The Sojourn (semi-closed, PM if interested)

With no knowledge of roller coasters - he'd seen the tall structure for one once, puzzled at what it might have been, and then moved on without investigating further - Cort had no way to know that the combination of adrenaline and dizziness he felt were like those he may have experienced on one. Still, he was swept up in the thrill of it, the sweet taste she left in his mouth as she sat up, and the sight of her body in the moonlight.

His eyes flickered from her for just a moment, drawn by the flutter of the shirt in the chilled breeze, and then they were back and moving, roaming, soaking in her form. The scar on his chest was visible even in this dim light, but he didn't give it a moment's thought. It was as much a part of him as the scar on his cheek, or the long mess of hair that hung nearly to his shoulders, or the beard that was starting to show, if you looked closely enough, bits of grey. All of it and more, he found, he wanted to share with her. Show to her.

A whisper brought him fully into the present - even now, Cortland, you swim in a sea of thoughts? - and he nodded slowly. Core muscles flexing, he brought his back up off the ground and in the process let his own shirt slip off. Bare now from the waist up, matching her, he slid his arms around her body and pulled her close, once more crushing her breasts to his chest, and his mouth to hers.

He thought then, distantly, dimly, that her taste was one he could find himself addicted to, her touch something he he could crave. So why didn't that bother him? Instead, he found himself running headlong towards it. What lay beyond, he was powerless to say. Ruin, perhaps. Happiness, perhaps. But by Atom and the Man-Jesus, he was willing to risk one to see if she held the key to the other.

It was with these thoughts in mind, some he was aware of, others not, that his hands moved against her strong and bare back as their tongues again danced. She was filling up his senses, the scent of her hair and taste of her kiss and her touch the only thing his body registered now.

Their lips parted, his fingers disappeared into hair the color of the setting sun and soft as the finest silk, and Cort's scarred and bearded cheek pressed against her own, soft, smooth, and round. Others may be watching, unknown to them both, but none could know the words that he whispered to her under a sky filled with a million distant suns.

"Then you may have me, Calypso of the Valley."

Her hands pushed the shirt back from his torso, exposing his skin to her eyes. She stared, noting the scar on his chest, another on his cheek. She longed to ask how he came by them but before she could move, before she could find her voice, he stirred. Pushing up from the waist, his shirt fell from his shoulders, slid down his arms. He released it. She felt the warmth of him and whatever she had been about to ask, was forgotten the moment his lips found hers again.

He tasted like man. His tongue tangled with hers. He was intoxicating and she wanted more. His hands, strong, sure and warm moved over her back. She softly sighed into him. Her skin felt like silk and it hungered. The fullness of her breasts started to ache. She tried to assuage the ache by pressing into him as her arms wound around his neck, fingers threading through his hair. Their lips parted, his roughened cheek found her softer one. His voice found her ear.

"Then you may have me, Calypso of the Valley."

His tone. His words. They simply weaved more magic into the night that surrounded them. She leaned back against his arms until their eyes could meet. She smiled. Her fingers threaded through his hair.

“You need a haircut,” Her voice was soft. Her cheek rubbed against his, “and a shave. I wonder how you’d look naked, without it.”

She murmured, her lips angled toward his skin. She was making small talk. Dragging out a moment before it slipped into the next. Her fingers untangled themselves from his hair. Her palms floated over his shoulders down to his chest. Sensitive tips located his scar and traced it as much as she could in their current position. It was jagged and she was sure, it was not the prettiest thing to view or so it felt like. She leaned into him, her lips finding his jaw, moving across it at a snail’s pace. A hand cupped the side of his face. The side her lips weren’t strolling across.

Her hair smelled of the flowers in her garden. Even her skin carried the same scent, only lighter. Her hands moved, sliding down his arms until she couldn’t go further, gently tugging at them until she could take his hands, guide them to her breasts, pressing them there. Her lips ceased their exploratory journey as she whispered near his ear.

“Have you ever bedded a woman beneath the stars, Cort?”

Her laugh was teasingly soft. Like her. She was a slight, willowy thing. Her breasts fit in his hand like firm ripe melons. Not watermelons but rather a smaller sort. His hands could easily span her waist. Her hips were well rounded, made for child bearing. She gently pushed against him, urging him to lie down again.

Flowers were a rare thing in Cortland's world, come upon randomly in his travels, and always taken as a sign that they were in a place safe from the Sickness that infected much of the land. As the breeze floated past them, lifting her hair and casting it about, his nostrils were filled with what seemed to be the scent of every flower he'd come across in his life. He inhaled it deeply, tried to bathe himself in it, and in doing so was rewarded by the firm, warm shape of her breasts against his chest.

