Wild Nights
"Wild Nights--Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!"
Janie has grown taller than her mentor, grown long and sleek and wild like a willow tree. Fell Andred embraces and envelops her, accepting her as its own. She's acquired Morgana's sweeping silent steps. She holds her head imperiously, and never hesitates or regrets to be sharp-tongued when it is needed.
She is twenty years old, and weilds the Ice Silver proudly. She lives at the House of Mirrors, having left home two years prior. Morgana has never asked for anything in return for her stay.
Alys, Charles, Elwyn...they come and go. Only Janie remains, here, with her.
"Futile--the Winds--
To a Heart in port--
Done with the Compass--
Done with the Chart!"
They cook, eat together, study, read. Morgana talks in a low voice of her life, Janie weaves stories on the spur-of-the moment, and the Foxes interrupt whenever they like. Janie now knows the Vixen's name, but it is a great secret and she does not speak it. Her son, Thorn, is Janie's companion. He thinks before opening his mouth, which Morgana says is a quality Janie would do well to learn.
Morgana is an accomplished harpist. Janie doesn't think she can dance, but she tries. It is never cold here in Villa Park, but during the winter logs burn in the hearth nonetheless. The blaze illuminates the room as Janie sits in front of the sorceress, allowing her fingers to be guided gently over the strings of the great harp. It sings for them together.
There is a yearning in her that grows every day, one that she can feel answering in the beat of Morgana's heart on her back this night. She is through with the decorum that binds them. Janie has always followed order, logic, but she's followed Morgana as well, and, oh, if only she had Quislai blood in her, then it would be so much easier to give into this, this...
"Rowing in Eden--
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor--Tonight--
In Thee!"
Janie thrums out the chords, slow, long, haunting. Morgana's hands linger but no longer instruct. Janie is daring, but not impulsive, and improvises the notes of this new song carefully. Morgana's breath is warm and damp on the back of her neck. Janie's hands do not falter on the strings.
"Morgana..." She quickly plays out an end to the tune and twists in the woman's arms. They are face-to-face, Janie's mouth just a little above her teacher's nose.
"Morgana," she says it again, and her voice cracks, and her hands are on Morgana's shoulders and their mouths are touching, meeting, pressing together, and Morgana's holding her arms so, so gently. Janie feels a heat, a cinder burning between them. She is like a volcano, all this needing and hunger built up and now she's holding all that she needs in her arms, in her mouth, and she doesn't know if she can ever let go.
Kiss, kiss, Morgana's tongue hot and slick on her lips. It feels so good to know that it's not just Janie giving in to a feeling unneeded, unwanted. It's not that because Janie is just half of this, and Morgana is clutching at her now, pressing close, not letting her get away for a second. This is she and Morgana and years of communion, of silence and wanting for something unknown and now, inexplicably, discovered.
Now they know, and they need, and Janie helps Morgana with the buttons on her shirt as the fire burns down and the moon rises in the night sky and the wildlife curl down in their dens. Janie moans with a sorceress's hands on her skin and she swears she hears the harp sing, alone, no longer needing a guide.