The Grass Is Always Greener (Honor)

She rolled over, the soft sheets feeling smooth and comforting against her bare legs. She slid an arm towards the opposite side of the bed. Her smile slightly fell and her eyes opened to reveal an empty spot. She sighed and stopped her groping, sitting up and glancing at the curtains. The sun glared through the window. She grimaced, feeling embarrassed. I’ve overslept! But I never sleep this late! How could I possibly sleep so long? And so deep! I usually wake up with the smallest of noises! After making the bed extremely tediously and taking every precaution for cleanliness, including fluffing the pillows and making sure the sheets were draped over the sides of the bed in a straight line, she headed for the shower.

She slipped out of her white silky nightgown, letting it pool in a small pile behind her on the floor. She bent over the bath and turned the knobs for the water, the rush of it coming from the showerhead making her smile. She waited for the light puffs of steam from the warmth to rise. Stepping inside and at first keeping her distance, she slowly eased under the water, moaning in pleasure as her muscles relaxed. While she shampooed her blonde curls, she thought. I wonder why he left this time. At least I can be nice and clean for whenever he decides to return. Maybe I can whip up some lunch before he gets back in case he’s hungry. She scrubbed a bit harder. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy in a long time… maybe it’s because he isn’t around so often…

She rinsed, gargled and spit and proceeded to use the sponge, making suds. I wish I knew for sure, though… should I really be wondering about my happiness at all? At least I’m feeling helpful. Instead of sitting around doing nothing all day. She let the water run off her body, the soap leaving a sweet, but not over-powering smell of faint roses on her skin. She regrettably turned off the water after letting it run for a few moments more, stepping out and covering herself with a pink, fluffy bathrobe, tying it tightly, but deciding against putting on anything underneath. It felt too comfortable to ruin the softness against her skin by putting clothes on beneath it. She exited the bathroom, bare feet leaving a few watery imprints behind them as she made her way to the kitchen, her wet hair hanging down to her lower back.

I had forgotten I was working on that… she thought while gazing towards the half-finished painting positioned in front of the window seat. Just beyond the window grew a tree, one which now in the spring season contained a bird nest and soon-babies. It was a perfect scene for Selene to practice her new hobby. She approached the stool, slipped on top of it, and dragged the paint supplies closer to her, all thoughts of cooking lunch temporarily forgotten. If she glanced up and to the left, she could just make out the blue of the robin’s eggs. She took a moment to mix the paints well enough to get a pastel blue color, again mixing that in white to bring out a brighter color.

Now don’t you move… She giggled softly at the absurdity. I wonder what he would think of my painting… he might not say anything. I wonder if painting would really matter, though. Isn’t it… a common hobby for humans? I’m sure he’d say it was lovely. And of course he would probably say it with a smile on his face. I doubt he would ever frown at anything I chose to do. I think he’s incapable of frowning. She sat up straighter, carefully stroking the paper with her brush, considering her hobbies, her house and her life in general. “Ah… perfect.” But it wasn’t.

The smile faded from her face when she ruffled her eyebrows. What was wrong? Ah, that’s why. There was a speck there which needed to be covered. Or maybe the color was off in some obscure way. Did the schemes of the two different colors really work well together? Maybe if she added something else in place of the green it would blend in a more harmonic look. She bit her bottom lip and leaned back to study them.

Tall grasses swished dryly against the long legs of the man striding through them, whispering dry little missives into the breeze. As he lifted his head to survey the sky and its vibrant blue morning hue, his smile crept from his eyes to touch his mouth and he took a deep breath of the cool, crisp air around him. He had been happy before, but never in significant amounts and never like this. It was easy enough to count the times he had been genuinely joyful on the fingers of one hand, not counting the days he visited this place. It was her. It was the life she lived and the love she gave with absolute pleasure and acceptance.

When have I ever felt this way? he wondered, not for the first or the last time since he had begun visiting this place. The peace of it was astounding. He tipped his head back down from the sunshine and blue sky and opened his eyes a little wider under the lessened glare. Landscapes had always done it for him, but this one in particular he had come to associate with good things. His smile twitched in pleasure as the small house, cottage, or whatever it was loomed into his lin of sight from around the angle of the copse to which he was meandering somewhat parallel. Rather than lengthen his stride and get there closer, he slowed his pace by the barest of bare fractions and soaked up some more of the sunshine while he wondered at the time.

