Experiment 89 Energy

E=mc2

Dreamweaver - age 21

He first noticed the female in the crowd of male students seated in the columned garden square under the rowan trees, silently observing the animated discussion about theology and life. That she was in their philosophical midst was a salient question, for females were rarely interested in these topics preferring less complicated or more domestic chatter. She was absorbed by the various threads these boys were spinning; some of their views were random, most of their words were extravagant.

Her eyes had caught just enough morning light to smolder the brown in her eyes gold from where he was standing. This scene felt familiar to him although he had not seen her on the grounds before. He was drawn by the curiosity of her eyes, by the way her body relaxed subtly into the fervent conversation, and by the contrast she quietly embodied among the academic noise. He watched her like a painter studying his subject for a masterpiece.

She often wondered about the worlds beyond this one. Her father had spoken of stories from his ancestors of a faraway place. Tales of beings different from her own body, like the fish in the sea or the birds in the sky or both. All exist in the great natural world under the watchful eyes of the omniversal core, her father expounded. She felt more than the stirring of curiosity from the conversations before her. Their debates made sense to her whether they agreed with each other or not. Somehow, they were each partially right and wrong at the same time.

She shifted between the currents of their contemplation casually; she heard the rustle of the rowan leaves in mid breeze; she tasted rain that was coming soon with the wind that blew in suddenly, so she looked with the intent to judge the clouds bringing rain and instead she saw a pair of cerulean eyes framed in a man watching her.

They locked eyes, gold and blue, and contrary to social customs of the place, neither averted their gaze; one contained curiosity, another held wonder. He smiled a little at her boldness and in their distance, without breaking his gaze, tilted his face slightly in acknowledgement of their first contact. She blinked once in mild response and then quickly averted her eyes to the ground as if she suddenly remembered her upbringing to be polite. A storm was gathering, she can feel it, and she was too far from home.

She stood to leave and some of the boys halted in the middle of their sentences to rise with her and part a path for her. She smiled her thanks at their courtesy and left, carrying a small leather package. A few boys continued to look at her departing form, as did he. Somehow the intellectual precepts had disappeared with her sudden exit. The students disbanded. His eyes took in her actions for as long as he could before his mind made a choice: He would find her again. Soon, a storm would brew.

He considered following after her. The clouds were moving in fast with the sudden change in wind speed. He did not know her, yet he felt inclined to guard her somehow. He could take a walk just to see where her path led. He could pick her out in the distance of scattering people who were becoming aware of a possible deluge coming their way. She was still pacing herself unhurriedly as if in sunshine when overhead darkness gathered. Was she really unaffected or was she lost in thoughts, he wondered.

At the first crack of thunder, he detected a change in her pace. He could easily out stride her in steps, but he chose to keep a respectful distance that would obscure his pursuit. His interest in her would take its proper place below his code of social etiquette. He looked up once and judged that the torrents would be a moment away. He looked back down and she was gone. He walked just a little bit closer to where he had last seen her when the first big drops of rain descended.

He ducked into the nearest over ledge and walked close the walls, out of range of the falling drops. There would be an opening nearby the city walls where he could slip in to wait out the storm. He would have to hurry before it started to flood. He turned a sharp left at the corner wall and collided firmly with another smaller person, swaddled in cloth presumably as a rain cover, who happened to turn right.

The smaller person recoiled on impact and would have fallen into a huge puddle of water if it were not for his split instinct to reach out and catch the person by the arm; the moment his fingers closed in on physical contact, he had a flash of knowing, female, it was her. He curved his arm inwards towards his body and took a step out into the rain to balance the girl’s opposing force and caught her but she had somehow recovered her centre of gravity and so landed squarely on his chest. He pulled her back into the shelter of the ledge and let go.

She was still stunned by the sudden turn of events. She remembered an impact while she turned the corner and that blurred into movements between the cold drops and the warm torso that caught her swiftly as her body instinctively turned to regain balance. She had covered her head with her cape and did not see the person who turned the corner simultaneously. She was most apologetic and her hand flipped back the hood so that she might express sincerely her profuse apologies. She recognized his cerulean eyes. Lightning flashed through them.

He recognized her hazel eyes as the cloth unveiled her face. Shock perhaps at the impact of two bodies still glazed on hers. He was amazed at the premonition this scene brought and forgot emotions. She thought he was offended and proceeded contritely. A clap of thunder blocked out her words and suddenly both felt transported to another scene between the moments, between them.

The third flash of lightning urged him first into action; he stepped into the outer path so that she would be cocooned between him and the wall from the torrential pouring. We may apologize to each other later, he said as his arm circumvented her back to the other direction and steered her to where the shelter would be. He paced to her steps and in the simplicity of the moment, marveled at the ease with which their feet worked in harmony together.

She was already soaking wet before he placed her between the walls and his cloak which now shielded her from the autumnal storm. She moved rapidly and he matched her speed without effort. He was a stranger yet she felt no sense of strangeness to be so close to him. Instead she felt a throbbing sensation in her left hand. She looked down at a gash in her hand, fresh blood flowing from her open palm onto her soaked clothes turning her skirt into a streak of red. She clenched it tight to stop its circulation and held it up above her heart level to slow the blood flow. She did not know how long ago she had been cut so deep, only that it could be affecting her vision.

Her steps seemed misplaced, he noted and then he saw a thick ribbon of red on the front of her dress that was not there earlier. Blood from a fresh wound but how, he puzzled. She seemed faint. We are almost there, he said. She was leaning into him now and her body kept the momentum. There would be nowhere for her to rest at the shelter and the storm was growing in strength. They had turned in the direction away for the court grounds. The shelter would have to do for now as they were there.

