On earth that tells of many passing days
The months of peace and all the years of war
The lives of love and all the lives of fears
Calling, yearning, pulling, home to you
-Lyrics to 'Caravanserai' performed by Loreena McKennit
Elements of Great Design Part 16
Anna had always wanted a best friend. For the longest time, that friend had been her power since it was the most intimate and personal possession of hers that felt more like a person than a gift.
But then Wufei had come into her life and she had a real best friend... someone she could talk to, confide in, trust... and love. She admitted that she loved the Earth talent, but was only willing to say that it was more like the love between a sister and a brother than anything else. An orphan himself, the boy shared that other commonality with Anna. That was how it had begun between them, at least.
There was little choice in lifestyle options for Chang growing up alone and so he had been taken in by the Master of the revered Monks that farmed and lived off the land. As fate would have it, he found himself to be a natural in the martial arts and thrived off their simple ways of living through meager possessions, prayer and meditation. But he had also stumbled into learning of his ability to manipulate earth.
Over the course of the years following, the young man had longed to find another like him that he could turn to. When he met Fraise, he told her that his prayers and wishes had been answered. Their connection was instant and permanently fused from the evening of their first encounter.
Rather than have to go out and steal her next meal, the redhead wanted for nothing thanks to Chang. He came to her 'home' within the natural wall of rock surrounding Eblan and provided for all of her needs be it food, clothes, water and the like.
Of course there were offers made by Wufei to take Anna in, but she had her pride and needed her independence to some point as she had managed on her own for so long.
Staying with her after his long days of training for hours into the evening, he would sit and talk with her without ever passing judgment on her for her ways... a remarkable gesture between an honorable Monk and a thief.
For months on end, the pair carried on as such. The nights were theirs as they spoke and laughed while Wufei showed all of the wonders that both his ability and his homeland had to offer.
The unlikely friends also challenged each other.
Be it tests through their unique gifts or hand-to-hand combat that they worked through with each other, they grew stronger together both physically and in their powers. Anna lost her lanky build to take on more muscle tone that improved her build as well as her endurance. Meanwhile, Wufei became more apt with his ability thanks to the experience of his redheaded comrade.
And before either of them knew it, nearly a decade into their knowing each other had passed when the dynamic between the pair changed dramatically...
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Her long, red hair pulled back in a high ponytail, Anna spun her whole body around with a loud cry as she swung her extended leg high in her attempt to knock Wufei off balance during their evening training session. Only just managing to dodge the assault with a bend back, the Monk laughed in his praise, "Excellent, Firefly!"
Before she completed her spin, the thief redirected herself entirely to catch the smug Monk off-guard. Black eyes widening in surprise at the fist that was sailing for him, Chang raised his own hands to block and return a retaliation blow that became a furry of kicks and swinging arms between them.
Fast and precise in their delivery, the couple was perfectly matched blow-for-blow and block-for-block as they danced across the hilly fields that had become their practice grounds beneath the half moon that glowed high overhead.
Covered in sweat by the time their long skirmish began to wind them, it was the redhead to get a rare opening in ending the fight when she suddenly crouched low. Balancing herself up on her hands, she shot her legs forward to take Wufei's feet out from underneath him.
With a cry of surprise as he fell, the Monk's voice was cut off when the thief shot up just in time to grip his robes and lower him gently onto his back atop the soft grass beneath him. Laughing through his pants, Chang closed his eyes as he shook his head, "Damn. I never saw that coming. I'm proud of you, Anna."
It was a huge victory for the elated Fraise since she was not one to best the warrior very often. Beaming, she giggled tiredly as she stretched herself over him, pillowing her chin on her arms folded over his chest. "Well, I'm learning from the best," she smirked while trying to catch her own breath.
His eyes opening, Wufei chuckled deeply as he propped the back of his head beneath a bent arm. Reaching up with his free hand, he looked on his friend with a fondness that he only showed her while gently brushing back a few stray wisps from the side of her damp face.
Who moved in first was unknown. It may have been the Monk but then it may have been the thief... but in the next moment, their heads were tilting and their lips were locking in a heated kiss. As stunned as they both were by the contact, their eyes drifted closed and their arms linked onto each other desperately with neither of them moving to stop.
Neither very experienced in matters of the flesh, their urgent tearing away of each other's clothes, nips, suckles and teasing touches came naturally. Anna's mind was in a complete whirlwind of need and desire that came to a blissful realization that Wufei was filling her. There was pain... a great deal of it in fact, but she bit back the cry that wanted to escape and urged him on despite his concern until he was joined with her to the hilt.
