Greener Pastures

"Half right. I am fond of my pond. But my sheep are my business. They just get away from me sometimes. I am not their keeper. They just keep showing up on my doorstep."

"Do they really? So, if they're not yours and they're not mine, then who's are they?"

"It doesn't particularly matter. They're funny little guys. They do what they want when they want. Doesn't everybody want to do that?"

Divna shifted again, putting more and more of her body against Conor. Conor kept a gaze towards the flowers. The veil was thin, so thin to not even be there, but it must not be crossed. Respected, interacted, all cordially given the time of day when asked, but at an arm's length. This was not an arm's length. Her skin was cool to the touch, lightest dusting of snow across the plains. She had a heartbeat too, slow and calm and steady. Her hand wandered. He let it wander, but he kept his where they were. Even as the cold fingers interlocked with his and started to pull him up and away.

"I'm not going to hurt you," she whispered, "I just want this. So, I'm going to try and do it. Is that so wrong?"

"Forgive me," said Conor, "Sheep are a bit simpler than what you're proposing."

"You're first then? Oh, I am flattered."

"Well, not quite. When we were kids, Jill and I had some questions we wanted to ask the other."

"That explains a lot. Shame. She's missing out."

"I'm not so sure. She likes arms. Blacksmiths have good arms. I'm not so proud as to ignore that fact."

"And then what are these?"

She took her hands up his arm and felt the corded muscle intertwine over his limbs. Ther touch was light and careful, trailing ice crystals that broke and melted over his skin. Gooseflesh and raised hackles, the chill seeped into his bones and shaped his mind. There was sensation and touch, icicles breaking knives and skin. Conor shivered again. He was eager, the growing discomfort spoke that, and he wanted whatever Divna was promising to his flesh. The cold swirled with a growing heat in her body. She had needs and urges and eagerness. One gap bridged and they were closer.

Conor found some confidence in his soul and tensed the muscles. A pure move for showing off and nothing more. Like he was a teenager again, making sure that everything appreciated was known. Pure bluester, but that was more than enough to get Divna cooing and purring and working his arms in sheer awe. It was a performance on both of their parts, but that was the point. And all good performances came from a single point of authenticity.

The warm hand took some of the confidence and moved to a cold leger. Conor's fingers felt numb with her skin. Her thighs relented to his touch, and Divna's breath hissed through her teeth.

"Finally," she sighed, "I thought you were never going to go through with this."

"In for a penny, in for a pound. I'm already convinced that I'm not walking out of here alive."

"Walking's the key word. Alive, maybe a little less, but definitely changed. Keep touching me. The sheep were right. You have very good hands."

He put a bit more strength to his touch. There was heat in her, just under the surface and shy. He did his best to pull it out. And Divna was doing the same to him, in reverse. The heat had to die down and given way to the exciting cold that made him need more. He took his breath shallow and quick, turning the focus back to the flowers. Bright colors only muted through an endless nigh, the petals swayed in the breeze. The rustle of leaves was her laugh and went back to the body next to him.

The cold fingers traced his back, even through his thin shirt, they nails dug in and froze his spine. He bit his lip. Hard. Pain. There was just enough pain in there to bring him back to the rest of his senses and give him focus.

"Long time then, if this is enough have you lose your composure," Divna purred, 'But that's fine. We have time. I'm much more interested in meeting you where you are. Can you come to me where I am?"

She took her free hand of cold winds and drifting snowflakes and pulled one of his to her. The rest of him had to follow. The distractions from the flowers wouldn't work anymore. She came into his view and took over everything else. Pale, moonlight pale skin, luminescent and ethereal, eyes of darkness and nothing, shifting back in the same silver and starlight, looked to him and smiled. He smiled back with the only question he had.

"Why me?" he asked.

"Are you really so meek?" She laughed, "Because I want you. And if we want to interrogate that, then because you carried a wool laden sheep on your back for the better part of a day, lifted a cart by yourself, and have the general disposition to corral gentle things with a stern but caring hand. I am not so removed from the material to be unimpressed by care and strength. And then, what of you? What do you see in me?"

"Complete and utter mystery. Even now, when all your desires are simply laid out, I don't think I'll know you. I don't think I ever can. But I can't seem to find it in me to stop asking."

"A puzzle wrapped in an enigma stuck in a conundrum. Whatever could I want now?"

He touched her breasts, hands sinking on the soft skin. The eyes never left his, gaze sharp and deadly and terrifying in its enormity. The world beyond him and beyond the lip of the pond was there for him and nothing else. That was it. Something so alien and foreign could not be met with anything other than reverence and love. She gripped and pulled and kneaded her with the stoic work of his life. She hissed and cooed and refused to let him do anything else. She pulled him closer, icy breath tingling his neck and stopping his heart.

Then she decided that she wanted more. She pressed him down to the soft grass and found his lips with hers. He was warm. She was cold. She took in the heat and gave him the chill in return. He shivered and gripped as much of her as she could. All of her tensed, just as he did. He was strong. Every single action had its partner in the next. She pushed her tongue against his. He tasted clear water and an endless night laid aside. She tasted like fresh clover and crystalized moonlight. His hands move away from her breasts and came to her back, trapping her with him in the grass.

