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Tara did not see his lips move.
He continued to search her face as she thought about his question.
Tara's senses altered. Time as she had known it had adjourned from them, she could sense its very suspension in the air. She could find no answer to his query.
He leaned forward and put his lips to hers in a seductive kiss.
Tara started, then melted, for it was the best thing she'd ever felt.
His lips were cool but sensuous in their touch. As she responded to the arousal he kindled in her the most beautiful sensations spread throughout her body. His lips gently parted. She felt the hard, tactile stem of his tongue and took it into her mouth, allowing it to beguile her senses further.
He was her mystical lover—the one who watched and waited for her, the one who had aroused her so when she lay on the tomb—Tara knew it.
A sweet and sudden understanding came over her as he imbued her body with his spirit. It was the spirit of Subterranea, the vitality of the dark undergrowth that thrust through the earth and held it in its powerful embrace. She readily exchanged all normal sensation for the exquisite feelings he aroused in her. He claimed her.
He groaned and whispered in her mind as he thrust into her. "I've been waiting for you."
Tara felt a sharp pain within, then heaviness stole deep within her loins, an energy that stunned her then dispersed pools of sensation through her body. She had been pinioned once more, but this time it was by her destined nocturnal lover.
Intense pleasure overcame her. Tara craved more. There was no fear in her now, only the joy of discovery. She drew back and saw that his body had melded with hers. Huge roots thrust forth from the earthy ground and ploughed into her body through his. They were entwined in a frenzy of organic stems that coiled around them and thrust within.
When she lifted her hand, she realized that it was now conjoined with his. They had become woven together with the plant in the rich pattern of nature's tapestry. She looked into his incandescent eyes and saw his true form reflected in their strange irises. She recognized it through some hidden aspect of her own nature, the aspect that had reached forth for its realization and fulfillment.
She closed her eyes and released herself fully to him.
A primeval and strident force rose up and took her over. Breathless with longing, Tara wrapped herself around him and rode the wave with him, reaching for something, something innate.
Roots and stems sought her out from the darkest corners of the labyrinth, greeting her, thrusting into her, filling her and embracing her. Her lover's eyes grew more luminous still as he gazed at her, his form pulsating and powerful as he claimed her.
"Oh, yes, I have found home," she cried out.
She felt the rush of sap within her veins. It was the sweetest nectar her body had ever known and she was carried high and long upon the wave of ecstasy it spread through her. Xylem and phloem bedded within her, and her new form took root and began to evolve.
* * *
Tara transmuted and transformed through their union and became as one with him.
The fecund earth became Tara's new home and she thrived in its succulent bed. Her mate guided her and together they crept forth through the fertile earth of their empire, to enmesh it with loving tendrils.
They made their seat finally upon that grave that had once felt so sensual to her. When her new-born leaves unfurled upon the memorial stone, she did not mourn the loss of the fragmentary life she had lived before, but celebrated instead the eternal cycle of the life that had claimed her as one of its own.
Subterranea, that from which all living things come, and that which reaches out to take them back and reinvent them once again.
THE TRUE FOLLY OF ICARUS
Icarus did not want to leave his father, but he knew he must.
"Go now, quickly son," his father said, "make your escape from Crete, and do it before the sun reaches its peak."
Icarus pulled his mask into place, inhaled deeply and moved his arms, measuring the weight of the wings that his father had cleverly formed upon him from feathers and wax. The wind was strong, and he could feel the air captured beneath the multitude of feathers. "I am ready," he assured his father.
"If anything goes wrong and you have to land in Crete, speak to no one, and keep your mask on. People will fear you and they will not stand in your way."
His father embraced him and then urged him on again.
Icarus ran into the wind, moving his arms as he did so. For a moment he thought it futile, then the air was trapped beneath his wings and his feet lifted from the ground. Gulping air, he moved his arms again, shocked at how powerful the wings were in harnessing the wind, and how easily he could ride on the breeze and direct his passage with a subtle change in the angle of his arms.
The experience was dazzling, and his spirit roared as he soared high above the spot where his father stood. "It is true, I can fly!"