"Mm..." he murmured, smiling in the darkness, eyes closed to her touch, "I don't remember when last I had a haircut or shave. It always feels so... refreshing." His head tipped as her lips moved, curved fingers and warm palms gliding along the line of her spine, over the smooth plane of her back. He was happy to float in this moment, a bit aimlessly, but with their bodies close, sharing a warmth and kindling a fire between them.

When she reached for his arms, he allowed her to move them as she wanted, and in the faint silver light he smiled as his hands were filled nicely by firm, round breasts. A simultaneous movement drew both thumbs across the peaks of them, a light swipe across her nipples, and it was only then that he realized his body was responding to her, growing hard beneath her.

At her question, Cortland smiled, his head shaking once and casting his own dark hair into his face. He had, in fact, had more than a few nights under the stars with women, but...

"None such as you, Calypso. I think perhaps there is none such as you anywhere else, under stars or no." He echoed her softness, her quiet, because to do anything else would've seemed like flinging mud on a fine, white garment. She did not feel frail in his hands or across his hips, but she felt delicate. Not unlike the flowers whose scent seemed to be a part of her, emanating from her very flesh.

Much as he'd let her move his arms, he let her now push him back, the cool ground once more against him. His hands fell away from her breasts, a glance of his eyes replacing them for a moment, and rested lightly atop her thighs, thumbs absently stroking against her. In silence, in darkness, in a valley that seemed perfect and entirely out of place in the world, he watched her.

Her question was unfair. Given the world around them and while she didn’t know the extent of what lie beyond her valley, she knew the greater picture. Her hands pressed to his chest, urging him to lie down again, she knew that he had, had other women. Be it under the stars or otherwise. Perhaps more than he could even remember. It was the way of men. To lie with a woman, take what they wanted and in return she got something out of it. The world of man she had been born into was a rough and hard one. Men often sought out women, the latter of which she learned, were in short supply, for release. Women in return made sure the use of their bodies brought them something useful in exchange. It was seldom that something was offered with no thought of a gain. Calypso didn’t judge others. She was fortunate, she knew, to live as she did.

His thumbs brushed against her nipples, making them harden even tighter. A pleasurable ache radiated outward from there. She could feel him growing hard beneath her, making her hips slide marginally against him. It was an unconscious action. An instinctual feminine response to him.

"None such as you, Calypso. I think perhaps there is none such as you anywhere else, under stars or no."

She watched him with a soft look in quiet eyes, leaning over him slightly as a lock of his hair fell across his face and she brushed it back. He followed her lead, falling back against the grass. His hands left her breasts, resting instead against the tops of her thighs. His thumbs brushing idly across the skin there. Her skirt had ridden up trim thighs as the material spread over his hips. Calypso smiled. A slender hand rose to stroke his cheek before it fell away from his face and found the front fastenings of the pants he wore. She readjusted her position slightly to have better access.

There had once been a time, or so her parents had told of, when people seldom seized a moment. When sex meant something more than a fleeting moment or before it had become nothing more than a bartering tool. It had held meaning between two people. She often wondered what that time had been like. How it would have felt. Perhaps, it was something like the moment they were both caught up in now. There was nothing she needed from Cort and he wasn’t demanding anything of her. Maybe, this was the closest she was going to come to one of those times long ago.

Her fingers slid inside the newly opened clothing and found him, semi-hard. She had forgotten how a man felt in her hand. Hard. Throbbing. Warm. The place from where life making seed came from. She released him only long enough to tug at the material on his hips downward. She wanted him free of confinement.

“Help me with these, Cortland.”

Her fingers plucked at the material of his pants as she swung away from his body and knelt beside it.

The crisp night air seemed to filter into his mind, forcing everything into a sharper focus than he was used to. Every curve and line of her body, even in the dim silver light cast onto them by the round moon hung in the sky, seemed to stand out to him in stunning clarity. The further stiffening of her nipple after his touch seemed to almost be in slow motion he saw it so clearly, and he wondered for a moment if she had made time slow, or made his ability to absorb speed up.

All curiosity of such things was lost, cast to the breeze, when her hand touched his cheek. Instinct tilted his hand, turning himself to the touch, and he remained that way a moment even as it was lost and she moved on. He watched in that same ethereal glow as her hand descended along him, loosening the fastenings on the front of his pants, cool air rushing to meet newly exposed skin.

Her hand was on him suddenly, slender warm fingers curling around him, a jolt sent up his spine that ended with a flutter of eyelids and a short rolling back of his eyes. He hadn't realized how hard he's grown until she was touching him, and all too quickly that touch was gone, his eyes opening to stare, wide, at the stars. It felt like a breathless eternity, but in truth it was less than the space of a breath before she was moving, tugging on the last bit of clothing he wore.

