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“Ophelia?”
Ophelia opened her eyes, held back a yawn and wrapped her fingers around her girlfriend’s before sitting up. The grass was still warm where she had slept but the sun was now slowly drifting away, casting its golden light between the trees.
To her eyes still dulled by sleep, the sparkles of changing colour caught by the leaves were like embers and twinkling flames hovering over them.
In the end, they hadn’t trained or danced.
With a quick glance on her side she let her head fall back onto the pink hair covered shoulder and sighed.
“I guess we should go back soon. Before they close the gates.”
It wasn’t a long walk to the castle, but she knew how they were. If she didn’t mention it now, it wouldn’t come to their mind until the stars were shining bright and high.
With her head resting against her girlfriend’s neck, she could see her hair flowing down, wet with dusk light dripping down its tips.
She caught a strand between her fingers, wriggling it softly to no avail.
“Ophelia?”
Ophelia felt the shoulder tense up. She let go of the pink hair, which fell down back into the cascade she had lifted it from, and ran her fingers on her lover’s cheek. Just before she could raise her head and stare into her eyes, her other hand was squeezed. When the swordswoman got anxious or stressed, Ophelia knew nothing could escape her grip. Her muscles were like petrified, her fingers locked in place, their tips desperately searching for comfort.
She waited, stroking the cheek of her lover until her lips opened again.
“Would you choose one for me?”
It came in one swift breath, a jammed whisper that vanished in dying echoes before reaching Ophelia’s ear.
Ophelia couldn't think. Joy numbed her mind as she let the words sink in her flesh. Her heart was pouding in her chest, overwhelmed by this display of trust and affection. This meant the world to her. And she meant the world to Ophelia.
Ideas came rushing in, swarming her senses with their meaning, their sounds, their colours. They swirled and roared around her, bright and overwhelming tempest of syllables and identity, trying to win her over. Now was their time; they had waited for so long in the dark for the perfect occasion, perfecting how they floated up her throat, how they rolled in her mouth, how they fell on her tongue, how they melted in thousands of butterflies, how they left her lips in a blissful orchestra.
But amidst this gracious cohort and their sweet and warm shadows a sundrop fell. In an instant it chased all the others and Ophelia grabbed it softly in her hands. She couldn’t conceive anything more fitting, more perfectly shaped, more her than this simple word. She prided herself in finding words, in inventing them, digging through endless seas of stars until she found the right one, but this one she had merely unveiled. As if it was always in hands reach, simply waiting for her to dust the clouds around it. It was not something new, something torn from its home. It had always been her. It only needed someone to find it. Someone that could grasp and deliver it safe and sound.
“Soleil”
She knew what it meant. She had known what it meant from the moment the name had presented itself to her, not because she knew the language behind it, but because behind the name, behind the simple sounds that basked in her heart ever since, there was no real meaning. There was simply her. As if it had always been her. Regardless of what it meant, it was now tied to her, and her to it.
She looked at the sun, sinking between the hills, drowning the valley in orange, red and purple waves.
“Soleil.”
Her girlfriend shivered and tangled her fingers with Ophelia’s. The further the sun sank into the ground, the more its light stretched and flickered
“What does it mean?”
The spell her muscles seemed to be under faded and Ophelia felt her shoulder relax.
“Do you like it?”
She seemed to hesitate for a second or two but let a strangled “yes” escape her throat as she folded her knees against her chest.
Ophelia left the comfort of her lover’s shoulder and neck only to reach for a kiss. Her lips, although chapped and nibled, were warm and responsive, tasted like Ophelia’s perfume and she didn’t break until she mage did. She still had to work on holding her breath.
The swordswoman grabbed Ophelia and hugged her tight.
“I love you my apricot.”
It didn’t take Ophelia long to bury her face in the river of light-wet hair and whisper to her lover’s ear.
“I love you too Soleil.”