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kataylaTitle: May Your Days Be Merry and Bright (Kushiel's Legacy)
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Spoilers: Set after the second trilogy, but nothing very specific past the first one.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 610
Summary: Phèdre reflects on her life with Joscelin.
Notes: For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stargazr324, who asked for Phedre/Joscelin and the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
schmoop_bingo prompt "looking at the stars."
What new revelations can I make about the stars? Should I speak of how looking at them, so unchanged, when I have changed so very much, dwarfs my existence until it is smaller than a speck? Perhaps I should tell of other nights Joscelin and I have spent under the stars.
We have traveled so very far, he and I. In miles and in distances no instrument can measure. If true knowledge of another is ever granted to one, then surely we two know each other. Knowledge born of pain and struggle, yes, and of pushing each other far beyond what we ever thought we could endure, but also of joy.
And, oh, there has been joy!
Mayhap our names will live in legends, in the stories and poems circulating the country. If so, I ask that they remember we are D’Angeline, that above all else, we have loved. That we have followed Blessed Elua’s command though it led us down treacherous paths. Shall I warn how those simple words can shape your life?
Love as thou wilt.
Cereus House formed my early ideas of love and Delaunay refined them, but it was Joscelin who taught me the full truth of them. If the stars dwarf me, they magnify all Joscelin has done, every battle, every scar he has earned in the name of love, in following a path that he, even more than I, never planned for himself.
Was it worth it? Can one ask that? We did as we were called. What more is any life than that? If we have suffered much, we have been granted much. And can one ever unravel the tapestry of their life? Remove a thread of pain without touching the joy?
No. I do not regret my life. And, though it has been years since I spoke the question aloud, I do not believe Joscelin does either. Mayhap what might have been never fades away entirely, but I know the value of what I have. I’ve known nights and days with the same man, the hours blending together until I can only remember them in a breath of peace and laughter. I’ve seen a boy grow into a man I can be proud of and, this, too, is encompassed im Blessed Elua’s precept in a way I never dreamt of.
And I have known moments like this one, lengths of time with Joscelin under the stars, listening to him breathe, knowing I need not speak, trusting in our love for each other.
I turned on my side and drew his head down to me and our lips met, oh so softly. He moved over me and though his face was shadowed, I need not see it to know the expression there, one I’ve seen a thousand-thousand times and, Elua grant it, would see a thousand-thousand times more. His hands stroked my hair. On nights like this, when I need nothing he can not give me, that simple touch is enough to send a shudder through me.
I felt, more than heard his laugh, that brief exhalation of fondness and love and shared memories. I pressed up against him until I heard him make a noise of a different kind and brushed my lips against his throat. And now he rolled, pulling me on top of him, and the stars lit up his face and it was my turn to reach down to him, to brush his hair back from his face, to revel in what a brief touch, with none of my art in it could do to him.
And, above us, the stars shone on our lovemaking once more.
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Spoilers: Set after the second trilogy, but nothing very specific past the first one.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 610
Summary: Phèdre reflects on her life with Joscelin.
Notes: For
stargazr324, who asked for Phedre/Joscelin and the schmoop_bingo prompt "looking at the stars."What new revelations can I make about the stars? Should I speak of how looking at them, so unchanged, when I have changed so very much, dwarfs my existence until it is smaller than a speck? Perhaps I should tell of other nights Joscelin and I have spent under the stars.
We have traveled so very far, he and I. In miles and in distances no instrument can measure. If true knowledge of another is ever granted to one, then surely we two know each other. Knowledge born of pain and struggle, yes, and of pushing each other far beyond what we ever thought we could endure, but also of joy.
And, oh, there has been joy!
Mayhap our names will live in legends, in the stories and poems circulating the country. If so, I ask that they remember we are D’Angeline, that above all else, we have loved. That we have followed Blessed Elua’s command though it led us down treacherous paths. Shall I warn how those simple words can shape your life?
Love as thou wilt.
Cereus House formed my early ideas of love and Delaunay refined them, but it was Joscelin who taught me the full truth of them. If the stars dwarf me, they magnify all Joscelin has done, every battle, every scar he has earned in the name of love, in following a path that he, even more than I, never planned for himself.
Was it worth it? Can one ask that? We did as we were called. What more is any life than that? If we have suffered much, we have been granted much. And can one ever unravel the tapestry of their life? Remove a thread of pain without touching the joy?
No. I do not regret my life. And, though it has been years since I spoke the question aloud, I do not believe Joscelin does either. Mayhap what might have been never fades away entirely, but I know the value of what I have. I’ve known nights and days with the same man, the hours blending together until I can only remember them in a breath of peace and laughter. I’ve seen a boy grow into a man I can be proud of and, this, too, is encompassed im Blessed Elua’s precept in a way I never dreamt of.
And I have known moments like this one, lengths of time with Joscelin under the stars, listening to him breathe, knowing I need not speak, trusting in our love for each other.
I turned on my side and drew his head down to me and our lips met, oh so softly. He moved over me and though his face was shadowed, I need not see it to know the expression there, one I’ve seen a thousand-thousand times and, Elua grant it, would see a thousand-thousand times more. His hands stroked my hair. On nights like this, when I need nothing he can not give me, that simple touch is enough to send a shudder through me.
I felt, more than heard his laugh, that brief exhalation of fondness and love and shared memories. I pressed up against him until I heard him make a noise of a different kind and brushed my lips against his throat. And now he rolled, pulling me on top of him, and the stars lit up his face and it was my turn to reach down to him, to brush his hair back from his face, to revel in what a brief touch, with none of my art in it could do to him.
And, above us, the stars shone on our lovemaking once more.
