where I consider myself at home. This is where I feel safe."
Bannack gave my wrist a gentle tug so that I curled back into his arms. He pressed a kiss to the top of my head and then another to my cheekbone.
"I will keep you safe," he whispered, "I will always keep you safe."
His lips touched the side of my neck and I felt a shiver travel through my body and settle between my thighs. I ached for his touch again and could feel the warmth building as my body prepared for him. The tip of his tongue grazed across my skin. The feeling made my body tremble and I grabbed onto his upper arms, holding them to give myself stability as his mouth continued to explore along the side of my neck and down into the curve between my neck and shoulder.
I felt Bannack's hands smooth down the sides of my hips and onto my outer thighs, gathering the sides of my nightgown with his fingers so that he could slip his hands beneath the hem. He moaned as he realized that I wasn't wearing anything under the nightgown and I felt him fill his hands wit
h my flesh, kneading gently as he met my mouth again with another intense kiss.
His mouth moved across mine with depth and need, but not intensity. He moved slowly, carefully tasting me as his hands massaged into my muscles and pulled me ever closer so that our hips met and the irresistible pressure of his erection against my belly made me whimper into his mouth. His hands swept up, tossing my nightgown aside. I had been wearing nothing else, and again I was completely bare in front of him. I reached up behind my neck and loosened the chain that held the compact I had reattached to its hook. Gently placing the compact down on top of my nightgown, I turned back to him.
"You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen," he whispered.
"Let me see you," I whispered back, reaching forward to release the laces that tied up the front of his pants.
Bannack stepped back and took off his shirt, letting it fall to the floor beside my nightgown. He looked at me and I stepped closer to him, bringing my hands back to the laces on his pants. They loosened easily beneath my fingers and I eased his pants down his hips so that they fell to the floor. Bannack stepped out of them and took off his boots. Finally he was as bare as I was. There was nothing between us anymore and I indulged myself by touching the front of my body to his. The heat of his skin drew me in and I ran my hand down his chest and along the chiseled, rippling muscles along his side.
"You are beautiful," I said quietly, admiring every bit of him that my fingers touched.