523. Her Patroon

ed note: Kyra has returned and the crew has sought a reprieve on the Arc'teryxian world of Polaris. Trev and Em headed to a small seaside village, staying in a cottage just outside of town.


He slowed to match her pace, indulging the natural feel of cobbles worn in foot and aged buttery smooth in history, each stone perfectly imperfect in the charm of time when hand and hammer mattered. Her feet were smaller than his but smaller in proportion and they seemed to be just right, skin olive tanned, arches firm in curve. The breeze coming off the azure ocean was neither cool nor warm as much as clean and pure and her long dark hair fanned in the way young hair, rich and supple, dances in the wind, tickling his shoulder. He thought it was nice to walk so close, not by necessity but by choice, her fingers twined in his. She had chosen the lacing and chosen the closeness and she smelled of lilac with a hint of rosemary, part scent and part memory of sighs and caresses under the clear cascading flow of shower rain.

The village on the hill overlooking the sea curved and twisted to match the mountainside and where stone and mortar ended and rock and shale begin were as blended as the strokes of Rembrandt. Each hut and structure fit into the other, a family of russet roofs presiding over open doorways as brothers and sisters, bustling with goods and little feet. The sun, refulgent, shone but not too hot and the shingles of clay glittered as the sea that lay before. Smiles were as lanterns in the shadows and leathered hands placed the sacrifice of the soil alongside the bounty from the sea.

She held up a vine of purpure grapes, and to the eye they appeared as jewels glinting like amethyst and she as a princess worthy of oil and brush. He looked not at her but at the others and in the looking smiled, for they looked as he had once looked and as he would look again, the kind of looking that made one pinch perchance it all but a dream. They would dine for two in the coming dusk and she would cook as if it were their last meal and he would eat as if sitting on the edge of a cliff, not of clay, but of slippery time, falling and falling forever deeper.

Rendered coin traveled upon the counter patron scarred, their purchase satcheled in woven whey bags. They walked among the artisan wares, legs touching as if the slightest separation was a sin against love. As a plant takes energy from the sun, they fed off the light of each other, standing taller when together, smiling more often and laughing as children laugh for the prism of their day held neither grays nor blacks but the spectrum of joy and hope and love and an endless flow of endearments evidenced not in words but in touches and looks and nudges and of hands in the back jeans pocket of the other.

Her arm rode his waist as braided rope mooring her patroon. The shops were full as is wont on days of sun and skies of blue where the dulcet hymn of birds heralded church bells ringing the noon. Just in a nook, a small restaurant, outdoor seating facing the sea, appeared with the matador wave of the chef's hand, their path lighted by his warm smile. A table for lovers, linens white and utensils silver before goblets homed with red fruit. Somewhere the sounds of pots and pans clanked and latin voices susurrated forth on the aroma of dishes handed down from generation to generation, tongue to ear and hand to eye. They nooned without prink or preen, silver upon china clinking a cappella notes of murmured satisfaction.

Bellies repleat in comport of desserts not denied. Wine judged by tongues quite divine as fingers found their kin beneath the shade of tyne. Commerce exchanged and promises endeared, a return requested with a smile and a hug.Thus was the first day of Trev and Em in town.