centre of the universe - the dreaming: Libeccio

07/28/2008: "Libeccio" "It's windy, Marek," Maeve whispered as they clambered out of the trough. Her wet skin sparkled in the moonlight as the breeze plucked gooseflesh all along her arms.

"Of course it's windy," he yawned. He held her hand as they walked back to the house.

"It wasn't windy all day."

"I wasn't here all day." He reached over his shoulder and swatted at a mosquito. "Ow. Get that, please."

Maeve smacked him between the shoulder blades, not seeing any insect but loving the percussive crack her hand made as it met his skin. "What does your being here matter to the wind?"

He grunted and tugged the door open. "Nothing, I guess. Let's go to bed."

"I'll be in in a little while." He kissed her and tried to coax her into their bedroom, but she swatted his hands away. "I'm making tea," she said. "I'm not yet tired."

She listened in darkness for the stiff sigh of the mattress as he lay down, the whisper of the quilt he pulled up over his shoulder, the quiet groans of his sleepy breathing. In the summer kitchen, the water in the stove's reservoir would still be hot, and a tidy flick of her broom sent the tiny leather satchel scuttering across the floor. How much should she use? Remembering the man who'd given it to her, she dusted the bottom of one tin cup with two thimblefuls of the loose tea. It smelled terrible when it was dry, but as soon as she poured hot water over it from a ladle dunked in the reservoir, scents of clover and fresh rain. There was another scent as well, subtle, nearly unnoticeable...a cloying, musty smell.

The tea produced a heavy-lidded, needing-to-stretch feeling after just the one cup. Maeve slid under the sheet and curled into a foetal position, her back hot against her husband's. She dropped deeply into slumber with the lament of the wind rushing in her ears.

"Travel Plans" "The good, the bad, and the fire"

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