Into the Deep Wood

The crowd's murmur swayed and flowed as Fauna’s fig wine took hold. Val felt warmth at her fingertips, but it was almost as if she could trace it as it moved through her. It had weakened her wrists first, then flowed through her arms and shoulders. There, it swirled and swelled in her chest, making it difficult to take a deep breath. But, once she did, the cool air seemed to have doused a fire inside her momentarily until it roared again.

She felt it crawl up the back of her neck and tingle at the back of her head, a sensation that felt like someone had been playing gently with her hair. On her lips was the sweetness of figs, and it burned in a pleasant, steady way.

The liquid fire worked its way down, sending goosebumps up her arms. The same sensation seemed to fall over her spine. It forced her to squeeze her knees together as it flowed lower and lower - down to the tips of her toes. It came in waves, as if her body had become but a single heart and with each beat, it warmed, swelled, and flowed with the rhythm of life around her.

She looked at Marat, and the same glassy-eyed expression met hers. She became so suddenly aware of how close he was to her, and just how large his body was.

The six were still knelt before the raging fire in a trance that seemed to restrain their movement. This was unlike any other experience Marat had ever had with the powder of watermerchant’s bones. He had indulged from time to time. It was a party trick - no more.

Although, a very certain, private kind of party.

But it was nothing, nothing like this.

He looked at the back of his hand. The veins were pulsing, and he became aware that his entire body did the same. The heat of the fire behind them faded away as he felt his temperature rise and fall rhythmically with every beat of his heart. Yet, none of the sensations felt painful or uncomfortable. Even his knees against small pebbles in the dirt had fallen far into the background of his mind. He turned his head to find Val looking at him, her eyes so large, the light of the fire doing nothing to take away their darkness. So fragile, she looked at him as a doe - one sudden move, and she would be gone. Yet, in duality, she was a predator - her body tensed and just one moment before she would lunge and rip him to pieces.

He could not help but hone in on where her caftan had skewed, revealing her shoulder. The skin was so smooth and rounded, guiding his eyes down - just to take it all away in the linens of the clothing covering the rest.

He became too aware of his breathing, but mostly that it had stopped.

Taking in a large breath, he let it out slowly, allowing the chill night air to soothe his lungs.

A touch, it was as if it had zapped him - her finger lightly brushing against the hairs on his forearm. He felt the sensation connect and bind them, and then her hand dropped - robbing him of it, taking with it the greatest tenderness he had ever felt.

And then, whiplash, as his senses cleared enough to let him feel his legs. He stood, as did she. But the warmth and pulsing remained.

Their eyes locked, intense and feral. All he could do was reach for her hand. She met his, and, a bit to his surprise, she pulled on it - turning and leading him away.

He followed blindly. At that moment, he would follow her anywhere.

She kept turning back to him as if checking that he was still there. Her eyes were so dark. No green had been left in them –just a black abyss calling him in.

Firelight disappeared behind them, as did the noise of people and crowds. Only the sound of crickets, rustling trees, and the soft shoosh of grasses in the breeze surrounded them now.

Breathe, for All-Father’s sake, remember to breathe.

He took a deep breath, and it reminded her to do the same. She stopped, pulling him close, the intensity of the eye contact unaffected by the lack of light aside from the moon's soft glow.

She wound her fingers through his, and it had been as intimate as any sensation had ever been. He wanted to touch every inch of her, to feel her skin, to know its warmth, and yet - his blood screamed for more. A torturous ache that seemed to press against him from the inside, begging to escape the confines of his physical body.

Her other hand went under his shirt, forcing a full-body shudder to run through him, and when it slipped lower still, it was as if the world had disappeared, and all there was left was a force breathing through and out. The dampness of the earth and grasses beneath them contrasted with the inferno under both their skin. The world completely melted away.

Breathe.

Each touch was its own ripple of energy that pulsed through them both. Each started as a careful trickle and ended as a violent current. Marat took in every inch of the body he longed to touch not so long ago. He craved to know it, marvel at it, taste it, feel it, embrace it.

It was her, but he had never seen her in this way before. It was her - but so open to him that he could understand every little fragment that had made up the whole of Val. They had not spoken even once, and only breaths and gasps were shared between them.

Breathe, for fucks sake, remember to breathe.

Amidst her, lost in her, wishing to both find absolution and be eternally punished, everything flowed together as water, each sense sharp yet simultaneously lost amidst the others.

Breathe.

It was the moment that cold sweat felt uncomfortable, the ground a bit too hard, that both had begun to feel the inevitable return to their own body.

Breathing felt more natural, no longer second to touch. The cool breeze brought shivers that were no longer pleasant. And yet, where their hands were intertwined was that warmth, the heat that had taken them and left them stranded on the edge of mortality.

Or, so it felt.

Marat looked at Val, and she looked at him. Neither felt the need to speak. Both had become increasingly aware of the loss of the fire that the wine had sent through them, but the desire remained if either of them still had strength.

“Wait…” Val sat up suddenly.

She jerked her head first to one side, then another, and then grabbed for the caftan that had been long discarded.

The grassy field in which they found themselves, peaceful in the darkness of the shortest night of the year, was surrounded by completely silent and deathly still figures. Neither Val or Marat knew when they arrived. They did not move forward, they did not react when Val had seen them. They just stood.

Marat put a hand on her shoulder.

“Are those…”

The faces of the people that they saw each day. The shopkeepers, the blacksmith, and even the apothecary surrounded them. As the two scrambled to put on their clothes, the townpeople turned and silently walked away.

“We have to leave…” Marat said quietly, his motions hurrying her along. “Go. Back to the cottage, now.”