A quick nod, a silent nod, followed her request, and he planted bare feet on the cool ground, knees up, hips lifting. He helps her push the last of his clothes off, loose material flowing over his calves, past his ankles, pooling on the ground around his feet. Hips lower, a tightening of muscles at the feel of the cool ground on bare skin, strong legs lifting to push away the discarded fabric.

His need for her is quite obvious now, tanned skin shining in the moonlight, and he is more than ready to give in to it. Large hands reach for her, one on her far hip, the other hooking under the knee closest to him, muscles in abs and chest and arms working in tandem to pull her back across his hips. Bits of grass cling to his back as he sits up once more, fingers stretched, splayed on the smooth plane of her back, pulling her body tight against him, their warmth mingling.

There is a hesitation, his gaze tangled up with hers, the reflection of dim light giving her expanded pupils an otherworldly quality. He knows there, with the pressure of along his length, the full roundness of her breasts warm and alluring against his chest, that she could be a black widow in human form and he would go willingly to his death for the time that followed this moment. Death, often times, was an easier path than life in this world destructive hands wrought, and the combination of man and nature had devised ever more cruel ways to send one into the clearing at the end of the path. The shape and scent and taste and feel of the woman in his arms was, were she to be that to him, the single best way he'd seen in all of the world to find that clearing.

The held gaze was broken. Dark, macabre thoughts were forgotten. His mouth reclaimed hers.

She slid back across his body at silent direction of his hands. Her own found purchase on the ground to both sides of his head as she leaned forward over him. Her hair was a silky curtain, enclosing their faces into a private space. Calypso looked intently into his eyes even though she couldn’t make out the exact definition or what was in them. Whose lips found whose first? She couldn’t recall, not that it mattered. Leaning down into his, their lips locked together. Her lips that guarded the heated interior warmth of her body, slid seductively across the hardness that meshed against her softness. Calypso slid her mouth from his trailing kisses across his cheekbone to his jaw, where her teeth nibbled on flesh covered bone before dipping further to his neck. There, the tip of her tongue came out to play, swirling around the hard column of his throat until it encountered his collarbone.

Cort was lean, testament to the hard living of the world outside of her private domain. It didn’t detract from him in any way, if anything, it made him more appealing. The tip of her tongue easily found the length of bone at the base of his neck, tracing, swirling, nibbling, her way along it to the end of his shoulder. Her hips rocked gently against his, the whole time, pausing at the head of his shaft and making her want him all the more, sliding deep inside her. One delicate hand slid between their bodies, fingers finding and encircling him as her hips lifted so her fingers could guide him into her heated, wet interior. The sloped head of his cock slipped between the folds that guarded her opening easily. The small of her back arched slightly as he slipped in, then her body was rising up from his as her hips lowered, impaling herself on him. Burying him into the heart of her femininity. Her palms pressed against the front surface of his shoulders as she sat up. Her hips rotated and ground down against his before they began a slow rocking motion.




Into the darkness of the night, the figure neither of them saw or even knew existed, made its way back to a campsite, slipping into a dimly lit tent. It drew off a black woolen cap that hid sandy brown spiked hair. The man drew a ledger type book to him and began writing in it. Another man soon joined him, passing the one at the crude table, a battered mug. A grunt of absentminded thanks was given, but he never looked up nor paused in his writing.

“Did you find her?”

The tone was low and guttural from the one standing. It was a question that caused the one sitting to glance upward and use the opportunity to sip from the mug, his lip curling at the bitter taste. He glanced at the standing man, his dark eyes glittering.

“I did and she’s not alone.”

How had the world grown so hot? The night air was cool, bordering on cold as winter begin to reach it's fingers into the atmosphere, but there seemed to be a ghostly layer between his skin and the chill that held it at bay, warming him considerably. It was nothing when compared with the heat that moved along his length, a molten need that built in pressure, a slowly rising volcano. An eruption in the making.

Her lips carried their own heat, and he willingly and eagerly dove into them, pulling in her taste before it was so cruelly taken from him. Those same delicate lips blazed a trail down his jaw, her hair whispering and fluttering against him as she moved, tickling his skin. He'd lost track of his hands, forgotten the fact that he had hands to lose track of, but the movement of the smooth muscles of her back against his palms served as a fine reminder, and he quickly put them to better use.