The shelter was more a break in the city walls due to the structure of the terrain which dropped into a stony cliff further into the distance. It would be a rough surface but they would be on higher and drier ground. He thought it might be best to carry her up the remaining few metres to the shelter and asked her permission more for representational sake than for actual approval: May I?

She felt faint, her lips and face were ashen. He felt concern, his arms and heart were empowered. They reached the hollow of the shelter before she collapsed completely. He found a clearing with ground that is more levelled and lay her down. Her mind was still clear and though her body did not respond, she could sense her surrounding and the warmth of his touch through her drenched clothes.

He analyzed the situation as the storm raged outside. He spoke to her as he moved to take her injured hand. The gash went deep into her left palm, very near her main artery which explained the blood trail. There were black burn marks, charred flesh that surrounded the red open wound. Her hands were freezing cold and pallid, like her face, she seemed closer in appearance to a marble statue than the girl he saw just moments before the storm. How did this happen, the question echoed through him as his mind raced to salvage her health.

He saw logic but not honour in the choice he had to make next, yet it would be dishonourable to let her die. His conflict faded faster than his fear that he could not save her, he must try. Her wet clothes were tossed aside, together with the leather package she held onto tightly. His clothes were no better, so they were shed too. Only his leather cloak remained dry, impervious to water.

He pulled her freezing body into his warmer self and wrapped the leather cloak around both their bodies. She fitted his contours comfortably and sensually. Had this been a scene from another of his nights out, her body would have served a more carnal purpose. Her flesh and skin were soft as girls of high breeding were. He was struck by his sudden observations of her at closer contact. She was no servant or slave, she smelled of flowers in spring, without the odours that usually accompanied the lower classes. Oh gods, what was he doing with a high born, he could be executed for this trespass.

He struggled with his ego as a man and his protective instinct towards her well being. She was a stranger and too young to be this close to a man. She was also hurt and likely to die from whatever was draining her body’s fire. The storm outside seemed to be worse and unlikely to abate soon. The sun had gone out though it should be closer to mid day than night, and the nights were cold and treacherous to the ones who were unprotected.

He felt some liquid thick and cold running down his torso. He ran his fingers past the fluid and up to his vision. More blood. Her wound was still open. He pulled up her left hand and pressed carefully on a vein. It stopped the bleeding but only momentarily. He had to be more alert to her hand or she could just as quickly die from her blood loss.

Please live, he beseeched silently. His hands and feet were turning cold. No, he must generate more heat. His mind was a whirlwind of should nots now that he knew she was not ordinary. Ques! He would deal with the consequences when the storm was over. Right now, he needed to help her.

He held her left hand on his heart, his hand still moderating the vein to pause the blood. With his other hand, he found her life pulse, it was slow but not that weak. He put his other hand on her cold bare back and started rubbing her skin in even strokes for a few minutes. He moved down to her thighs, rubbing them with gentle ferocity to increase the blood circulation to her skin.

Her mind processed measures of the event that was unfolding. Her body was there but she felt removed, distant and unfeeling. She felt his touch searching her skin for patches of cold to supply his body’s fire to. She should have felt insulted, embarrassed or disgraced but she did not. She felt gratitude instead and another sensation stirring in the pit of her stomach. His hand was rough but felt tender to her skin. Her breathing was becoming deeper and steadier. She felt his body temperature neutralizing her own.

He was consistent, attentive and more alert than he had ever been. He paid attention to her breath, her pulse, and her slightest fluttering of eyes beneath closed lids. These were good signs that she is getting better. He smiled to himself, she just might live another day.

Pleased with her body’s temperature progress, he turned his thoughts over to the injury she sustained. A cut he could presume but the charred flesh surround the cut was a mystery. He had never encountered a wound as strange as hers in all his short but active years of fighting, and he had seen some bad mutilations. He had learnt to both injure and heal in the war fields. A lightning flashed again and the rumble of thunder could be felt through the cloaked ground. Lightning – perhaps it struck through her hand, he mused.

Lightning – she remembered walking to the edge of the city walls when the first drops fell. She had held her hand up in front of her face to see how big the drops were. There was a flash of white that blinded her and she was stunned by the purity of the colour. She must have stood there for a while because she was soaked when she recovered some of her senses and made her way to the shelter of the wall’s ledge. She could not go home in the storm and started to walk with a strange sense of numbness in her body and a vision that was partially whited out.

Her body was still numb but she began to shiver in his arms. Good lass, he thought to himself, come back to me. He continued his stroking over her quivering muscles. Before when her body was limp, he found it easy to be around her. Now that her body was awakening again and moving against him, he found himself responding reluctantly though not unpleasantly to her trembling body. This was going to be his biggest test of physical discipline.

He closed his eyes and steeled his mind which seemed to make it worse for him as the darkness behind his eyelids gave a ripe canvas to vividly paint his last carnal activity with a servant girl not much older than she. His eyes flew open in dire reprimand at himself but it was pushing him to the edge of control. He was too acutely aware that further movements from her body would stoke a different fire in him. He took deep breaths to regulate his body and mind. Not now. She stirred some more and time shifted.

\\ She stirs in her bed. Memories of blue eyes and a boy close to her, fading. Her left hand throbs with an ache. She looks at it uncertainly. Something was in her palm, what was it? She must try to remember. A boy or is it a man, who is with her. She closed her eyes and darted about in her mind desperately looking for smokey tendrils of the dream to trace. She is holding something important. She has a meeting to attend in an hour. It is raining outside. She is up and energized.