He could hardly offer much for conversation until he’d taken a few swigs of water and bites of food. The twig lay between them, and he considered taking it with him as a souvenir.
“That’s one of the strangest plants I’ve ever seen.” Stephanie said around a bite, and she ran a finger down one of the velvety leaves.
“It’s artificial,” Davinth replied. “These leaves are made of a mesh that enhances, collects, and modifies brainwaves.”
Her eyes widened, and her hand flew up to cover her mouth. “They were reading my mind?”
Davinth winced and shook his head. “Not necessarily, no. An AI collected your brainwaves and fed images back to you based on the data it received.”
This ensured every user had a mystical experience and was considered one of the pinnacles of Elysian technological innovation, but most tourists didn’t want to hear that their enlightenment was assisted by nanowires.
Her shoulders slumped, and he wondered if revealing the truth behind the mesh had dampened the experience for her. Up until then, they had casually spoken about his thoughts regarding the many retreats dotting his planet.
That was before the orchard, however. Lorion’s young face flashed in his mind’s eye, and Davinth swallowed. How many had he pushed away in his self-loathing? What questions had his swallowed words left to fester in the back of the minds of those he loved? And there was something else that danced on the edge of his consciousness. A sliver of red he couldn’t place. It shimmied to the forefront only to retreat if he tried to pull out any more detail.
Guilt gnawed at him. He would need to speak with his parents and sister when he returned home, and it was a conversation he was not looking forward to having. From what knowledge he had of Stephanie’s troubles, he could only imagine what painful visions the trees created for her, and he was hesitant to ask.
Shadows crept along the gap between the cliff face and the orchard as the day star slipped behind the towering wall of rock.
“I apologize if I’ve over spoken,” he began. “My cynicism can sometimes get the best of me.”
She regarded him for a few moments before releasing a deep breath and changing positions to lean back on her elbows. “Regardless of how they pulled it off, the whole thing still packed a punch, you know?”
She picked at the towel, avoiding his gaze, and he understood, although he wished he could offer more than commiseration. His own ritual had left him similarly contemplative, and his mind was already beginning to fill with all of the matters he would need to attend to upon his return.
“I guess…” Stephanie continued. “At least if another living being saw my thoughts, it would feel less lonely?”
Her eyes held a mixture of confusion and sadness. “I already felt like I was living in a machine.” She flopped back onto her back and released a deep breath. “Ironic to be perfectly decoded by one.” Her laugh was dry as she scrubbed a hand down her face. “It’s good to be typical, at least.”
Davinth frowned. “But does that not mean, then, that you are not alone in your experience?”
Perhaps it was something he took for granted as the member of a species capable of telepathic communication. With a single touch, emotions, memories, and stories could be transmitted and many of their rituals centered around tapping into the mind. It was comforting to feel one’s kin.
She smiled and shouldered one of the bags before offering the other to him. “It’s about the connection.”
And something about her words caused him to start, jolted by another recollection he couldn’t place. She lifted her arm to begin waving frantically, and he turned to see a figure approaching them from the distance, the distinct brown robes marking them as one of their facilitators.
Regardless of what lay ahead of him, he still wished to see her. Their time together was pleasant, but the air seemed oppressive and weighed down with their trials.
“Are you still in an adventurous mood?” Davinth asked, testing the waters. He would understand if she wished to return to her rooms to process whatever harsh epiphanies arose from her subconscious mind. As it stood, he had his own matters to attend to with mending the subtle rifts between his family and himself.
He hoped he correctly translated her smile as relieved.
“Of course.” She dusted a few blades of glass from her legs and bowed her head in greeting to the young novice sent to retrieve them. “I think we both could use a drink.”
7
Stephanie
It was just dinner and drinks. Namaias, the Elysian responsible for running the retreat, was not shy about needing Davinth’s assistance the moment they entered the cloister’s sacred foyer. Stephanie stifled a small giggle as he was led back to the kitchens and she to her room to refresh after her ordeal.
Freshly showered, she pulled the towel from her head and allowed her chestnut brown locks to cascade over her shoulders in sultry waves. Upon returning to the room, she had made the mistake of checking her communicator to find five messages from Minerva waiting. No doubt, wondering if her daughter was ready to give up this futile sabbatical and return home.
Stephanie rolled her eyes and opened her favorite jar of body butter, inhaling the heady exotic scent of flowers long extinct on Earth. She would never experience the scent of a real Ylang-Ylang flower, but that wouldn’t stop her from enjoying the facsimile.
Late afternoon sunlight spilled in through her window, casting the room in warm, marigold tones that made her glow. It was close to golden hour and, once again, her thoughts turned to her camera, safely packed away in her condo. She really should have brought it. This was the healthiest she had looked in months.
Combined with having nothing to wear to a date, it was beginning to look like she had come on her own vacation completely unprepared. Stephanie sighed and shuffled through the chest of drawers before finally settling on a deep moss maxi dress that was as functional as it was presentable.