Turning each hand palm up, thumb in, he moved each between their bodies to find the firm, round shape of her breasts. She was so smooth, so amazingly flawless in her soft firmness, wrapped in fine skin lacking the wear and scars his own carried, and each touch of her only made him want another, and another, and another. This woman atop him, this woman who had him achingly hard and yet teased against him still, this woman whose fine lips had found his collarbone and were now teasing him, this woman was quicksand and his every movement only served to further assure that he sank into a need of her. Oh, how willingly he let himself go under.

Calloused thumbs worked across the small, hardened peaks of her nipples, moving as much for the reciprocated teasing it would deliver as much as to fulfill the need to stroke her skin, to feel more and more of her. His hands were on her still, palms filled with the exquisite roundness of her breasts, when he felt her smaller fingers encircling him. A sensation barely registering in his fogged mind before she was atop him, and then around him, and then devouring him whole.

A curtain of her hair still streamed across his face, and it was through these fine red strands that he suddenly gazed wide-eyed at the sky above, the stars seemingly in sharper focus through the crisp air. He had no mind for the stars, for the crispness of the air, for the unashamed way his voice pierced through the very same air as she took him. He arched under her, his hands squeezed, gripped tighter, dimpled firm and flawless skin, and as her hips settled against his and she held him fully within the depths of her core, Cortland let his voice sing in her valley.

She sat up on him, her delicate hands on his broad shoulders, and his own larger hands fell of their own volition to her hips, gripping her there and moving her body along his length. Each lift, each fall, each grinding roll of her hips echoed through his body, elevated his heartbeat, made his breathing more rapid and shallow.

"Gods... Calypso..."

It was a broken whisper, something of a contrast to the volume of his voice when words were significantly harder to form. In the low light his eyes shone, wide and fixed on her, the sight of her lean and naked body, the roundness of shoulders and breasts, the plane of her stomach and the shadows where they were joined together, he took it all in at once it seemed. Searing it into his memory. Not for the first time, and surely not for the last, he waited to wake up from this strange dream. And then she was at the apex and reversing course, taking all of him within her once more, and all coherent thought was obliterated by her body all over again.

When had the world gone so silent? Where were the night sounds? The nocturnal birds. The little scrambling noises of the insects and small critters. She could rightly hear the beat of her heart, her breath breaking into short pants. Her skin was flushed with the desire and need of him. Not even the cool air of the night that surrounded them could take the heated flush from her skin. Her body rose and fell upon the protruding physical proclamation of his need. Each time, taking him deeply into her body until he could go no further. Whenever the curve of her buttocks met with his groin, she took a moment to grind against him before resuming motion. His palms slid up her torso, palming her breasts. They seemed to fit well enough. His thumbs, covered by roughened skin, flickered across aroused nipples, making her breath catch then quicken. The tip of her tongue stilled across hard bone for a tick measure of time, held frozen there by the play of his hands. Even her hips froze for those seconds, the head of his cock just barely held by the lips of her sex. Poised there, internal muscles pulsed around the sloped head, clenching and releasing. It was the hunger within that broke the moment, slamming down around him, shoving him deeply into her. Her body bent in the middle as her lips worked their way down his chest. Her hips took up the opportunity to rock and grind.

"Gods... Calypso..."

An expression of pitched desire? A plea, maybe?

Soft lips traversed his chest, finding and enclosing a masculine nipple. Her tongue lashed against it. Curled around it. Her mouth suckled at it before sharp small teeth captured it and tugged, slightly before releasing it and went in search of the companion on the other side of his chest. Her hips never stopped their roll, relentless in the pursuit to sate the hunger that tore into both of them. After gently abusing his other nipple, Calypso’s lips found the shell of his ear. Her breathy whisper, rasping with raw need, made a demand.

“Give yourself up to me, Cortland.”

Her lips brushed against the shell of his ear.

“Give me your very essence. The heat of your seed. Fill me, Cort. Fill. Me.”

Her whisper faded as her hips drove him deep into her core, time and time again. Faster. Harder. Each thrust outdoing the last until her body, poised over his, went still. Taunt. It didn’t last but a split second before her body convulsed over his. Around him. A keen sound came from her throat as strong fingers, made so by the orgasm ripping through her body, curled over his shoulders, digging into his skin. Rounded, well kept, nails marked his flesh with small crescent moons. Her body arched back, lips abandoning his ear, breasts pointed to the heavens as she held him deeply in her body. Her hips rode the length him, seeking to absorb what was hers to take.




Somewhere else in the night, in a tent, sitting at a table by a lone candle, the form of a man caught in the flickering darkness was brooding. Plotting.

The man must die. The woman had taken him into her velvet cunt. He wouldn't be susceptible to their plans.