Moaning, whimpering and crying out in the blissful joining, their bodies rocked and pumped together in a solid rhythm that they found together through changing positions and techniques. Quick learners to what felt right, they listened to the pleasure sounds that urged them as well as the easy instincts that came to them.
Then, with Anna on her back and Wufei supporting himself over her, their eyes closed, their linked bodies arched as they screamed out in climax together. Both completely physically and emotionally spent at the end of their intense love making, they collapsed into a heap of skin and shuddering muscles as they held onto one another again.
"Dear... Creator..." Chang breathed thickly between pants by the thief's ear. "What took us so long to get here?" Laughing heartily, Fraise buried her head in his shoulder as she tightened her arms around his lithe waist.
Content to remain linked like that for a while, the Monk finally pushed himself up to gasp sharply as he blinked in horror at the sight of the tears rolling down his lover's cheeks. "Anna?" he managed in a worried whisper.
Extracting himself, he paled at the sight of the blood on his weakened member and hips that leaked from her. "O-Oh, Anna... I've hurt you," he moaned.
Quick to calm him, the redhead reached up to fold her arms around his neck and force his gaze to take her in. "I am fine," she declared firmly. "The pain is passing and nothing that I cannot handle. And it is not why I am crying now."
Voice hitching, she swallowed past the lump in her throat as more tears came. "I'm just... so damned happy right now," she breathed brokenly in admission. Unable to deny what she had feared to reveal because of how vulnerable it would make her, she whispered, "I love you, Wufei."
And before her worries could grow, they were forever banished at the soft whimper that came from the Monk when he swooped back down to claim another passionate kiss that carried over the reeling feelings that he put into the gesture. Gasping against his mouth, Fraise recovered in an instant to twine their tongues in 'battle' with fervor.
When he pulled back enough to have their swollen lips brush together when he spoke and fought for air, he whispered back, "I adore you, Anna." His dark eyes began to mist over as he continued to hold their locked gazes to vow softly, "You have always had my heart and you will always will, my little Firefly."
Biting her lip, the thief let out another breathy laugh and leaned up for another kiss before they rolled onto their sides and curled up together with the aid of her eternal warmth that kept the chill from them for the night.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The weeks rolled into months once more and before long, it was the day of Anna's physical turning to the age of seventeen.
She smiled brightly at the arrival of her lover at the start of sunset and took in the eternal, red rose that he bore with a loving grin as he held out his first gift to her. Throwing her arms around his neck and claiming a deep kiss, the thief pulled away only when they needed air.
"I am not going to have a place to hang these before long," she giggled as she gladly accepted the rose. Walking deeper into her cave that was now covered from the ceiling to the floor in colorful flowers of every kind that lined the walls, she found an opening that she slipped the newest addition into.
Of all of the lovely buds that would never die on her, none was more precious than the large purple allium that was the first her partner had given her. For that special flower, its round bud of long petals was tied securely to the strap of her quiver so that it would always be with her wherever she went. [1]
Shrugging, Wufei smirked, "Well, I have yet to find a flower that outmatches your beauty, so these will just have to do until then." He laughed at his instant reward of a fierce embrace and was cut off by another sound kiss.
Finally breaking apart some time later, the Monk lightly slapped his lover's rump, urging, "We have a bit of walking ahead of us, so we best get moving."
To the tip of the thief's head, he raised a finger and snickered, "No point in trying to get out of me what I have planned. You know me well enough by now to know I am not one to ruin a surprise. And..." Reaching into the back of his robes, he smiled mischievously in revealing a long, black cloth.
"Oh, this must be good if you're going to this extreme," Fraise grinned. Closing her eyes, she obliged her soul mate by holding still as he blindfolded her.
When the fabric was securely knotted in place, the redhead felt Chang easily scoop her onto his back. Hooking her legs around his waist with his help and her arms around his neck, her smile grew as she comfortably rested her chin in the nook of his shoulder. "Ready?" the Monk asked as he turned his head towards her face.
Nodding firmly, Anna replied, "Ready." At that, she felt Wufei move beneath her.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
What the thief found when the blindfold was removed had her blinking eyes widening with a sharp gasp and her jaw falling open as a hand shot up to cover her gaping mouth. "O-oh, Wufei," she breathed in wonder.
In the forest not far from the grassy hills where they had first consummated their love for each other, there was a patch of grass that was covered with blankets and pillows to take on the appearance of a royal's lavish bed.
Bottles of fine wine and flute glasses filled a large basket beside the 'mattress' that also bore an assortment of fruits, chocolates and other fresh snacks. Sheltering the bed was a canopy of strewn vine flowers bearing every shade under the sun that had no doubt been influenced into their arrangement through the Earth gifted's ability.