The sounds of morning twittered at him, or he would have walked in based only on the heat that should have belonged only to afternoon. She might not even be awake, he thought, though he tended to doubt it. The excursion he had been planning and was now enacting, actually just the early-morning preparatory labors for it, must have taken several hours at the least. Didn't it?

He stepped up onto the first step of her porch and pushed a stray hair back up into his bangs as soon as the wind tussled it down. The alert gaze swept across the porch. She had not been out her front door, anyway. Everything was exactly as it had been when he had left. She had such a weird compulsion for cleaning that the displaced seat mats and the piled blankets would have driven her to tidiness. They were still scattered in a disorganized shamble. He smirked at the mess and rubbed amusedly at his mouth and chin to conceal a grin no one would have seen anyway. It was a habit of his.

Still unlocked, the front door eased open as quick and quiet as a breath and he stepped inside with less than a breath of sound. His bare feet brushed against the floor almost soundlessly as his balanced slow-walk took him across the living room to the door of the bedroom. Both had been doused in darkness when he left, but now the radiance of morning gold washed every surface in both rooms. Empty bed, he noted, his lips pulling into a clever grin when he heard the shower running. It was time to play a little game.

Some time passed. He moved around the house quickly without rush and quietly without stealth, his steps making noise now that was more than drowned out by the coursing water. He stashed the last of his little game pieces and had set the porch to rights before he heard the water turn off and heard her steps coming through the bedroom. He eased out of sight to watch her, knowing well enough that she was fairly absent-minded this early in the morning, and was pleased to see her emerge without having gotten dressed. The surprise would have been spoiled, that way.

"Ah ... perfect." He followed the sound of her voice back into the living room and looked approvingly at the piece of art sitting in front of her window. He looked more approvingly at her, sitting there rimmed in light.

"Good morning," he said softly, "I've got a surprise for you."

Despite the softness in his voice, her muscles tensed and she jumped a little. Fumbling to try and pass it off without appearing too foolish, she turned to look at him and set the brush down for the moment. "You scared me..." She had meant to scold him, but it came out more as a sigh of relief than anything harsh. She almost found it difficult to be angry with him, although he had never really given her reason in the first place. In fact, she had never really been anything but happy around him. "I was wondering where you had gotten to..."

She half-chuckled as she nodded, her hands fumbling a little with the tie for her pink robe. "Good afternoon, you mean... I'm sorry I slept so late. I usually don't. I suppose I've just been tired lately." She wasn't sure if it was true, but she would say anything to not appear lazy. The second part of his greeting struck her and she smiled. "Did you say you have a surprise for me?" She was almost too shocked to say anything at first. "Thank you. I appreciate the thought." She wasn't sure what to expect, after all, from what she knew, he had no job, no way to afford any gift, but then not everything had to be a physical present. Even Zorlo hardly gave her those, and when he did, they were never anything overly flashy. "What is it?" she couldn't help but sound a bit excited. She loved surprises.

She was so pretty. He smiled wanly at her and scratched an imaginary itch on his nose to hide it from her, stepping up to her to pretend to peak more closely at the painting she was painstakingly perfecting. The colors smoothed well into one another, forming contours and corners in some of the cleverest places, but he was paying more attention to the painter herself, keeping his eyes on her. After a moment he leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her clean-smelling forehead, then stood back up and traced the fingers of one hand down her arm. He tugged lightly at the sleeve of her fluffy pink robe once his fingertips reached the cuff and pulled out a blue scarf.

"We're going to play a game first," he told her, typing the scarf lightly around her eyes, "then you get your surprise."

A few waves of his hand in front of her eyes, just to make sure her eyesight was cut off by the loose fabric, brought a wider smile to his face. He took a few silent steps away from her, turned and headed into the kitchen.

