Love The One You’re With

February 24, 2009 at 10:24 pm (Aruna, Challenge, Enchantments, Gelaming, Immanion, Oshun, Pell, Short, Vaysh)

Challenge SubmissionLove The One You’re With
by Oshun

Story Notes

Takes place immediately after The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit. Written from the POV of Pell. I want to thank Elfscribe for Beta reading.

Any remaining or added errors are my own.

Author’s Email: heartofoshun@aol.com

Web page: http://heartofoshun.livejournal.com

Pairings: Pell/Vaysh

Overall Rating: R

Word Count: 1,553

Spoilers: The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit

Disclaimer: The characters, plot and setting all belong to Storm Constantine.

Love The One You’re With

That evening I watched Vaysh in his dressing-room mirror as he stood behind me, fiddling with my hair. It seemed to be taking him forever. I shifted in the chair, crossed and uncrossed my ankles, and rolled my shoulders, which had started to ache.

“Stop preening, Pellaz,” Vaysh said, yanking on a tiny braid. “No doubt, the Hegemony would be interested to know that their shiny new Tigron can’t even sit still long enough to have his hair combed.”

He pressed his lips together in an unguarded expression of concentration. Vaysh is awe-inspiring with his porcelain skin, grace of movement, and that bright hair, a garish unnatural red, yet somehow right on him. I thought of how I would still love to see him with his original hair color. He would not like that, because surely it would soften him, smudge the edges, and expose some of the vulnerability that he fights so hard to suppress.

I have never questioned why I find Vaysh so compelling. Everyhar will tell you that he is one of the most exquisite hara they have ever seen. And they are looking at him through his mask. Lately, more often than not, he drops that mask for me. Without it he is breathtaking: fire-wrought steel, power, and his own unique bittersweet wistfulness.

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Changes

October 18, 2008 at 8:46 pm (Aruna, Bewitchments, Cal, Enchantments, Fulfilments, Gelaming, Immanion, Oshun, Pell, Rue, Short, Vaysh)

Changes
by Oshun

Story Notes: My friend Keiliss requested I write her a fic with Cal/Pell. This story was inspired by the following line from Fulfillments: “I’m not the same person, Cal. You do realize that, don’t you?”

Author’s Email: heartofoshun@aol.com

Web page: http://heartofoshun.livejournal.com/

Pairing:  Cal/Pell; other characters: Caeru, Vaysh
Rating: R

Word count: 1,530

Disclaimer: Characters, plot and setting all belong to Storm Constantine.
Spoilers:  Fulfillments of Fate and Desire

Changes

Under the gaze of an omniscient smirking moon, they stood at the top of steps leading down from the portico of the Hegalion. After the meeting where Cal first met the Hegemony, Cal, Rue and Pell had left the council chamber together. Pell felt the entire universe held its breath and observed. This was momentous.

Cal exhaled heavily and looked from Pell to Rue. “That was strange, wasn’t it? Do you think it went all right?” The unasked question: ‘Did I do well?’

“Better than all right,” Pell answered, moving to press his thigh and hip against Cal. He needed to touch him, assure himself that Cal was real.

“Oh, you’re good,” Rue admitted grudgingly.

In the space of less than three hours, Cal had managed to surprise, annoy, anger, frustrate, and delight Pell. It had been the shortest and certainly the least formal of any meeting of the Hegemony Pell had ever attended. Cal not only won the hearts of the spectators at his first meeting, but there was no doubt he had impressed the members of the Hegemony. Perhaps he had even softened part of the formidable resistance among them.

That fit entirely with Pell’s memory of the Cal he had once known. Brash, overwhelming, unpredictable. And yet, he did not know this new Cal. The old balance between them apparently had been completely turned on its head. Pell was no longer innocent or fresh and the guilt and darkness had been scoured out of Cal. Pell recalled he had worried how Cal might react to how he had changed if they ever met again. Thiede had hardened, tempered, and refined Pell, burned away the sweetness Cal had once loved. But Cal had somehow spectacularly wrought his own reforging, if not entirely without help. Pell wondered if he could be wrong: that the more things had changed, the more they had stayed the same.

Cal distracted Pell from his ruminations by squeezing his hand forcefully. Casual but alert, Cal nodded in the direction of Rue, who fidgeted and looked furtively after Velaxis who descended the steps near them, clearly anxious to leave. Temporarily appeased, yet still chilly with Pell and wary of Cal, Rue mumbled a hasty good-bye, and accepted a short embrace from each of them before turning quickly away.

Cal reached out and grabbed Rue’s arm, pulling him back, his voice simultaneously careless and caressing. “It won’t be so bad.”

“Hmm. Well, I don’t know . . .” Rue answered, shivering and shaking his head at Cal’s lazy conspiratorial smile. “We’ll see.”

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Gossip Between Friends

July 10, 2008 at 10:07 am (Aruna, Bewitchments, Enchantments, Gelaming, Immanion, Oshun, Romance, Thiede, Velaxis)

Editor's Pick

Gossip Between Friends
by Oshun

Story Notes

The only thing that might be more engaging than an evening of gossip between friends, might be gossip plus aruna. Contains an explicit description of aruna between Velaxis and Thiede. Thank you, Elfscribe, for the Beta. Any remaining errors or failings are my own. (Inspired by the recently closed Seel, Swift and Thiede challenge. Stands alone, but is set in the same time period and references events of my recent stories “Fated Obsession” and “What is This Thing Called Love.”)