His own hand found the hardness that lie beneath his pants and squeezed it. Just thinking about the woman made him hard. She wasn't used up like the world hardened bitches around here. They would get what they came for and have a little fun in the bargain.

Maybe they'd keep her until she turned into what all the others had become. Then he could simply kick her out. Let the world swallow her like all the rest. What would he care. He would have had his fill by then.

He drew his cock from his pants, stroking it.

Soon.

Very soon.

Calypso moved on him, and above him, and around him, and it was sweet and utter perfection. Scars were forgotten, hunger was forgotten, a cold and desolate world was forgotten, and even the valley around them, so strangely ripe and alive, was forgotten.

There was only her, somehow also ripe and alive, firm breasts and curved hips and wet, hot core. She had him so hard that she seemed to move effortlessly along his length, her body graceful in it's movements and alluring in the quicksilver light that washed over her.

Eyes open, head back on the ground, he stared at the speckled sky above as her lips traversed his chest. Seeing, but not. Focused, but not. And then came the tease, her movements along him hesitating, her hips leaving him exposed to the cool air and his need to be inside her again raw and sudden.

She took him again, suddenly, stretched and filled around his every last inch, and the sky was gone and replaced with inky darkness as his eyes rolled and closed. A fog of breath was forced from him, cast into the night with a low groan attached to it's tail. Still her body moved, still her lips moved, elegantly torturous kisses against his skin that quickly turned to lips and teeth on his nipple, and his nerves were set ablaze.

For a short time, Cortland remained flat under her as she moved on him and teased him with her mouth. His hands on her hips helped to guide her along his cock, but he was otherwise relatively still, a solid foundation for her to move above. Inside him though, a need was building. Pressure that threatened to dispatch from him his sanity built, and built, and built. He wanted more, and harder, and faster, and he knew for certain it meant the end of him.

Some things were simply too much for any man to resist.

Her voice was in his ear, sweet and low echoing the need that surged in him now, and it shredded the last of his resistance. Dimpling her fine skin, his fingers gripped her hips more firmly as his feet shifted and found purchase on the bare earth, and he gave himself up to his need.

Arching to her, meeting her thrust for desperate thrust, his breath seemed to create a steady stream of fog that would surely fill up the valley. Instead, it was her that was quickly and suddenly filled.

"Calyps-"

Her name on his lips, but the end lost to the overflow of his desire as he spilled his seed within her. He lost, it seemed, the ability to quite control himself, his grip on her hips perhaps tight enough to leave small bruises, and his spasming within her filling the land with his voice.

Warmth. Human warmth but more than that. His appearance had highlighted her loneliness. She never truly realized how much she missed human companionship until he appeared in her valley. Their act of coupling, in her mind, had assuaged that isolation.

Clothes were gathered. Bodies eased apart so clothing could be donned again then Calypso held out her hand to Cort and smiled in the darkness.

“You wished to see my home. Your wish is mine to grant. It is dark but the moon,” she glimpsed upward quickly to that white orb in the sky before her eyes returned to his form, “will grant us light enough to see and tomorrow you may look around to your heart’s content.

Something puzzles me, Cortland. So much of what I have here, you act as if you have never seen before. Is it so terrible out there? Beyond my valley? I mean, I look down over the ridge of this place or look outward for as far as my eyes can see and the destruction is obvious. In your travels, does it look so everywhere? Have people destroyed so much of what they use to know? My father told of a time where land was green, food was plentiful and scholars taught knowledge. My father was a man of learning. He could build things. He built many things for our home. Crudely, he use to say. He couldn’t find the materials he needed or wanted so he made due as best he could. I always had a small feeling things could have been quite different for us, my family, if Father could have gotten the exact things he needed to build with. Still, we weren’t unhappy and from your reactions, we weren’t too unfortunate either.”

She could still hear her name on his lips echo inside her head. It had been a sweet sound. Even as she spoke, her body still tingled from having him inside her. If that were not enough, her inner thighs were sticky, evidence of his gift he had left her with. The smile came back to her lips from thinking about it. Calypso hoped they would share other times such as what had just transpired between them. There was something satisfying about coupling with him. He was a sweet breath of fresh air floating through her existence and she wasn’t ready to give it up just yet.

"Tell me more about you, Cortland. How did you find your way to my home? Have you always traveled alone? Have you loved many women?"

Cortland slipped into the clothes again as if they had been his all along, rather than the clothing of a man who had already found the clearing at the end of the path. Without her against him, the hint of cold in the air was more pronounced, and he buttoned the shirt over his scarred chest. His hand found her smaller one, and he curled his fingers around her, following her out across the moonlit swath of land she called home.

