Legend

Suddenly, she was standing behind me, her gentle hands slowly gliding from my shoulders down my arms. My companion's breath was warm against the side of my neck, and I could once again very plainly smell the sweetness of the perfume she had worn for that evening.

"Sya..." she whispered, her voice uncharacteristically breathy and carrying an undertone of desire. That same desire was transmitted by her hands, both of them emitting the power of her love into my elbows and proceeding closer and closer to my hands. She was leaning against my back, the unmistakable swells of her breasts pressed against me.

And then her cool northerner lips met my neck, just above the collarbone, chilling me mercifully considering all the heat which had been trapped within the robe during the lengthy binding ceremony she and I had just facilitated. My breath caught in my throat, the chill more intense than usual as it crept through my body, tightening my nipples even further as it descended, ultimately making my clitoris throb and slightly ache from the coolness. When her hands finally reached mine, the full force of her love flowed into me in a rush of cold, almost as if a mountain waterfall refreshed from the melting winter snowpack was flowing into each hand, the iciness flowing up my arms and into my torso to spread throughout the rest of my body, a significant portion of that chill settling around my heart.

Zhuri's northern blood and magic had always had such an effect upon me, but in the years we had known each other, never had her magic been so deeply cold. It was certainly not a hypothermia type of cold, but it was definitely much more than her normal type of cold associated with holding a small piece of ice to one's exposed flesh. While her cool touch had long been associated in my mind with gentleness and intimacy, the extreme nature of the chill she instilled in me as her power surged into and through my body bordered on the erotic, even as it set my lower lip to quivering and forced me to use great willpower to prevent my teeth from chattering uncontrollably, and I could only guess that it was because it was her power, an integral part of her, that I felt so aroused by the utter cold flashing through my body.

As soon as she lifted her lips away from my neck, the chill subsided greatly. With wide eyes, completely forgetting about the man and the woman who had been embracing on the altar, I turned my head back, looking with wide-eyed amazement at my companion and finding her eyes were just as awestruck at what had just taken place between us. Yet we did not look at each other very long, for I turned around in my lover's arms and kissed her, hungrily.

The cold surged through me again, from my lips and down my neck and into the rest of my body. I shivered in Zhuri's arms, my fingertips instinctively curling through her robe and into her lower spine. She moaned into my mouth, shuddering as well before she pulled her lips away. "Too hot!" she gasped, panting into my neck. "You almost burn me..."

That was when it finally dawned on me: The couple on the altar truly was the couple of legend. The evident passion of their lovemaking, the power remaining around them without escaping through the top of the dome, the impressive and blinding light... It was all part of the legend finally becoming reality.

...and their way of bringing peace to the world appeared to increase the amount and the power of love which everyone already possessed.

It was the only thing which made sense to me, at least at that moment. For Zhuri's always-present chill to become so acute, for her to remark on my innate heat, our love had been augmented and manifested by our intrinsic temperature contrasts.

Quickly, I explained my theory to her, and Zhuri's eyes widened as the logic settled into her mind. Together, we both turned to look at the altar, and we found the couple was actually about to engage in lovemaking again. The woman was on her hands and knees, her head drooped to look back beneath her own body as the man knelt behind her, stroking himself briefly before aligning his sex with hers...

"This not part of ceremony," my companion softly noted in my ear. "Return?"

I knew what she meant: We should leave the couple alone on the altar, give them the privacy one would typically expect in such an intimate situation. My companion and I held hands, her coolness rising up my arm and my heat almost certainly affecting her in a similar manner as we left the clearing, the woman's first sounds of her renewed arousal reaching our ears. Part of my mind wondered just how long the couple would remain on the altar, making love again and again and again, and somehow, I hoped it would be forever, so that the world would only ever know peace, and would never again experience war.