"Game rules are simple," he called back to her, "You can't leave the house. I've hidden the clothes you get to wear in places around the house, and you get to search for them blindfolded. When you're done finding the clothes and getting dressed, if you get done before I get done making our lunch, I tell you your surprise. Otherwise you keep the blindfold on until we get to the surprise. Game starts—" he stepped into the kitchen and set a cutting board onto the counter "—now."

She began to protest almost immediately, hands readying to peel the scarf off her eyes.

"Ah, ah, ah! Cheaters don't get a surprise at all!"

"But-" she began, lips showing her dislike of the situation in a pouty frown.

"Nobody likes a spoilsport!" he called back, judging by her hearing, he could see her clearly though she could see only darkness.

After a moment of debating, she felt her way to the couch, stumbling once. "What if I cut myself or something?"

"On what? The cushions?"

She had to admit- he had a point there. And he was watching. Despite how muuch she didn't like the idea of the game, she could use some fun. Oh, alright. She'd do it, but she wouldn't let him know if she enjoyed it. As time went on and the sounds of the blender and the cutting in the kitchen faded into the back of her mind, she felt triumphant when she discovered the first piece of clothing. But what was it? A... pair of shorts, maybe? Very short. Yes, the material felt like jeans, but these were the jeans she had spilled the paint on a few weeks ago. She could feel the scratchiness of the stains.

She put them under one arm and kept searching, discovering a halter top with spagetti straps and wondering briefly if it would match before she continued her search.

He watched her for a while, just to be certain she kept her hands free of anything dangerous and her head away from anything sharp or jagged. Not to watch her interesting curves shuffle around in that cute pink bathrobe, no—that would be lecherous. She did have interesting curves. Not that he was staring with an appreciative half-leering smile, but there they were. He stopped looking when she got the first article of clothing and ducked back into the kitchen, where he had already set up the preliminary stuff for a nice picnic lunch. The cutting board was accompanied by a knife and basket, which she of course had at hand in the far corner of the kitchen, and his choice of assorted foods.

Most of it was unhealthy and had been snuck in over time, lest she be made wary to his sadistic goal of feeding her unhealthiness.

"How're you doing out there?" he called, barely raising his voice to be heard. He heard her bump something and mutter a word she probably considered a curse. When he chortled to himself, he did it at a volume perfectly audible to her.

"Shush!"

"Yes, master."

"Shush!" she repeated, this time with laughter in her voice as she bumped into something else. He smiled and kept it to himself.

She was going to be way behind. He had picked this particular assortment of food mostly because it could be eaten without the necessity for actually doing anything to it. A good portion was pre-packaged food she had probably never tasted or heard of, since it was stuff he had never heard of, which made it perfect. If he told her it was healthy, she would probably believe him. He stuffed it into the basket and grinned. I just have to keep a straight face when I do it.

"I win!" he announced, about a minute and a half later.

"I win!"

She sighed and sat cross-legged on the floor, the three items she had discovered carefully folded in her lap. A top, shorts, and from what she gathered, a bottom from one of her swimsuits. What on earth did he want her to wear this for? Were they going to find a pool somewhere? Surely not the beach. She could remember going to the beach with Zorlo, in fact, that's the only place she wore it. That had been great fun, before he got that job at the Dome. Now he just... seemed to not have time for her anymore.

She thought about her feelings on the subject as she took the three things she had found and made her way into the bedroom, bumping into the doorframe briefly. She hadn't realized she had forgotten to lock the door as she removed the bathrobe and slipped the clothing over herself, also quickly bending the rules of the game by picking out a top for the bikini bottoms, though she kept the blindfold on while doing so and as a result had no clue what they looked like in comparison to the bottoms. Zorlo was still at the Dome now... like he always was, only stopping here for a few hours, a day or two at most every month or so.

Not that she particularly minded. She wouldn't mind a few outings every now and then, though... But she still remembered mentioning it to Zorlo and his reaction. He smiled that cool, somewhat frustrating smile he always smiled. It said everything to her before he actually spoke.

"I have responsibilities now," he had said. "And I can't just give them up, can I?"