HE was strong. She knew that fact since they first met. Without tapping into the veil and the weight she shed, that was all she wanted. Simple pleasure from a warm body, slowly giving over the urges and the flesh. She could feel his run up her thigh and pressing other. It wanted her. She wanted her. It was a just a a dance between then until that final part was open. And the kissing was nice. He was less good at that than his skillful touch, but it was another sense to give over them. She could hear his heartbeat and breath rush through her. She could feel his hands wander and grip. And she could taste the need from his core as he gazed into her.

Divna moved her hips, ridding his leg and his hand trying to coax everything she wanted from him. He was getting bolder. Hi hands crept closer and closer unit his palm hit her ass and gave a painful squeeze. She stiffened and froze. A sharp gasp escaped her lips. So novel, all this incredibly physical sense that seemed so fresh. The breeze tripping over her skin was not a set of strong hands pulling her to earth.

Conor felt the hands of wind and snow start peeling away his shirt. The threads became undone with her will. Every second he became colder. His mind sharpened. More of him poured in the art of simply touching and feeling and consuming her aura in order to quench his need. He was getting hard, incredibly, painfully hard. The solution was there, right here and he just had to break his own mindset and take it. And he did. She gripped and marked and lifted every part of the body on him and made it gasp and writhe. Divna hummed into him adding more beautiful songs to the quiet glade.

She broke away first, panting and flushed, stitches of very human red breaking through the snow-white pale like bleeding roses. Lips parted, just a bit, eyes wide and unfocused and lost to the need of her body. A man under her, hard and eager, wide shoulders and strong arms, a tasseled mess of dark hair splayed out in a tangled nest. A simple thing, at the end of it all, but a simple thing that sang to her with its existence.

Conor stared up and felt the need consume him in the endless beyond the halo of flowing hair. Divna was aroused, just like he was. She was impatient, just like he was. Her hands were doing everything in their power to get him naked and have that body he inhabited all for herself, just as his were. They fumbled with his trousers. She tore at his shirt. Holes and rips and tears, still not nearly enough for him to slip through, but more and more of his chest met the night hair. Her soft body pressed into his skin, sending shivers and twists in his core. He wanted more. That body was all his now, heavenly and perfect.

Neither could pin the exact moment when he was free, his length hitting her thighs and pulling another feral growl from both of them. Neither could tell the exact moment where they parted again, one last thin line connecting their lips before freezing and snapping. Conor could fall into the next moment, when all of her material weight straddled his hips and settled on him with endless weight. Her breast jostles and swayed ahs her breath grew shorter and labored. Everything turned to the arousal between their legs. Simple pleasure, simple acts, everything else could fall way to the simple act they could have in the moment just after the next. Divna rose letting the weight fade away into the night.

She sank into him and, slowly. The cold seemed into his core even more, down to the other. She sighed and smile. Corner just gritted his teeth and stole his nerves. There was already so much to her and he was so close. Endless nights alone did work to make the sensations new again. She was cold and tight and that invigorated him more than any known warmth. She sank slowly on his length, the sensations just as novel and unknown to her. Physical things with physical bodies, she was mostly a reflection of f a reflection of a reflection. But in the glade, in the flowers, in the endless see of green leaves and rolling plains she was on a man, slowly sinking as best she could, hoping that her knees wouldn't give out as he spread her open with no effort.

A cold hand went to his chest and felt his heartbeat fight against the panic of her body. She smiled and worked her lips. He felt good when he squirmed. The shape inside her changed and hit a new pattern of nerves. Each one woke a different part of her body. It tingled in her fingers. There were thrums in her neck, reverberating up and down her spine. She shook and all of her responded in kind. It didn't know how to respond to all the ways he made her feel. And then his hands found her hips and went beyond all the dancing patterns.

She was full of warmth, a slight bulge on her stomach that marked how far Conor had gone, just beyond her navel. The hand went back and felt him there, giving him a long squeeze and press and that finally set him off.

The first pulse was long and hard and eviscerating. Conor could not think. He did not want to think. His heels dug into the soft earth, turning the grass roots into deep trenches. All that grip went to Divna's hips. That grip then went back to him as her core collapsed over him. He could not breathe. He did not want to breathe. There was weight and pressure and endless cold rampaging through his body.

Divna' was laughing. That was the first thing he notice. It was the wind through the leaves at first. Then it was the gentle roll of water in the brook. Then it was her, all her. The jumps in her chest rocked down into him as his release flowed back out and gave his lap some of his own warmth.

"I'm so sorry," Divna murmured, "I should have been gentler."

"No, no," Conor sighed, "That was exactly what I need. My stars, I can't see."

"We can't have that now, can we? I like it when you stare at me. Can you feel things? Can you feel this?"