Author’s Email: heartofoshun@aol.com

Web page: http://heartofoshun.livejournal.com/

Pairings: Velaxis/Thiede (Gossip includes references to Swift/Seel, Vaysh/Pellaz, Pellaz/Caeru, Velaxis/Ashmael; hope I haven’t forgotten anyone.)
Overall Rating: NC-17

Word Count: 3,404

Spoilers: The Bewitchments of Love and Hate, The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure

Disclaimer: The characters, plot, and setting all belong to Storm Constantine.

Gossip Between Friends

Another beautiful night had descended upon Immanion. I left my Sedu at the stable and quickly made my way to Phaonica. As I walked, I realized that during the past several months spent in Imbrilium, I had grown to miss Immanion. None of the more obvious reasons that might immediately come to mind contributed to my longing. I had no particular attachment to the spectacular architecture, the luxury, the services, or the other amenities. Imbrilium provided for all of my needs and then some. The work I did in Imbrilium also might be considered more challenging than what I had been doing in Immanion. Since I had developed a more personal relationship with Ashmael, the General asked me more and more frequently to attend important meetings in Imbrilium, and increasingly sought my opinion on a whole variety of questions. I should have been happy with that development.

Strains of music wafted toward me from somewhere on the palace grounds. I recalled hearing that Rue was hosting a diplomatic party of some sort. I also had missed Rue in Imbrilium. For all of his frivolity and preoccupation with matters of less than world-shaking importance, Rue had a way of cutting through Gelaming pretensions that I always found refreshing. I hoped I would be able to visit with him at least briefly in the morning before I had to leave again.

After following the familiar maze of hallways and staircases through the palace that led to Thiede’s apartment, I rapped gently on the door. Since I had overheard Arahal mention that if anyone needed to reach Thiede he would be in Immanion that evening, I hoped I would find him in his rooms. The chances he would be there alone were excellent. Thiede was not likely to insert his awe-inspiring presence into a social event organized by Rue for the purpose of giving Pellaz an opportunity to develop his own unique relationship with visitors from an outlying tribe.

Thiede called out, “Come in.” I sensed him scrambling to telepathically identify me. There were few things much more satisfying to me than surprising Thiede.

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What Is This Thing Called Love

June 18, 2008 at 12:11 am (Aruna, Bewitchments, Cal, Challenge, Enchantments, Gelaming, Imbrilim, Megalithica, Oshun, Parasiel, Romance, Seel, Swift, Varr, Wraiths)

Monthly Challenge SubmissionWhat Is This Thing Called Love
by Oshun

Story Notes

Summary
Seel struggles with the concept of love and seems to be losing the battle, although not without a fight. Contains an explicit description of aruna between Seel and Swift. Thank you, Elfscribe, for the Beta. Any remaining failings are my own. (May be read as a sequel to my story “Fated Obsession,” but is intended to able to stand alone.)

Author’s Email: heartofoshun@aol.com

Web page: http://heartofoshun.livejournal.com/

Pairings: Seel/Swift, Cal/Swift (discussed only)
Overall Rating: NC-17

Word Count: 3,670
Spoilers: The Bewitchments of Love and Hate, The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure

Disclaimer: The characters, plot, and setting all belong to Storm Constantine.

What Is This Thing Called Love

The thin grey walls of the tent rippled with the chill early-morning wind. A faint rosy glow shone through them, indicating that morning had indeed arrived. It did not matter to Seel. Nothing or no one could pry him out of that tent, out of Swift’s arms, until he was good and ready: not Thiede nor the entire Gelaming military force.

Neither har had bothered to dress when they had emerged earlier from their warren of fur coverings and silken sheets to partake of the food and drink that they found on a nearby table. Seel would have been satisfied with water or juice. Although, something alcoholic or even a cigarette would not have been unwelcome. Yet they had no more begun to revive from their ecstatic lethargy in the wake of those first two world-exploding arunas than Swift had shyly announced that he was starving.

“Can you believe this?” Swift giggled. “Muffins, toast, butter, cream, jam, tea. How do you think all of this got here?”

“I think they could have run a herd of elephants through here and we wouldn’t have noticed.”

Swift’s eyes crinkled in a heart-melting grin. “What would you like?”

“Tea would be fine.” Seel couldn’t take his eyes off Swift’s flushed cheeks and those dark eyes, still glittering but vulnerable and endearing. Swift stuck a finger in the pot of cream and sucked it clean. He scooped out another dripping dollop of cream and held his finger front of Seel’s face.

“Open your mouth,” he demanded, lowering his brow warningly until they both laughed.