At her questions, his brows drew in a bit. Still, there was this strange sense that he was in another world here, a place almost untouched by the rest of the destruction humanity had wrought. Even with her hand in his, even with cool, solid earth under his feet, it left him feeling as if he didn't belong. Making use of technology that was more precious and rare than any currencies that had cropped up, wearing the clothes of a man who no longer existed, Cortland seemed to have slipped into a dimension just next to his, where many things were the same, but the little changes never let one truly grow comfortable.

They had, for a short time, walked in silence as the out-of-place feeling ran through him. It was as they came to a small pond and paused before it, his eyes on the mirrored reflection of the wide and star-filled sky in the surface of the water, that he at last began to answer her.

"The world out there," he began, his voice low, quiet, but cutting easily through the night air, "is... destroyed. I've seen some of the things you have here, but never working. We're all animals now. Through and through."

He fell silent, released her hand, and sat near the edge of the water. His eyes were still on the water, but they were no longer seeing anything reflected in it. Blinking slowly, his mind drifting far from this pond, and this woman, and this valley, he continued.

"I know things used to be different before. People in cities, rules and order. Peace. But there's very little of that now. Some band together for survival, complimentary skills working together to make things easier on everyone. And some band together... to hunt. To steal, and kill. To..." he swallowed, licked his lips, and said more quietly, "To eat. Each other."

Turning his head to the side, he spat on the ground as if the words left a bad taste in his mouth. A memory floated to the surface in his mind, the sorrowful song of an arrow through the temple of a man who had killed and, before Cort could arrive, begun to consume a young boy. The taste of bile surged to the back of his throat, and along with the memory he swallowed it down, and pressed on.

"There are still cities, but no one goes there. Anyone that I've seen come from a city was dying. Hair falling out, sores on their skin... in pain. It was like their body was dissolving right in front of you. There's something in the air in those cities. Some say fires are still burning in their centers, but I've never let myself get close enough to one to find out. The water, too..."

His head shook, and unconsciously he shifted a fraction of an inch away from the pond he sat so near, as if mistrustful of even the water here.

"If there are no healthy fish alive in the water, you can't risk drinking it. The same sickness in the cities runs through some of the water. Gets into it near the cities, maybe." He shrugged, the details well beyond his knowledge, but the practicality of avoiding them nearly instinct now.

"If you are smart, and aware, you can survive. If not... you die." Another lift of his shoulders in a shrug, and he let silence fall around them again. In the end, that was really all life in this terrible new world came to. Smart, strong, fast, and know what you can eat, what you can drink, and where you can go. Without those, it was simply a matter of time before someone, or something got you.

After a time, his eyes were pulled from the starlight in the water, and he turned to look at her. A small smile touched on his lips, and when he spoke again his voice had lost the edge of struggle it held when talking about the outside world.

"I was traveling with a small group when we arrived, but it seems they left me in the night for.. some reason. I don't know why, or where they went. I may go back to the area once the sun is up to see if there are tracks, but by now there is likely little I could do to catch up with them, wherever they may have gone. After meeting you though, I find myself happy that they left me. I suspect we would've passed right by without knowing you were even here had they not."

His gaze was pulled away from her and this time it lifted past the water, and off into the dark horizon. This time, his mind drifted somewhere else. A fleeting, happier time that he would often return to in the darkness before he drifted off to sleep. His life saved by strangers, his weakened body watched over by a soft and beautiful girl.

To himself more than to her he nodded slightly, once.

"I think I have only really loved one woman. When my father and I were attacked, I was hurt and just managed to escape with my own life. Her people took me in - a stranger they had no obligation to and no reason to help, but they did - and she would sit by my bed for hours and days while I healed. I remember drifting in and out of sleep and seeing her face as she watched me. It was hard to tell sometimes whether I was seeing her in a dream or in reality. Our time together was short, but..."

His voice drifted off, then fell silent. Some things, perhaps, best left unsaid. Blinking, his eyes slipping back to look at her in the dim silver light, his mind returned to this valley and this woman, and he rose to his feet and offered his hand to her.

"But, there are time for more tales later. The moon is high, and the night is growing old. I hope it is not too forward of me to want to share your bed."

With the light of mirth in his eyes, Cortland grinned.




The night stretched into day, and that day turned into yet more. Cortland found himself growing more comfortable in her valley, in her home, and in the warmth of her bed and her body, with each passing sunrise. Few were the hours they spent apart, whether he was using her father's ax to chop wood for the coming winter or she was working the soil in her garden, and over time both of them learned new and useful skills from the other.