Her eyes darted to her communicator, the flashing indicator tempting her to read or listen to whatever tirades her mother had in store. The vision from the forest returned to her. The scared woman backed against a tree, her eyes wide against the monster from her worst nightmares. In the past, those were the seconds before the woman’s rages were truly unleashed. The flash of injury replaced with indignant rancor in the blink of an eye.
But the orchard had not played that response. It allowed her to hang, motionless, in her frightened state. A scared child, grasping at survival and doing anything to achieve it for herself and those she loved.
Stephanie’s eyes watered, and she blinked away the tears before applying a thin coating of balm to her lips, biting them induce a ripe pink.
The late day meal bell began to ring, and she released a shuddering breath while excitement and anxiety battled for dominance. Davinth would be waiting for her.
Her feelings toward the Elysian were as complex as they were regarding the planet itself. Like the place he called home, his beautiful exterior held unfathomable depths the average human would struggle to translate to their own lived experience. But there was a sincerity and sadness to him that Stephanie easily saw in herself.
Even if they could not be lovers, she imagined they could be good friends.
It wasn’t until she was halfway down the stairs that she realized her digital consciousness no longer plagued her. The communicator could wait.
Davinth stood, dressed in a simple, cream tunic with gold trim and cream pants. The design was simple and reminiscent of the Elysians she saw at the transport station. His hair was washed and oiled, and the soft curls glistened against his horns. He cleaned up well. Exceedingly well, and she had a feeling the novices had something to do with that as well as the large basket he carried on his arm.
He straightened as she approached but gently bowed when she was within a few paces.
A heated flush crept up her neck and spread like wildfire across her cheeks before she returned the gesture, doing everything in her power to avoid
the eyes of the nosy attendants walking around them.
“I’m sure there’s something I’m supposed to say right now,” Davinth began, “but I’m afraid I’ve found myself lost for words.”
Stop the planet so she could get off. “I guess that makes two of us.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Let’s get out of here.”
With early bloom came the first insects of the year, and she enjoyed learning about each one Davinth could point out as they meandered down the paved road and away from the monastery.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” she asked, although she wasn’t in a rush. As deep reds and purples crept over the horizon line, twinkling lights danced over the gardens and fields of the estates they passed.
“What are those?” she asked, pointing toward a small cluster of them that rose and fell in playful swoops.
“I believe the closest Standard translation would be spirit-sprites.” Their twinkling bodies winked out, only to reemerge in a different hue before diving back into the grass. “The ancients believed they were the souls of children who died before their first year. Now we know they’re just insects.”
“Earth had similar stories,” she said, trying to ignore the way their fingers gently brushed as they walked. His hands were surprisingly gentle considering his size, although she imagined they would have to be to handle delicate plant samples.
“Oh?” His steps slowed, and he offered his unoccupied arm, motioning for her to turn off of the main road onto a small, stone-laid path.
“Yes. We even had stories about an early bloom.”
“I would love to hear them.”
She would tell him as many stories as he would like if he kept smiling as if it were the first time he’d had a genuine one in a long while. That seemed to be a common enough occurrence between them, the comfort they shared in experiencing the awkward and unknown together. Then again, they were relative strangers. Anonymity came with a certain level of freedom.
She groaned when neatly rowed trees came into view. “Oh god, not another orchard.”
Davinth laughed. “We probably aren’t the only ones to come out of that completely scathed.”
“Utterly scathed,” Stephanie said, and their fingers finally laced together when they entered a break in the trees. “I’m stuck between being angry at receiving no warning and being thankful for everything I got out of it.”
Minerva’s messages, at one point, could set her entire day on tilt, but seeing her hunched figure had sapped that last vestige of power away from the older woman. She was no longer the formidable matron whose allseeing eye could pierce through the worst of Stephanie’s anxieties. She was a frightened woman, clutching to whatever good fortune she could find, and terrified of it slipping from her grasp.
Davinth’s hand squeezed hers, and she returned the gesture, happy to look over and up into his handsome, blue face. His brow still held a slight furrow, but he was more at ease, and their eyes momentarily met before her breath was stolen from her lungs.
They emerged from a second set of trees and beyond, an artificial terrace, set with a single bench, overlooked others like it that stretched out and descended as far as the eye could see. They approached the stone railing over which, in the distance, a small crowd could be seen among a throng of tents and bonfires.
“The first night of Pahali’s Festival was always my favorite as an eysling.”
“An eysling?” she asked, wondering if it was some stage in his education. The sun was beginning to set, and he seemed even more tragically beautiful at dusk, all cut lines and broad planes capped with eyes that bore into her against her best defenses.
“An Elysian child. Before we are initiated. We are not allowed to take on the name of our people until we are initiated into our mysteries.”
Their traditions ran deep, far deeper than one afternoon spent in an orchard, and that thought terrified her. She had only scratched the surface of these rituals meant to help her rearrange her life, and he had just said, this was only the first day. Who knew what they would manage to dredge up over the course of two weeks?