Divna rolled her hips in lazy circles. He could feel that. And there was still need him, staving off the fatigue with a nonchalant wave of the hand. Divna was still laughing, giggling and dazed and lost to her own paly. She liked the circles. She liked the rounded nerves playing and pushing and tickling her. Shro se a bit more and widened the shapes. And they danced again and again, rising and falling. Conor regained his composure and fell into the rhythm. Numb to just the right degree, he was no longer down to the quick and marrow. There was just the pressure, just the right amount of everything on him. The night was dark and enveloping and so beautifully cold.

Divna liked riding him. Her limbs protested everything she did. The joints weren't supposed to bend that way. They were supposed to be ethereal and nothing. Now the muscles burned and singed and sang with the work. She seated. The word matted her hair, dripping with starlight dew. She was cold. She loved being cold. She loved being full. She loved the way his still spilling warmth sloshed in her core. Just as new, just as alien as everything Conor felt, her knees couldn't keep up with. She failed and fell and collapsed into him. His skin was soft. His embrace was warm. Everything on him was soft and warm and welcoming.

And Conor was laughing. Deep rolling thunder and she simply wilted. All of her was his and all of him was hers. There was a heart and spine and head full of feral sensation. Conor took her and rolled, grinding the petals into their skin. Colored marks for frozen glass, smeared purple and green and blue and red, streaking on a sky of physicality, she drew on him with a sharp nail, looping swirls that were just as hypnotic as his smile.

"Am I so scary now," she said. There was a nascent rasp to her voice. Jagged knife edges to the words that grated in such a sweet way. He only answered with a gentle kiss on her nose, still inside of her, still hard.

She took her legs wide and Conor started thrusting. He was strong. She knew he was strong. And all of that was hers now. No more shapes, no more dancing, just a simple easy motion that grew in ferocity every other beat. Her legs wrapped around his waist and refused to give him freedom. He didn't want such a terrible thing. He wanted the cold embrace of night to consume his heat and take everything he had. The messy twist of hair on his head plastered to his forehead with work and sweat and silvery dew. He worked and it was bliss. His joints knew the motions, more or less. Not quite in the same set, same pace, same pattern, but they knew what to do.

Divna felt something break in her, scattering shards of light in her newly forged nerves. She was warm. She was sold. She was trembling under Conor's weight. Her nails dug into his back again, leaving bright red trails. There were teeth in their kissing, finding soft things to pull and rend. Hers and his, and everything between them. Nothing broke. Nothing bent. They fought and embraced as Divna collapsed in the point where everything was white and hot and simply void. Every part of her shaking and shattering and doing everything in her power to make it last as long as possible.

Everything in Conor was numb and more from him broke. So soon, so scared, nerves frayed and broken, he gave into everything where his muscles clenched and pulsed. They're rhythm staggered together, fitting together like cog wheels. She shook and he pulsed. He filled and she scoured. Pain and pleasure, so intense that everything was the same. A single sensation blanketing them both. The world smelled like flowers and felt like cool water.

The teeth went away and they were just kissing and embracing. Tears at the edges from the intensity, shuddering breath bringing them both back out of the feelings. Thinking and touching and encapsulating the essence back to the crystal prison. Divna was warm, heartbeat slowing and calming just as Conor fell into her. She was pinned. Wonderfully pinned.

"You're warm," she murmured as her palms soothed the marks she left behind.

"I'm also spent," he sighed, "Can you carry me?"

"Of all my power, I think that is beyond me. Do you want me to get the sheep? They could probably do something to help."

"No, no. I don't want them to see me like this. I'd never regain their respect."

"Oh fine. I guess we'll just have to stay here a while."

"Don't make it sound like such a chore. There's no place I'd rather be."

---

"I never thought you'd actually take a wife,' Dammon said, shaking his head, "You were always so content with your sheep."

"You can borrow them if you want," Divna said through the open window, "Jill has been saying you need practice."

A short knife of a laugh echoed behind the voice and Conor tried to suppress the smile. It came out as a gentle acknowledgement of a pleasant day. The freshly nude silver sheep by his side looked at the rising vein on Dammon's forehead with mirth.

"To give her due credit," Conor shrugged, "I didn't take her. We just had a similar interest. And it just grew from there."

It was another beautiful day. There were a lot of those stacked over the summer, and there seemed to be another set of those ready to fall before autumn came. The sheep grew well, taking the silver migrants into their ranks with only a sensible amount of caution. Conor eyed the black one approaching Dammon's cart. The silver ones were a bad influence. That was something to work out in the future. Divna did not seem to be as interested in that problem. She wanted black silver and cloud silver to start selling. Jill seemed interested in that too. Both Dammon and Conor had to admit the sweaters and scarves and gloves coming out as the end product were something to hoard with the predictions for winter. Divna was interested in what the next generation would be. Black and silver intertwined would look marvelous roaming across the rolling over the emerald hills.

Dammon and Conor let the words slip away. The wool needed loading. Jill and Divna were discussing possible designs and patterns for the next batch of clothes. The sheep themselves simply drifted in their pen, napping when they were tired, drinking when they were thirsty, eating when they were hungry. Simple things, really. Conor liked the simple things.