His hand touches her breast, curling his fingers about it delicately as if he fears he might somehow break it if he handles it too roughly. Against her fair skin, his darker hand contrasts like maple syrup upon snow. Eyes the color of wood that smolders redly from the fires banked within it look down at her where she lies pinned beneath him. Falling forward over his brow as he bends his head to place the moist heat of his mouth against her throat is a lock of hair so dark that it almost seems to sheen with a touch of blue-green as the candlelight hits it.

Dante.

Even in her dream, Elidi thinks the name in a worshipful tone. Dante. Dante. Her Dante. His touch. His mouth. The intensity of those eyes that reveal far more than he would like. Dante...

Dead.

Elidi's sleeping mind pictures him despite the horror of the thought. His body mangled on the field, left there to rot and be picked at by scavenging creatures like the other dead Velites. His face, beneath the ant that crawls across his nose, caught in an expression of grim pain even in death. Pain that throbs within her and rages against the words she saw that morning on a scroll delivered by a messenger:

Velite Cohor XIII obliterated. Unable to recover bodies. All presumed killed in action. Send further personnel support immediately.
- Acting Centurion Andronicus

Dante!

Anguish suffuses her. He cannot be gone. He cannot. Despite her promise to him to survive even if she heard new such as this, all she wants to do is run screaming into battle with sword in hand. Vengeance! Rage! A memory lances through the images of Varati falling beneath the edge of her blade. Another sort of pain. The feel of a crossbow bolt passing through her body like a white hot coal pushed by lightning. Cleansing pain. Pain that can end the numbness she knows is coming when it sinks in that he has left her and all that is left is to be Cassius' wife. No hope in that. She saw her husband's words.

Death.

As she fitfully sleeps, she dreams of it. Death descending like black-winged fire from the sky. She watches the world light up in flames, and despite the horror of such a defeat and what it might mean for her people... there is peace. Relief. Gratitude. It is over. She does not have to go back to Haven without Dante. She can see Aidoneus waiting for her and he is so much like her Dante that she cannot fear him. He is there, just past the blackened piece of earth where the world ends, cooling mists lazily swirling about him and partially obscuring him. Grim Aidoneus with eyes that are somehow gentle in one moment and then, after another swirl of the fog, the reassuring face of Dante. All she has to do is cross that line and join him. Them.

Proud Dante.

But he is not dead! How can he be dead? She can feel him. She can feel his mouth as it brushes against her skin. Feel his lips as they catch at her earlobe. Feel the heat-slick brush of his tongue in the little hollow behind her collarbone as he tastes her skin. Dante... Dante. His weight pressing against her, his heat pressing into her. Dante... Dante... All she has to do is open her eyes...

The ceiling is lost in darkness overhead, barely discernible in the golden glow of the few candles that yet burn. Ohhhh, the feel of him and the sweet friction of his motions. Her arms clasp him more tightly to her and as she lowers her chin to look at his dark head, she can see the sheen of his silvered hair.

Silvered hair.

White wings spread and block out the darkness of the ceiling, trembling as his hips move faster... faster... His breathing is labored and so is her own, the tempo of rushing air falling into matching rhythm that quickens. A groan escapes the man above her and he lifts his head to look at her with his pale blue eyes.

"Mine," he says.

And she wakes with a start, face wet.

FIN  

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