And flooding the space was a sea of flickering fireflies to only complete the picture-perfect scene.
Shaking her head in awe, Fraise sighed, "This is just amaz-" She stopped herself short when she turned to find her lover perched onto one knee with a nervous smile on his face as he peered up at her. "Wufei?" she managed through the hitch in her throat as her eyes grew. "W-what are you...?"
Chang swallowed roughly and reached up to take hold of a trembling hand. "Anna," he began softly, a thickness in his voice, "I never have been the best with words when it comes to expressing how I feel. I usually prefer to show that through my actions." His eyes shimmering, he cleared his throat and grinned shyly, "That being said..."
Slowly, he opened the loose fist at his side to hold up the simple, thin band of gold settled within its palm. In the beams of the moon that peered through the treetops, the fine lines that were etched into the metal could be plainly seen to reveal the small, circular stars they were shaped into being. and at every turn, the centers of those stars flashed in the light like the fireflies that danced on the air around them.
Lowering the hand that was covering her mouth at the sob that escaped her, the thief shook with the emotions wracking her. The hand holding hers squeezed it tight as Wufei took a deep breath and whispered, "I told you before that you always had my heart and you always will. So..." Ignoring his own tears that came on, he managed, "Anna Fraise, would you please do me the greatest honor of becoming my bride?"
Unable to stay upright on account of her shaking knees, the redhead lowered herself before him. Nodding her tear-streaked face vehemently, she could only breathe in a promised, "Yes." Their lips meeting in a scorching kiss, their arms clung onto each other and hands roamed in their desperate need to have their bodies as joined as their souls were in that moment.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
There was a chill the following morning in the early hours as the sun was only just beginning its climb into the heavens. However, there were two people that never felt the cold even in their state of complete undress beneath a thin layer of silk blankets.
Their limbs woven together in their sleep, the newly engaged couple beneath the ceiling of flowers and leafy vines was warmed by the fire elemental's natural heat that passed onto her lover's flesh in their closeness.
Off in the distant reaches of the forest that had been their shelter, the resonating howl of a wolf pierced the last stretch of darkness before the skies brightened.
His onyx eyes blinking open, Wufei took a moment to place himself in that initial disorientation of waking. Quickly recognizing the feel and smell of his lover pillowed against him, the Monk smiled to himself as he turned his head to take her peacefully sleeping face in. Gently brushing a hand against the side of her face, his ears picked up another haunting howl from the unseen wolf.
Carefully freeing himself and tucking his fiancée beneath the strewn sheets, Chang pressed a sot kiss against her temple and walked to the edge of their little piece of paradise without dressing his nude form or pulling back his loose, black hair. Stepping beyond the nearly emptied bottle of wine and the few remaining treats in the basket that had carried it, he took residence on a low hill just beyond the haven that he had created.
Mesmerized by the sound of the animal that should have been long to rest by that hour, he propped an elbow against the thick trunk of a tree and stared out into the thick cover of trees in the direction that the cry had come from.
Lost in his wonderings for some time, he never noticed Anna's waking to content herself in watching her naked lover's perfect body from the bed. Shedding the sheets around her, the redhead ran a hand through her mussed curls and sauntered silently over to her betrothed. Wrapping her equally nude form around the Monk's from behind, she smiled at the pleased sigh that rose from deep within her fiancé's chest as he leaned back against her skin.
Pressing a soft kiss against the other elemental's shoulder, Fraise closed her eyes and rested her chin there to soak in his presence. Never before would she have ever dreamed that she would ever marry... let alone be tied to as remarkable a man as Wufei. He was the sun and the moon in her world, all encompassing and irreplaceable. Until they had met, she was merely existing... surviving...
...now she was living.... really living for the first time thanks to him.
"Couldn't sleep any longer, love?" the thief asked softly.
Turning himself so that they were facing each other and wrapping their arms around the lithe waist pressed against their own, the Monk replied, "A wolf woke me. It was such a strange sound for this early in the morning that I wondered what might make it cry out like that."
Anna's lip curled up in a lopsided grin as she shrugged, "Maybe he is singing to his lover before they head off to their bed. Not all howls are not necessarily cries or born out of sadness, you know. I'd like to think of them as hymns of love and happiness, myself."
Smiling warmly at that, Wufei chuckled deeply, "Well, I have to admit that I like the suggestion." He leaned in to press their lips together in a proper morning kiss. When he pulled back and rested their foreheads together, he said softly, "In that case, I would only sing of my devotion to you at every opportunity if I were ever a wolf."
