by AJ Kalliver
He nodded.
"I heard, though; every one. In the beginning so faintly that I thought I must be imagining it, but over time it grew stronger and clearer; your voice, recognizably your voice. So I sought you, but you never stay in one place for long, and I cannot move as you move, against the river of the sky which flows from west to east. It was only now, today, that I heard you, that I felt you so near and rushed to see… and found you, here."
That brought a tremulous smile to her face.
"You… you wanted to see me again?"
He stepped forward, to within arm's reach.
"Very much so."
Suddenly realizing what he was seeing, she looked down, letting her wide-brimmed hat hide her face.
"It's been a while," She said, her voice low. "I'm not as pretty as I was the last time; by a lot more than two year's worth."
Her gaze was focused on that dry bit of earth by her feet, but she felt his hands take hold of her hat, and carefully pull it away. Her hair, still purple-violet-blue but now generously streaked with silver, blew across her face. She made no move to push it back, and so a moment later he gently took hold of the soft, tangled mass and tugged it back behind her shoulders. Raising her eyes to his, she found them as empty of judgment as they had been when she confided her weakness to him through a haze of tears. She had none to shed this time around; things were as they were, as she'd chosen, and at least this time the decisions had all been hers.
He smiled.
"You have changed, but not so very much." With that he leaned forward, and kissed her lightly upon the lips. "And you are still very beautiful."
She grinned, the weight of dread that had been crouching within her chest abruptly easing.
"And you can still say things like that and make me believe every word is true."
He shrugged, though he did not move away.
"It is true, every word."
"Well, I hope you can keep that attitude going, 'cause I'm not going to get any prettier."
He frowned, pulling some of her hair forward again, and holding it up to better inspect the silver invasion that was overcoming the neon blue.
"You will miss this?" He turned to look at her face, and reached up to caress her still-smooth cheek with the back of his hand. "And this?"
She chewed her lip a moment before answering, but managed to keep her tone light.
"Nah, not so much. It mostly just gave people the wrong idea about me, made them think I was something I wasn't."
He shook his head in disagreement.
"It showed exactly what you are; beautiful, touched by the powers of the sky… and fresh with new beginnings, and new possibilities."
Claudia frowned up at him.
"Tough luck, pal. I'm telling you that I don't care enough about how I look to go crawling back to those bastards and beg them on bent knee to allow me the privilege of paying them a fortune to—"
His fingers on her lips stopped her words.
"I understand. I am happy to see you have found the strength to make your choices, and I am more than willing to abide by whatever you decide."
She subsided, mollified by that. After a moment, though, he went on.
"However, I was going to say that, in the olden days, it was said that those Summoners who were able to call truly powerful spirits, and to help them manifest in physical form, often lived long, nearly endless lives, because of the melding of their powers with one another."
From where his hand lay at the base of her throat, a warmth began to spread. Where it passed over her hair, the silver was washed away, leaving only the neon-blue of an autumn sky. Where it passed over her body, it erased the aches and pains that came with forty-four years of living in a human body.
And when he leaned forward and kissed her, long and deeply, that warmth spread through her chest, where it eased the lonely ache that had dwelt there for so very long. She answered his kiss with enthusiasm, for as long as she was able before the need for breath made her break away.
"Wow!" She said, staring up at him in amazement before it occurred to her to look down. Her hands were pale and smooth as a teenager's, and when she grabbed at a handful of her hair there was not a single strand of silver to be found. With a little cry of delight she grabbed at his face to kiss him again, but he held her back.
"Understand, now, that if this displeases you, if it interferes with your determination to grow old naturally and not confuse others with what you are not—"
She clamped her hand across his mouth, her eyes wide.
"What, are you insane?!" She waved a wild hand towards the highway, where the watching farmers seemed to be quite uncertain of where the strange man in the field had come from, or what was going on between him and their hired cloud-caller. She grinned again, looking back up at him. "Let them think what they want; this is my life! Why not have some fun with it!" His smile competed with her own, but then she grew suddenly serious.
"Okay, then, I suppose we don't have all day before you 'move on', as storms are known to do?"
He sighed, then nodded reluctantly.
"Yes, though I will tarry as long as I may. An hour, perhaps two."
She felt herself wilt a little, but there it was.
"All right, then. I'm going to need a couple of things before you go."
He looked puzzled, and perhaps a bit disappointed, but he nodded all the same.
"Very well. Name them."
"First of all, these guys need some rain; gentle, thorough rain. That's why I was calling clouds in the first place."
A glance upwards was all it took; moments later a steady rain began to fall.
"Done." He said, his eyes on hers.
She nodded, and glanced down in embarrassment, but then managed to lift her gaze to his once more.
"And now, maybe… something for me?" The rain was quickly soaking her through, but it didn't seem so cold, anymore. It was warm, as he was warm, and she wanted so much for her loneliness to be washed away before he left again.
He nodded, his eyes dark, and he ran his hands down along her sides, until they came to rest upon her hips.
"I would be honored, my lady." A smile quirked his lips upwards for just a moment. "Gentle, and thorough, you may be sure."
He kissed her again, and again that otherworldly warmth filled her to overflowing. When his lips moved to her throat, and then lower, she took a moment to deliver a warning.
"If we do this now, it had better not be two years before I see you again."
She felt his smile against her rain-slicked flesh.
"Fear not; an' I do hear your voice, I will answer."
She nodded, closing her eyes in response to what he was doing.
"Then believe me when I say you will be getting a lot of calls from me. Loud ones."
He was removing her clothes now, and she was a little unsure about how pleasant making love in a muddy cornfield could be, but she need not have worried; he had an answer for that.
Across the way, the gathered farmers were still giddy at the prospect of a season that had now been salvaged from certain ruin, though they were still unsure of just where that tall, skinny fellow had come from. From what they could make out, him and the little cloud-caller were a couple, and for a minute there it looked like they were all going to be treated to a show.
That is, until thick streamers of mist reached down from the clouds overhead, pulling across the field just like a giant curtain, hiding from view whatever it was that was going on over there. That was odd enough, all right, but later on, every one of those gathered there swore that they'd heard the sound of that little lady's voice, first coming from out in the field, but then sounding for all the world like she was goin' up into the air, right up into the clouds themselves, giggling and squealing all the while.
And the thunder rolled out, in a peal of joyous laughter.
