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You are never one to think you can be desired with a whole heart.
With unfocused eyes and a voice now barely echoing the rooms—in the hostelries you have never thought to enter again—you hide. You’ve always hid. You're always hiding. But why now?
Author, why are you gripping your quill with a trembling hand? Why is heat slicking your temples, one of a vast mind filled with ways to weave a tapestry?
Why are you trembling at the thought to conquer the sun and devour it raw?
The sun comes to you not in virgules of an intrinsic abhorrence of the firmament to your mortal flesh. It does not come to you like smoldering rosy strokes that create droplets trickling down your forehead.
Oh, no , monarch.
They come to you in a rugged splay of hay-like hair. They come to you with bright eyes and a cheeky glint. In a bashful glow of dusted pink on cheeks and a freckled hand to lips. Of honorable ethics like a gardbrace and strapped shield. Of a bent knee and a pliant mouth—
The sun comes to you like it’s stealing the light from Eld despite having its own.
Greedy, greedy little thing.
You shake your head from such thoughts. It isn't always like this. Back then, oh no, no, no threader.
The sun comes like a crash. It burns, of course, but it burns like a haughty apple in hand. It offers—offers, yet you deny it like you always do.
The music quiets, the voice starts up again. This pleasure—this pleasure oozing like golden honey on a field of ochre—it coats, it teases; it lures you in. You ignore it. You don't pay any mind to it.
It is nothing. It will be nothing. That is what the lurking whisper cants its head to your ear with. Slithering around your gut, wearing you out. A melody builds up in the back of your throat, threatening to claw away muscle. It is nothing. It will be nothing.
You look behind you. And once again, it repeats.
Parchment and vellum of tales on the floor. Blotted with ink, crossed out with the blackness of the midnight. It finds its way in the hands of a blazing star, brighter than a nebula exploding into the silence.
It speaks, parts its lips and spills out praises. You wish to hide; you want to hide.
It is nothing. It will be nothing.
You ignore it, but trepidation sizzles from your fingertips. Paranoia gnawing at the hollow cavern of your gut. A certain kind of doubt that licks the lobe of your ear and pulls you in to allure. Hoping you follow; hoping you give in. You don’t. It is nothing. It will be nothing.
But as long as you are bare in the morning, the sun follows. And even then, these thoughts follow you into the night. The moon hovering over you for your secrets. Nothing hides from the moon, but with the sun, it takes. You also take.
It appears at your window ledge. Your baffled look is obscured by your spectacles and a nonchalant fervor to keep in. The orchestra rises like the tidal waves plastered on its skin. Why are you here? Why do I let you in?
You listen. You listen to the sun chime in with a song unfamiliar. Persistent yet not…unwanted.
It continues. You find yourself inviting them to the bosom of your room. Your bed is warmer. Your sheets are covered in stray stalks of hay. There are clothes not your own folded atop your workplace and a bare body slick with sweat and glowing. A body marked with chalk and splattered with pigments like a tapestry you can call perfect for nobility.
You call them a painting in your mind. Oh, threader, why can't you declare it with pride?
Is it really nothing when you have them squirming in your lap, petals blooming like the drawings decorating their sun-kissed cheeks? When you let the cool streams wrap around every edge of their limbs with your silver-tongue? When you trace the mountains and dive into valleys you’ve never dared to go into?
Is it really nothing, dear mx?
You keen your head, but they steal your lips with a chaste kiss.
A bold, greedy, little thing. You think as you gently push their head away and try to shift from your spot warming over. They keep you there, a weight upon your thigh and a pressure on your heart. The tips of your ears heat up. You urge yourself to rekindle a dominance in the way your hands slither down their back and pull them closer. They shiver; they croon.
Their praises never turn into dust. They linger, not like dirt but ink blots you yourself leave on their skin. They stand out on their star-drenched figure, yet you hum in pride. They look well like yours covered in smudges and streaks. They wear it with pride too.
Knells , they fit so well in your arms. You don’t let them hear. Their head upon your thigh utters more from the cacophony of voices wishing to tell you—to taunt you or encourage, you don’t know.
Is it really nothing? Do you deny this epitome of perfection shining amongst dreary Felicity? Do you deny when they are willing to search you like a needle amongst haybales? A twitter of a meadowlark in the midst of a sea of voices, of noises?
You hide—howbeit they still find you.
Their head is once more of a messy mop, but they are pressed against your side, leg over your thighs and near straddling. You don’t mind. It is nothing. They try to steal a kiss from you, like the greedy pup they are, and you let them. Is it really nothing?
“Every tale mustered from mind to mouth…I wish to hear it ‘til one naught. Until it is only I.”
You huff, amused by the prospect. Greedy, greedy little pup. But something rumbles in your chest. Another song, another narrative to create from the freckles and rivers on their body. Your mouth is open on their shoulder. You grip your quill tighter. It does not tremble, but you feel your ears heat again.
Is it really nothing?
They don’t take over. They don’t straddle, though they are desperate. Squirming. You feel them shudder as you press a soft peck on their neck. The sun glows bright as always. You find them stealing your lips, your hands hoisting up higher on your hips.
“Cooper.”
You find yourself rasping out. They’re too busy fitting their mouth to yours, trying to catch it. You do it first. They melt. They melt and you find yourself with the overwhelming thought that this is real.
“Cooper—”
“Don’t…Don’t stop talking, please—”
You forget about it and kiss them. Indulging the greedy little pup.
It is far from nothing, after all.