Lightly swatting him in the arm, the redhead noted how her engagement band sparkled in the first morning rays peeking through the leaves overhead and giggled, "No need to try and soften me up. I have already agreed to marry you." Snickering, the raven-haired boy kissed her temple in a silent gesture of gratitude.
Fraise beamed at the peck and moved in for a more passionate kiss with her lips. A few moans and brushing from fingertips later and the pair were engaged in another round of lovemaking that they took back to their bed.
Panting and spent some time later, the thief giggled to the Monk as he planted soft kisses up along her body as he slowly crept up alongside her. When his mouth wrapped around an already sensitive nipple for a quick bite of his teeth, she gasped and groaned in pleasure.
"Careful, you," she warned, her blue eyes drifting closed as she sagged back deeper into the 'mattress' beneath her. "I do not want to be blamed for making you any more sore for your training than you already are. If you go on teasing me like that, I'll see to it that you will not be able to walk straight."
That Cheshire grin on Wufei's face grew as he propped himself up on his side, pressing his full body against his lover's as he informed, "Actually, I have already excused myself from training with my Master. That is another present for you I had worked out..." Lazily running his fingertips up and down his best friend's breasts and lean, muscled abdomen, he smirked, "...so you could have your wicked way with me all day."
Never before had Chang ever excused himself from his daily exercises or meditations. He was as devoted to the ways of his people as he was to the fire starter. Blinking her enlarged eyes at him, Anna propped herself up on her elbows. "I have you for a whole day?" she repeated in disbelief at the concept.
Purring an affirmative when his wandering hand slipped around and below her waist to cup a supple cheek underneath, the Monk gave it a playful pinch to make his response loud and clear without words.
Struggling to hold back her ever insatiable need for him, the thief swallowed roughly and ran a hand through his loose, shoulder-length hair. There had been a thought that was troubling her that she needed to discuss that would not wait any longer. With a deep frown, she questioned, "What of your Master and your brothers in the clan when it comes time for you to announce that you are engaged? Do you think that they will be able to do the same as you have and accept me..." Wincing, she concluded, "...for me?"
Instantly halting his 'assault,' Wufei's roaming hand pulled as though he had been burnt. That reaction only had the thief's heart breaking and her eyes filling with panic as she stiffened.
Panic growing in him at the flash of pain that he read from her, the Monk was swift to reach forward and hold her face in his hands. "That is why you never accepted my invitation to live with me all of this time before..." he realized in a whisper. "Anna, they'll love you. It would be impossible for them not to."
Shaking his head, he smiled sadly, "It is both an endearing and heartbreaking thing to me that you still refuse to see the remarkable person you are. That was the only reason for my initial reaction, because it is beyond me how you could ever feel loathsome for simply wanting to survive. The fact that you managed as long on your own as you did is a testament to how incredibly strong you are. Any Monk would not only recognize that, but they would be humbled by that."
Nearly choking on the lump that had formed in her throat, Fraise's vision was shifting in the tears that flooded as she whimpered, "I only made it because I am a Mage, or a sorceress, or a wizard of some sort just as you are. Whatever we might be, that is the only thing that kept me existing before I met you."
"You are wrong," the young man declared softly but firmly as he rested their foreheads together. Reaching up to gently brush away a stray tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb, he said, "I am just as uncertain to what we are, but I know that what it took for you to prevail takes far more than a few spells and tricks. It takes a will, a fire far greater than the one that you can wield in this world, to do more than survive."
His voice thinning from the tightness in his throat, he breathed, "I intend to tell my people everything about you... about us, because I only have pride and respect for what all of that entails. I. Love. You for everything you were, all that you are and all that you will be, Anna. And there is *nothing* that can happen in this life or the next with the Creator that will change that."
Body wracking with the sob that she was unable to contain, the thief shot up to pull him down against her in a fierce embrace. "I love you so, Wufei," she whispered brokenly against his ear. Their lips coming together once more, they moved as one once more in resuming where they had left off moments ago.
Consumed in their new round of bonding, the elemental gifted were completely unawares that the earlier wolf cry had been a warning before the animal ran off to spare itself. There was a looming presence that had appeared atop the wall of rock that all of the creatures had picked up on. And they were creeping away to put as much of a distance between them and it as they could.
Perched high over Eblan, the city that was a world all its own thanks to its seclusion from all other cities, a little redheaded girl giggled. And when her mouth opened again, she commanded, "Kill them all."
TBC...
[1] Here is an image of an allium, the flower that I have in mind as Wufei's first gift to Anna. It's unique and very cool with its round shape! http://www.floralimages.co.uk/page.php?taxon=allium_schoenoprasum,1
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