She couldn’t imagine living under that kind of constant scrutiny.
“It sounds really intense,” she said softly. “I don’t know much of anything, but I do think I don’t know if I could handle everyone knowing my true feelings and thoughts at all times.”
She opened the basket, rifled through it, and drew out a bottle of wine with a wide smile. “Feel like living dangerously?” she asked, waggling her eyebrows.
“It’s served me well so far,” he replied, his wit on cue as always, and they took a seat, passing the bottle between them for a few moments in silence.
“What are you going to do now?” she asked, partially to hear his voice again and also to know she wasn’t the only one leaving this day with an uncomfortable to-do list. She was happy when he immediately caught on. His sigh was weary, and he took a deep draw before handing the bottle back to her.
“My entire life, I believed I was shirking my responsibilities to my family by focusing on my work and not procuring a suitable mate.”
She scooted closer, pressing her thigh against his. She knew this weighed on him and felt honored to be considered something of a confidant.
“But in my self-absorption…” His eyes took on a far-off cast, and he looked to the horizon, where the first star blinked into view against a slowly spreading indigo. “I pushed them away. All of them, one by one.”
It was heartbreaking to listen to as he brokenly explained snippets from his journey through the black-leaved trees. What snatches weren’t whisked away by the hallucinogen were as visceral to her as her own experiences, which she readily shared. The air hung heavy between them with words left unsaid to those who needed to hear them most.
The bottle’s contents dwindled, and she curled against him, releasing a contented sigh when the weight of his arm enclosed her shoulders. She could stand fine on her own, but his presence was comforting.
“I intend to begin rebuilding the relationships with my family.”
“And with yourself,” she finished, her finger tracing along the delicate gold embroidery on his tunic. “You’ve carried a heavy weight for a long time.”
She carried a similar weight herself, although she believed herself farther along in her journey. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking. Trepidation still swelled in her throat at the thought of pulling off the crazy ideas formulating in her skull, especially with the Elysian sunset finishing its grand display.
The last hints of red hugged the edge of the sky, and between the ink black of night lay a gorgeous amethyst she had never seen before.
“I really wish I had brought my camera,” she groaned, and Davinth’s chest rumbled under her ear with his response.
“I can acquire one for you tomorrow.”
She looked up at him. “I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
His head tilted to the side, and she wanted to kiss the confusion off of his face. “What will a falling shoe portend?”
Stephanie laughed. “It’s an old Earth saying. It means I’m waiting for something to go wrong.”
She looked away, turning her attention back to the spectacular view. “For something to be wrong with you.”
Davinth chuckled and pulled her closer. “There’s plenty wrong with me.”
She nodded and licked her lips, her eyes dropping to his. If she leaned a little closer and tilted her face up just the right way, she could capture those lips as blue as the oceans back home. A finger made small circles right at the crook of her elbow and that touch alone was enough to make her melt. A simple, soothing touch.
“That’s why we’re here, right?” she asked. She wanted to know how much his opinion had changed, if his cynicism had been replaced with begrudging respect.
His smile was small. “I was here to disappoint and hide away in my room.”
A streak from the corner of her eye made her look away fro
m him again, and another, blood-red one followed. Arching up into the sky before trailing in intricate loops and being joined by other dancers in its ballet.
“Wow,” Stephanie breathed. They behaved as though they were sentient, weaving together, nearly crashing before skittering away from each other, and spiraling up to shoot away before coalescing to swirl toward the ground. “What is that?”
She felt him lean down, and those lips she longed to kiss brushed against her ear, sending tingles down her spine.
“Ladies in Waiting,” he said in a husky tone that sent a full-blown shiver down her spine and left goosebumps on the back of her neck. “A rare bird. They have a special bacterium that only exists on their feathers.”
“Bioluminescence.”
“Yes.” His thumb moved over her shoulder, and the desire to close her eyes and absorb the sensation warred with the stunning, natural lightshow streaking across the sky. “There is an old story that says if two lovers make a vow during their mating flight, Pahali will bless their union with longevity.”
Her eyes slid to his, and she couldn’t help her wry smile. It was a likely story, but the timing was far too perfect. “And what if that vow involves playing tour guide for two weeks?”
She whispered against his lips, catching each of his breaths.
“Vows made during the early bloom are especially binding,” he replied, and his words caused their lips to briefly touch.
She tried her luck, abandoning all reason to give into the impulse both of them shared. A satisfied moan rumbled from his chest as her hands slid over it, and the light show was temporarily forgotten to an onslaught of tender nips and exploratory caresses.
Stephanie pulled away, and the hunger in his gaze matched her own, but they had time. Plenty of time to make out on park benches and confide in each other, and maybe, for now, that was what she needed.
Davinth’s gentle kisses pulled her out of her reverie, and she cupped her hands around his face, running her thumbs along the white ink of his tattoos. “I’ll hold you to that.”
Blooming Desire: An Extraordinary Spring Romance Collection Page 12