by J Noland
.
Piomir lay on the bed beneath white linen and then powder blue cotton blanket, her
dark hair folded lightly over the pillows beside her. She slept with no dreams. Her
casual steady breaths the only true sound, though very slight, in the room.
.
The door opened carefully, making scratch sounds on the stones of the floor, but Jonaphen's
movement did not waken her. He knew her well though they had never met like this.
She was very beautiful, though she had changed radically. Piomir was still and nonetheless Piomir; no matter the packaging was different.
.
She wore a delicate vermeil chain these days. He'd heard rumor of its habit to occasionally
bite into her neck, but then only when she got very frustrated and wouldn't say.
Silver was her favorite metal, silver and black complimentarily were her colors.
She wore them well in every incarnation, always returning to them.
.
Somehow, Jonaphen also always had the same colors; black and silver-grey complimentarily.
His fascination for her was then odd, since he'd never truly cared much for anyone
who had anything remotely in common with him. Piomir was much like him, almost too much like him. At times it frightens him.
.
Yet colors suited him. He knew very deeply within his mind that he had earned them.
As had she. Such strong roots of knowledge girded his eclectic, high minded and startling
style. Thus he had the stature to be he who stood in her room unannounced.
.
This summary of a man, lordly, though rightly so, had been perfectly reduced to scarcely
more than his concise self by the love of Piomir, unexpected and childlike.
.
And after so long silence the great ruler (though now he ruled naught save his own
destiny) was here with her as he had hoped and secretly knew could be no other way.
But to touch one absent such a stretch, to the mind is a brutal conflict. To shatter
the once broken dreams in a cloud of scorching reality: had love lasted? He was brave.
.
Dimly lit by a single beige colored candle Jonaphen's steps could not be traceable.
He knelt beside the bed with a click and a vague recollection of the stables in the
air. He would not waken her.
.
But, as he drew near, the same hand which had once been falsely tried for crimes against
her fell lightly onto her far shoulder, and her bronze, candle-lit eyes opened slowly,
exposing her surprise. Nothing else ever did. Piomir was as unsure as Jonaphen. It had been the same last time, like looking through mica capsules containing their
nondescript devotion.
.
A frozen moment was exchanged, and they both percived. Ibidem.
.
"I," Jonaphen state, "Love you."
.
Piomir smiled.