That did make sense in a strange, bittersweet way. He couldn't simply give up what he had agreed to do, but... it was almost as if he lived there. He even had his own room. And what did he mean by "responsibilities now"? Did he not consider her a responsibility? Was she not important enough? This reply had been making Selene wonder for months what to do about the situation. That is, until she met him. At first, it had seemed nothing, a passing fling. Then, her fondness grew. She had someone to spend time with now, someone to show her art, to spend time with, to laugh with... she had missed laughing.

"Okay, so you win," she half-grumbled with a slight smile on her face when she returned out, blindfold still over her eyes and clothing on, no shoes on her feet. "Now will you please tell me what's going on?" She was helpless.

"Nope," he announced cheerfully, sauntering out into the main room to take a look at her. Half of him hoped she had missed certain parts of the wardrobe, but she was mostly dressed. The sound of vague outrage just made him smile.

"Why won't you tell me?" she asked, not quite pouting since she still managed to look and sound happy about it.

"It's more fun this way."

And it was. Part of the charm of being with her over the past several days and weeks had been just her. A woman who could do things at random, who just wanted to be and live and have fun, made him ache for what the fencer have even as he resented him for having it. It was one thing to be given the world on a silver platter and a gorgeous woman with nothing but love, but it was another and much more despicable thing to shun the woman in favor of the world. Kichaa hoped he never got to the place where he would say it to her face, but he had the sinking feeling that he could have done better by her than the man she chose.

One look at her told him just how far ahead he had gotten though. He grinned, set the picnic basket down in the doorway of the kitchen. He darted back to the hall closet and retrieved a pair of worn sandals he had found lying on the porch and returned to her with the pair in hand, kneeling at her feet and letting one hand rest behind her calf. He chose to ignore the slight jolt of electric reaction he felt when he touched her bare skin, and pushed the thoughts that swam up back down into a state of submissive silence. She's engaged, he reminded himself, To a scary bastard. He could touch only as long as he had his hands, so he resolved to be very careful what he touched.

There was a lot he wanted to touch.

"Lift your foot," he said, barely keeping the laughter out of his voice, after a few seconds of just standing there with the soft skin of her leg beneath his fingers.

She sounded a bit subdued when she exclaimed, "Oh!" but she lifted her foot anyway and he took an extra moment to run his finger gently down the ticklish underside. She jerked on one foot but stayed up—super balanced grace apparently did not apply to blindfolded hunts, but worked just fine standing still. He laughed and slipped the sandal onto her foot, then repeated the procedure a bit more swiftly with her right foot. Now she was wearing sandals, even though he had very little or no intention of letting her need them for anything, and looking pretty good considering he had been the one picking out her clothing for the day.

He retrieved the picnic basket, balanced it in one palm, and hefted her up into a cradle carry in front of him without breaking stride towards the door.

"We've got a ways to walk," he said, "You comfy?"

She was in the dark for most of their interaction, something which she found surprisingly irritating. Not just for the fact of being blind. That would irritate anyone. No, she found it irritating she couldn't see him . He made her feel safe, comforted, and happy. She swallowed a surprised squeak when she felt his hand on her skin. Was... he touching her purposely? She felt hot, especially around her cheeks.

"Lift your foot."

"Oh!" She felt hotter. His finger gently ran down her ticklish spot. She couldn't help the jerk and laughter that bubbled from her lips. She heard him rustle something and she was suddenly swept off her feet- an action quite surprising normally, but increased tenfold by the blindness. This time the startled squeak escaped. She remembered this position and only being held in it once before, not by Zorlo.

She found it astounding how easily her head sank against the contour of his arms and chest, as if she had always meant to be here. She allowed herself to lean closer, closing her eyes, though it made little difference. "You comfy?"

Faintly, she nodded, her cheeks still warm, but no longer burning. "Very..." She would regret it when they came to a stop.

She was a nice little package to hold, though he admitted it to himself with a twinge of regret and a flash of wishful thinking. A sad smile curved his lips up for a moment before he shifted the basket and started for the door. Wishful thinking made him think of him and her being together legitimately, without her fiancé always lingering somewhere in the background and preventing him from claiming her. There were a few things that forced that fencer into his bad graces, but Selene was definitely one of them.