Over time, Cortland began to venture outside of her valley to search for supplies, certain that such a thing would be impossible when the full brunt of winter hit. Game turned out to be the most plentiful supply on these trips, and he made quick work on the creation of a new wooden bow and workable wooden arrows to take with him. Soon, animal skins and fresh meat joined the list of their stocks for the winter, and gave Cort the confidence that they'd survive it well.

Winter was, as they had all been since his birth, hard and fierce. Snow piled high, winds blew, and each short trip outside was preceded with a deep and bracing breath. The pair found themselves by the fire often, and Cort was pleased with the warmth of the small house despite his rationing of the wood. As long as spring returned when it should, they would make it through with fuel to spare.

Much of their time was spend tangled together, creating more heat between them. Her body bent over the table where they'd shared their first meal together, or his body under hers as the light of the fire danced on her skin. They learned each other well in that time, and each was sure to use that knowledge to the fullest at every possible opportunity. Despite the silence in the snowbound world around them, the inside of her home was rarely so peaceful.

Spring did eventually come, and even a bit earlier than they had expected. The first warm and snow-free day was spent almost entirely outside, working, eating, and, after she had pushed him into a pond that was still shockingly cold, making eager and energetic love under a bright and clear sky. The world thawed, and slowly began to move back into action around them.



But unknown to them both, the peace of the winter was an illusion. In bunkers buried beneath the mountains of Washington, men worked to return rule and order to a land that had grown savage and wild. Scouts and soldiers came and went, carrying information, technology, and arms. Occasionally, a prisoner or recruit joined them, though both instances were rare. The return to civilization had to be carefully managed or it was doomed to fail.

Well before winter hit, two scouts had returned with the news of a valley in central Wyoming that seemed nearly untouched by destruction. Some amount of technology had been gathered together and put to use, and as best they could tell from their time observing, only two people inhabited it. A number of such places had been found in the time the scouts had been making their way across the wastelands, and in virtually every case the procedure was the same.

Twelve men, armed typically with blades and bows given the scarcity of ammunition, were sent to bring whatever technology they could salvage back to Mount Olympus. Often, it was taken by force and with some amount of bloodshed. Among those on Olympus, the justification was easy: All for the greater good.

It was for this reason that twelve men were camped just outside Calypso's valley, resting from their journey from deep inside Mount Olympus. They had walked for days, led by one of the scouts that had watched the couple on the first night they were together, and once arrived in the area had given themselves a couple days to rest up, and to plan their attack. Cortland's discovery of their campsite while outside of the valley hunting was not among their plans.

Living in the relative comfort of Olympus had made them loud and lazy, and they had no idea that a skilled and silent hunter watched them from a tree 50 yards to their west. Down wind, off the ground, and silent as he studied them for hours. Their intent wasn't clear, but he was unsettled by their presence. It was clear they were not traders, with no goods in site and far more weapons on each man than was typical for any traders he'd encountered. A hunting party from a nearby village seemed unlikely as well, given the volume with which the men spoke and moved about. Any hunting Cort had planned to do in the area was well ruined by them, and the same was very clearly true for any hunting they may have wished to do.

Silently, he slipped down from the tree and made a wide circle around them, watchful for others that had spread out from the main group until he was well back into the valley. Ordinarily coming back empty-handed would have bothered him, and perhaps been cause for concern that the wildlife around them was growing too thin. This time, it was a far different concern the sent him straight for where she worked in the garden.

"There are men nearby," he said as he reached her, adjusting the bow slung over his shoulder. "I don't know where they're from or what they want, but I don't have a good feeling. I counted 10 while I watched them, but I think there may be more."

His eyes scanned the rim of the valley as he spoke, though he didn't expect to see anyone even if they were out there. Alone, they'd be much more quiet and careful than when in a group. Unless they were complete fools.

"They may just stop and ask to stay in the valley overnight," he said, crouching next to her though his eyes remained roaming the edges of the valley for any hint of movement, "But we need to prepare in case they want something more."

His gaze settled on her then, his eyes focused on hers.

"Whatever they want, I promise you Calypso they will take nothing from this valley that they didn't arrive with. I ran once, but it will not happen again." He paused, and offered his hand to her. "I will defend you with my life, Calypso. You have my word."

She dressed with him and then, by mutual, silent, consent, they walked together. She listened to his words, absorbing both words and sound. The world he was describing was foreign to her. She remembered oft times begging her father to take her with him on one of his forays. He always denied her, of course.

“Calypso,” he use to say, “it’s ugly beyond our home and not something you’d readily understand. Once, the world was quite different. Looking back on it now, I still don’t understand how we got to this place in time. You’re safe here, little girl. Be content with that. Out there,” he use to wave his hand toward the cliff, “they would use you like an animal until there was nothing left of you and either kill you or leave you to die. They might even sell you to someone else if doing so got them something they wanted.”

