This Dreaming State (Lover to Lover)

[selenias]

Title: This Dreaming State
Author: lavendre
Pairing: Rita/Raven
Rating: all audiences
Genre: R

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1890

Her legs, two clappers ~ in the bell of her dress, ~ as a girl she'd careen
the dance-hall floor, ~ the men swinging ~ like lanterns into her sight,
the band's syncopated ~ thunder loosening her joints,
playing her like a puppet ~ so that she became
a dummy of a girl ~ jimmied to the thrumming beat
of the salon's suspiration.

The Anatomy Theater Poems -Nadine Sabra Meyer

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In the steady crowds of a sovereign's affair, sometimes, if she listened, let her attention slip through her fingers, watched the fragile glass twisted in her hand illuminate a distant stranger of peculiar charms, she'd catch a glimpse of a shadow, of something that simply wasn't, of a mystery as curious as the fire burning within the hollow of her throat, and the slight ache in the back of her skull.

Sometimes, the shadow would bow, sultry limbs cast in dire gray, its traditional greeting and coy smile an image bold enough to be painted upon canvas, in curious broad and clean strokes of the brush, a palette of pale and ghostly colors; a brief throwing of the arm, spine curled down, neck arched, legs swept back beneath his spectral from, palm up and fingers splayed, as if to say, do you dare?

would you care? do you mind this address? this camouflage I wear?

And sometimes, when the nights were in their adolescent stages, and the mind still soft and fragile, and velvet was strewn across the floor, and the décor shined like artificial rubies in the chandelier's cloaked warmth, and the music was ripe and the laughter was loud, and the room smelled of sweat and honeyed fruits baked into the walls like a summer's bright afternoons; a sweeping of her own calf, a curtsy, and the shadow, in all its weariness and eschewed boredom, would step forth, resound across the universe, sultry palms and crisp evening wear a blush upon the flesh of her own as he graced her, and with all the allegiance and propriety of a ballet dancer, the balls of her feet a platform for which to move, she'd allow herself to be taken about the room, reluctantly, slowly, as if, this was a mere bribe and not the truth that tongue did speak.

This shadow, who saw all, wandered, floated, in a dreaming state, down the hallways and winding staircases, across the flourished corridors decked in charcoal and crimson curtains, out upon the balcony, where the air caressed her face and drew back the layers hiding his, and eyes smiled, as if, beneath this spectral, lied a man, a being of flesh and blood, a recognizable but incomprehensible truth, and the soft mist that was the stranger evaporated before her newly sharpened gaze.

An old friend he'd greet her, lips lifted, eyes soft, fading softly, mane turned to starlight, the night shedding its clothes of old, soft cotton descending like a cloak, and slowly, softly, gently, sinking, he gifted her with his shadow, and this new skin was fitting, like a slipper or a quilt, or an internal organ of the chest, she found, as she embraced it like a boon.

He'd draw her close, and she, feet heavy, and ankles tangled like a yarn of old, gently, gently now, a noise, deep from his throat emerged, a guttural language and accent thick and heavy like cream, a smile, a goodbye, whispers from the larynx, and she, none the wiser, a spoken language of old that sloshed around and around her ears, beneath thinning lashes, and beneath silver hair, eyes of an older woman glanced up, youth's lines fading–

And the ghost smiled, brushing a strand from her cheek, and, drawing his furbished coat softly from her shoulders, a wisp of smoke guiding his footing, he drew away into the silence that was the early dawning, leaving a trail of stars in his wake.

you always were one for dares... weren't you, darlin'?