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Significant
Disclaimer: The characters in this story belong to Naomi Novik and her publishers. I'm not making any money off either
this site or the story itself.
Feedback, while never required, does help feed the Muse. As always, it's sahiyaATgmailDOTcom or simply follow the link at the end to leave a comment at my journal. She swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand and leaned her arms on the lower of the two railings that ran about the edge of the deck. She knew she should not think of such things, not now when the captain needed her, but there was so little to do on the ship but think. She couldn't help but wonder what would become of her and her mother should Excidium die. She knew enough to know they were not like other women, not like the women who had come that night to the pavilion party in their fine gowns. She had worn the skirts and been quite pleased with herself, true - until she tried to run in them and tripped on the hem. Dyer came and sat beside her then. He said nothing; neither did she, until she turned to ask if he thought they really might find the cure in Africa. But she never did ask - and why would he know any better than she, any wise? - because he leaned in then and kissed her. He tasted of grog and sea salt and Emily hadn't the faintest idea what to do. Neither did he, really, and thus the kiss was rather short-lived. He did not try it again, not then, at least; and they went back to looking at the ocean and the vast field of stars overhead. Three years later, when she was fifteen, he kissed her again. They were at Loch Loggan this time, and had not seen each other in nearly a year and a half, not since Emily had been reassigned to Vindicatus's crew. She was tired from her long journey, the last leg of which had been by coach, in a rattling, terribly uncomfortable contraption, but found herself so happy to see him that she almost didn't care. After dinner he produced a bottle of wine he'd found someplace and they climbed the hill behind the covert a spot overlooking the lake. There they passed the bottle back and forth, speaking of everything that had befallen them since last they'd met. He had a new scar, where a bullet had ripped through his thigh; she had taken a man's life, protecting Vindicatus's captain, and found that it was rather less glorious than the older men had led her to believe. The wine loosened her tongue and she admitted to him that she dreamt of it often and woke in a sweat, trembling. Dyer was quiet. "They're saying the war might be over soon," he said at last. "Napoleon cannot hold out much longer." She merely nodded. She did not say that she prayed for peace nightly, and that she hoped war would not come again in her lifetime. It seemed the sort of thing an aviator should not think. When the wine bottle was empty and they had talked themselves dry, he kissed her again. This time, he seemed to know what he was about, forcing her to wonder who else he had kissed in those three years; this, or something, made a remarkable difference in the whole of the sensation, and it did not end so quickly. It was strange that something so simple, the touch of another's mouth to one's own, could feel so very . . . nice. She surprised herself by sighing and leaning into it, and wished he might put his hands somewhere other than her waist. When Emily was seventeen, she kissed Dyer in an empty clearing in the Dover covert. It was not the third time they had done so; by her count they had kissed fourteen times in the intervening two years, most often when one of them managed to find a bottle of wine, even a rather bad one - or, perhaps, especially if it was a bad one. But she was stone sober when she kissed him this time, and so was he. He startled, pulling away, but she held on and parted her lips, allowing his tongue inside her mouth, trying to tell him with the kiss what she wished him to do to the rest of her. She had thought long about this, considering her mother's advice carefully. "It is not nearly so important as most men would have us believe," she'd told Emily, smiling wryly, "but it is significant. Please don't waste it on some fool boy too drunk to please you." It was possible, Emily decided as she pulled Dyer down into the grass beside her, that he was a fool boy; but he was not drunk and sometime in the last five years he had become her fool boy, or at least that was how she thought of him. They had both kissed others, but they returned to each other time and again. When she thought of marriage, which was not often, she thought of him; she did not think they ever would marry, but, as her mother had said, it was significant. He was significant. It hurt more than she had thought it would. She kissed him through the pain, hands tightening on his shoulders, and for a moment she worried he would spend himself in her and then it would be over. He appeared to hold his breath; but then he let it out, strange and shuddery. He moved inside of her and slowly it stopped hurting. He touched her between her legs. She shivered, though it was a mild night, and nearly cried out in frustration when he pulled away from her suddenly to spill onto the grass of the clearing. But then he kissed her once more and touched her firmly with his thumb; and the strangest, loveliest sensation she'd ever felt swept through her, a peculiar swallowing deep inside. From then on she kissed him far more often; as often as possible, truly, until she lost count. And yet, each kiss remained, in its own way, significant. Fin. |