Cynara

It was the sunlight, dripping through the branches like pieces of glistening gold which triggered it. The "it" came like a tsunami, from the depths, from a place beyond time and space.

As I looked at her face and our eyes met in that deep lilac wood, it flooded back, and then time present, and time past became one continuum.

I saw, as though here and now, then and there. The hands which dragged her from me; the hands that hurt her; the hands that tore us apart and held me back. I shuddered as the wave of pleasure which had been initially evoked by the golden sunlight, was replaced by fear and loathing; I felt the bile rise in my throat. As I looked at her now, I saw her then. I knew she saw it too. The look that passed between us was like a powerful current of electricity, jolting us into silence; my mind's eye saw it all.

I felt their bodies on me, my skirts torn, my skin clawed, my body no longer my own; and I passed into the darkness. I saw her then, her fate decided by those who had already condemned us.

"She is a witch. Burn her!" That was the cry.

I saw her wince, I saw her cry, I saw the glory in her eyes; myself, I long for love and light, but must it come so cruel and must it be so bright? As her spirit left her, our eyes met. I heard on the smoky air: "until the next time my love!" And with that she was gone on the wind. And then there was no more, as the blackness engulfed me, and I passed through time and space to a place beyond imagining.

And that, all of it, came to me in less time than it takes to tell.

"Rowan," she said, "blessings be on you."

I looked:

"Cynara," I replied, my voice seemed to come from somewhere else. Betwixt her lips and mine there fell that shadow of what was past, and then, of a sudden, it lifted, and again, it was as though time past, and time future, were contained in time present, and I knew that time could be redeemed by love.

"I have," she said, "been faithful to you in my fashion."

"How could it not be?" I asked, my words guided by some power we both felt.

"I had not thought to see you in this life," she said, "I had not remembered until a moment's thought ago."

As she held her hands out for mine to hold, I saw on her wrists the mark of the mountain ash. I smiled of a sudden.

"Rowan, of course, your dryad, it had to be."

"Cynara," she smiled, "but such fragrance."

As our fingers entwined, she asked:

"And this time, who is to be Queen?"

"That was long ago," the words came to me, "and besides, the wench is dead. But what is this? How?"

Words do not usually fail me, but such was the press of them, welling up from the fathomless past, that they broke on the rocks of reality, and it was all I could do to stand. And then she bent, and she kissed my lips.

There, deep in that wood of lilacs, in the shadow of the great mountain, we realised if time could be redeemed, then so could we.

"Is tú mo rogha," she said (I was her chosen one).

And the reply came to me:

"A chuisle mo chroí," I said (she was my heart's love).

"As it was," she said, "so shall it be."

"But, how, how?" I asked, as my rational mind struggled, failing to contain the revelation visited upon it.

"How then, or now, or next time?" Rowan asked, her green eyes set off by her mane of red, unruly hair.

She was now as she had been then. It was like looking into a mirror and seeing a red-haired image of myself.

She lifted her arms, and there, in the deep bower, I lifted her summer dress off her slight form, her small breasts proudly displaying those dark, pink nipples which my presence had caused to harden. I lifted my arms so she could do likewise.

"You are, as you were."

"Smaller even than you, my love."

"Small only in stature and form, not in spirit."

As our lips met, again, after so long an absence life in all its abundant fruitfulness flowed through me, to her, from her, shared between us, growing stronger and deeper and faster as our lips met.

Hers parted, and my tongue gently traced the path of her full lips, before feeling the warmth of her mouth and the touch of her tongue as it met mine. Then we broke off.

"The grass is warm and welcoming," she said.

"So are you," I grinned as I knelt, pulling her panties down, before she did the same with me. Then we settled together in the grass and kissed.

"As I am taller," she grinned, lying on top of me, as I opened my thighs.

"Sum qualis eram," I said, (I am what I was).

As she leant above me, I could not and did not want to stop myself from kissing her pointed nipples. Even as my mouth closed in on her left nipple, time past and present melded. As it had been, so it was now.

"Oh yes!" That was all she needed to say. The rest was felt, too deep, too in common to need words.

As her smooth mound met mine and as she pressed against me, I shifted sideways, allowing her to press a thigh between mine. As we manoeuvred into position, I felt the shock of the familiar as her sex and mine met once more, her long, butterfly wings pressed so they engulfed my thin, introverted sex, and I felt her nectar mix with mine. Oh, I thought, for madder music to match this stronger wine. Our pearls touched as she pressed, and I had thought that I was overwhelmed,

But even as I gasped with the intensity of the pleasure and pulled on her nipple, the waves rose but somehow did not breach the banks.

My hand caressed her bottom as she pushed harder, the wetness making the friction more potent, and as my nails dug into her smoothness, she adjusted her position, and I felt my own backside in her grip. I looked. She looked. We kissed and the world was lost to us both.

It seemed that we could rock together in our love. What had been lost with the wind had been regained; time redeemed, and with it us. Then the passion broke all bounds of time, space and feeling, and it was as though we were lost, far out on love's wine dark sea, our cries of passion as we united in climax taking us to where we were meant to be.

We collapsed. Lost in each other's warm arms, it was only as the light faded and the chill air that presages a summer's evening came over us, that we helped each other to dress.

"There is no shadow between my lips and yours," Rowan said.

"It is lifted. The desolation is gone, what was lost is found, what was ruined is restored."

"Our last parting..." she began. I put my finger to her sweet, full lips.

"Of that we shall not speak. I was faithful to you, in my fashion," I felt the need to add.

"What they did to you was unspeakable. I hope they burn on the turning wheel for all eternity."

I smiled, knowing her passion, it blew as red as her hair.

"Shush, my love," I urged her, "that was then, this is now."

"It was as though I had forgot much, but now it is all back."

"All?" I quizzed her.

"Yes, all. That asp, that tomb as we held her hands and our own and passed with her to the everlasting realm."

"That moment when the walls fell and all was lost," I added.

"Ah my darling, but we have this. Another chance."

"Another chance," I smiled.

As we put our shoes on and walked until we had left the bower, we looked behind us at the mountain.

"This time," she said, "we shall scale the heights."

"We shall," I said, and as we walked towards the inn, I thought to add: "and tonight will be fine."

"And all shall be well," she smiled.

"And all things shall be well," I replied.

The two halves were, once again, one. What was lost had been found.