Despite this and other proofs of Swift’s youth and ebullience, Seel would never again think of him as a harling. His control of their arunic experiences of the past night had forever put that issue to rest. And the image of Swift’s impressive ouana-lim flashed through his mind: warm coral and a dark coppery rose, its petals tipped and faintly veined with bronze. Yet when it came fully to life, it pulsed with metallic blue. His visualization of that lovely ouana-lim which had haunted him in the preceding weeks had been photographically perfect. Had Thiede sent him that image or had he chosen to pair the two of them based upon an ability to read their fantasies?

Not that it mattered anymore. They had produced the powerful Grissecon that Thiede had decreed and created a pearl as well. In the aftermath, Seel realized there was no returning to who he had been before. He couldn’t muster the energy to regret any of it either. It wasn’t only that he now hosted a pearl or what that would mean. Quite the contrary, he relished the feelings Swift wrung out of him and welcomed the renewed heat in his groin. His resurgence of desire must have reached Swift, who squirmed closer to him and burrowed his head in the crook between Seel’s neck and shoulder. Swift’s dark hair spilled chaotically over the pillow and onto Seel’s chest in the most alluring way. An indolent smile played about the corners of Swift’s mouth, while his half-closed eyelids fluttered open.

“Well, that’s finally over,” Swift said, his voice wooly with sleepiness.

The words jolted Seel out of his exaggeratedly romantic state.

“You sound relieved,” Seel said, lifting an eyebrow in challenge. “And I thought you were enjoying all this. In fact, I know you were.”

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Fated Obsession

May 29, 2008 at 9:09 am (Arahal, Ashmael, Bewitchments, Challenge, Chrysm, Enchantments, Gelaming, Imbrilim, Megalithica, Oshun, Romance, Seel, Swift, Varr)

Monthly Challenge SubmissionFated Obsession
by Oshun

Story Notes

This is a story written from the POV of Seel that attempts to explore how he might have struggled to come to terms with his initial attraction to Swift. In Bewitchments Swift tells us his side of the story in poignant detail, but I was curious as what Seel endured during that same pre-Grissecon period. It is neither flagrantly AU nor austerely canon and is influenced by, but not necessarily entirely faithful to, Thevina’s interpretation of the relationship between Ashmael and Seel in her story “Interpret Me the Savage Whirr.” I want to thank Elfscribe for her sympathetic and encouraging Beta. Any remaining failings are my own.

Author’s Email: heartofoshun@aol.com

Web page: http://heartofoshun.livejournal.com/

Pairings: Ashmael/Seel, Cal/Swift, Chrysm/Swift, Seel/Swift (none explicit, all implied or foreshadowed)

Overall Rating: R

Word Count: 2,344

Spoilers: The Bewitchments of Love and Hate, The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure

Disclaimer: The characters, plot and setting all belong to Storm Constantine.

Fated Obsession

Seel stepped out into the last bright rays of sunlight as Imbrilim slipped from late afternoon into early evening. Looking at the banners and flags wafting in the summer breeze and the undulating movement of the multihued sides of the tents and pavilions of the encampment, he wondered how all of this appeared to Swift the Varr. He tried to imagine himself as a newly incepted har viewing Imbrilim for the first time through the prism of his own childhood. To Seel, this entire scene, part military outpost, part fantastic carnival or bazaar, would have conjured up dreamlike settings from a tale of exotic Arabian nomads or perhaps a gathering of fair knights and heroic kings.

Swift, however, was nothing like him: a pureborn, most likely woefully lacking in education and with no comparable cultural references. He wondered what Swift’s home had been like. What depravity had he participated in or witnessed? When they had come upon him at the edge of the Forest of Gebaddon, filthy, grey with exhaustion, skinny, and filled with fear, he had responded with courage. Swift had stood up to the Gelaming force that confronted him, not as the snarling half-feral harling Seel had expected, but as an intelligent young har concerned more for the welfare of his companions than for himself. In spite of everything, an air of entitlement hung over Swift, poignantly mixed with wistful hopefulness and a desire to trust. The presence of such qualities would generally reflect that one’s upbringing had included loving care and attention. None of these observations matched what Seel thought he knew of Terzian or of the Varrs in general.

Seel could not guess what lay behind those wide-set dark eyes: innocence or corruption. One thing he did know was that they had nothing in common. Seel perpetually sought peace and enlightenment while Swift surely had been schooled in violence. Seel cultivated a near-ascetic self-control while the Varrish youngster fairly crackled with arunic precocity and unselfconscious sensuality, undoubtedly encouraged by Cal. They did have Cal in common, Seel thought, but that ought to drive a wedge between them rather than bring them closer. What could Thiede be thinking to put the two of them in this intolerable situation?

As Seel drew near to the pavilion dedicated to the use of the Hegemony, Ashmael sauntered forward to greet him, his handsome face opening in a genial smile only lightly tinged with humor.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t show up.”

Seel grunted noncommittally. Ashmael laughed and slapped him on the back. “Cheer up. It’s only a small gathering, an opportunity for everyhar to view our much-discussed visitor. I thought you would like to get a better look at him yourself: rested, fed, and all cleaned up. He actually is lovely.”

“I could see that well enough before.” Seel remembered Thiede telling him that Terzian’s heir was presentable. That had proved to be another of Thiede’s sardonic understatements.

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