She had asked him once what he meant by being used and he told her that she didn’t want to know. He didn’t want her to know. She was drawn back into the current time where Cortland was still talking. Calypso’s attention reverted back to the man at her side. She gazed at him. Watched as his eyes grew soft. He spoke of a girl who stayed by his side as he healed from his wounds. Yes, he had loved her, this unknown girl and loved her still. But betwixt then and now, so much had happened to him.

"But, there are time for more tales later. The moon is high, and the night is growing old. I hope it is not too forward of me to want to share your bed."

Calypso eyes dwelled upon him until his own met hers and he rose to stand, offering her his hand. There was a momentary pause before she slipped her own into his and got to her feet, a soft smile playing across her lips. Her own eyes soft in the silvery moonlight. For a millisecond of a moment, she had wished she had been that girl. Her fingers squeezed his. Then, it was gone. He was hers for this time they were granted with each other. He had found her and she had accepted him. That girl had been his past. She, Calypso, was his present and that’s all anyone could wish for. There wasn’t a promise of a tomorrow until it actually dawned.

“Not at all. You are most welcome to share my bed, Cortland.”

And my body. She added silently as they headed back inside for the night. She led him to her bedroom and closed the door behind them, sealing the world away until the morrow.

Days came and went. Cort was curious about things around her home and she explained them as her father had explained them to her. All too soon it was time to stock up for winter was coming. Her garden provided fruits and vegetables which she preserved as she had been taught to by her mother. The shelves in the kitchen were lined with jars that Calypso reused every year. A small room off the kitchen was used for hanging meats and such until they could be cut and frozen or smoked. Cort gathered and split wood to warm them through the cold of winter and for the smoking of certain meats she would do. Often times, she would pause to simply watch him working, admiring the way his muscles would ripple under his skin. Those times made her recall their nights together when she felt those muscles ripple under her fingertips as his body pumped into her own and they strained together to attain that peak of release from the lust and desire that motivated them.

Winter came and with it, the cold and the snow. Cortland had insured they had wood for the fireplace and many a night, they sat in front of the fire, reading or talking about this or that. There were evenings of making love in front of the fire as well. The room enclosed by darkness with only the firelight to flicker off the walls or skin shining in sweat. There were the times she wondered if the legs of the kitchen table were going to hold up. They did. Until the one time they paused when they heard a loud crack. Or there was the kitchen chair they broke.

Spring came eventually. The first opportunity they had to get outdoors, they took with eagerness. She dug in her flower beds, removing the weeds that wanted a new home. Cort set skins out to cure in the sun. He helped her with her gardens. Like a child, she threw dirt at him and he chased her around the yard until she snuck up on him and pushed him into the pond. Soaking wet, he came after her. Calypso ran away squealing until he caught her and wet clothes were peeled away and bodies warmed themselves under the sun and against each other. Each day turned warmer. And she waited for the day she knew would come.




A day came when he found her in the garden. The look in his eyes. The way he strode toward her, made her stand, wiping her hands on her shirt. The words he spoke were the last thing she had been expecting.

"There are men nearby. I don't know where they're from or what they want, but I don't have a good feeling. I counted 10 while I watched them, but I think there may be more. They may just stop and ask to stay in the valley overnight, but we need to prepare in case they want something more."

Her mind was already thinking as their eyes met. Her father had prepared for things like this. Until now, she had never had to worry.

“Whatever they want, I promise you Calypso they will take nothing from this valley that they didn't arrive with. I ran once, but it will not happen again. I will defend you with my life, Calypso. You have my word."

He offered her hand. She slipped hers into it and looked up into his face.

“I believe you, Cort. What are the chances that they’re friendly? Can we even take the chance that they are?”

The world he described to her as winter set in, all those questions she had asked and he had answered to the best of his ability, the portrait he had painted for her was not a pretty one. She had never had to fight for her own life before or fight to protect what was hers. Perhaps that time was now on the horizon and it frightened her.

So, they prepared. She took time to feel comfortable with the bow and arrows he had crafted for her. He had taught her to use that bow and it would have brought a smile to her lips to think of those lessons, if the situation about to face them wasn’t so grim. Calypso made snares and hid them in the field. The same field she had crossed to greet him when he had first found her. In the same field they had laid in and made love in among the tall grasses.

The rugged men from the world beyond her valley were going to invade her space and Calypso found she didn’t like the idea at all. Somehow, she knew her world was changing and it would never be the same again.