That sad smile disappeared along with the happiness of the thought, but the moment was neither ruined nor stolen by the grim knowledge that, at the end of the day, she would still belong with and to someone else. He had resolved himself to that long enough that he was steeled against the negative emotions that went with it. After all, neither of them had been dishonest about what was going on—he liked her, maybe even loved her, and she was engaged and promised to someone else. He was not going to curb his attraction or infatuation or whatever it was, just as she was not going to break off the engagement.

He kicked the door closed with his bare foot, hopping a bit off-balance on one leg, and took a deep breath of clear morning air. The sadness of the thoughts faded away and he let himself smile again. She was worth it. She was the pain that he knew he would have when she finally tied the knot and more.

The trip through the grass seemed a lot shorter this time than it had on the way to the cottage, the two of them talking and laughing about inane little things. It would have been generous to call it conversation. Most of it was him tripping and her laughing, her asking something that required a few syllables to answer, or just a comfortable silence. The grass made way for the shady grove of trees covering the hill closest to the cottage, and the grove split itself down the middle with a little creek. As soon as the creek came into view, Kichaa came to a halt and set Selene down.

"Here's your surprise," he told her, leaning down to kiss her cheek softly as he loosed the blindfold. When she stopped blinking at the change in light he pointed to the creek and what he had left there.

She blinked once, staring at the small vessel floating on the calm river surface, tied strongly to a boulder near the shore. "Oh..." she breathed, taking a step forward. She had asked Zorlo about canoing once... but he had refused, calling it something along the lines of "a waste of time", though much more positive. Remembering it was like eating a bite of bitter cake smothered in icing too sweet for it. "It's wonderful!"

She rushed over to it, bending down to examine it better, having never seen one up close. "This is my surprise? It's lovely!" She couldn't hold in her excitement, a bright, grateful smile on her lips. "Oh, can we take a ride on the river? Oh, please! Can we?" It hadn't dawned on her this idea was probably his plan all along.

True, the river seemed calm at first glance, but it looked a bit quicker down the creek, when it grew deeper, enough to swim. "Oh, but are we eating first, then?" She turned back to look at him, eyes shining. "Or bringing the food along? It's so exciting. I just am so happy."

"The food tags along."

A phantom pain curled around his chest for just a moment and he smiled as he rubbed absently at the place it came to rest. It was all as he had wanted it to be, it had worked, and she was smiling with genuine pleasure at something he had planned and implemented on his own initiative. There were few enough things that he had done that caused pleasure that he could count them with the fingers of one hand. This was the first time he could remember that the pleasure he caused was pure and untainted by greed or satisfied malice. He took a deep breath and looked away from her smile for just a moment while he pushed that thought back down. He was with her, and that was what mattered right then.

"Shall we?" he asked, extending his hand to her in a gentle offer, "Your ship awaits, my lady."

The tone and mock sincerity of it, the gesture, the entire scene took him to vague memories of a father whose hopeless romanticism had been realized. Kichaa let his smile lose the subtle hurt and gain a nostalgic amusement as he remembered how much of a queen his father had made his mother. It's all I can give her, he thought. Her fiancé could give her so much more.

He had given her so much with such a simple gesture. She laughed at her awkward teetering when she stepped into the canoe. "I think I got it!" she exclaimed joyfully when she finally settled down near the front, the water sloshing against the wood giving her a pleasant feeling of comfort and enjoyment. "Alright, I'm ready, let's cast off!"

She felt him get inside the canoe and for a moment squeaked in shock when the canoe moved a bit lower in the water with Kichaa's added weight, although still quite buoyant. "We can let the water carry us. We don't have to paddle," Kichaa said when Selene fiddled a bit with one of the paddles lying beside her on the canoe's floor.

"Are you sure? It gets a little rough a ways down..." Selene put a finger to her cheek in thought. She had no clue how prepared Kichaa was. She knew this river well since it ran relatively close to her home and knew that it also got quite deeper further on in travel, as well as providing access to a few crevices with pockets of air.

"You're quite sure?" she repeated, her nervous nature getting the better of her for a moment. With his curt nod and the hint of a smile, she felt more at ease. She shifted to make herself comfortable, and grinned, telling him she was ready. "Alright. I trust you, Kichaa." They were off.