"I found this place through the satellite images of earth that one can view on the internet." Ghaelvord said.
"It is beautiful." Shenouda replied.
The moonlight lit up her face. It made her eyes glow with pale blue light. She sat on a rock overlooking a cliff overlooking a chaotically rushing river far down below. Moonbeams refracted brilliantly off of the waves and crests of water far below. Shenouda stood and walked to the edge of the cliff. She closed her eyes and felt the thrill of the wind pressing against her skin. The sheer height gave her a rush. She felt so strong in her new body that she thought she could jump off, grab an overhanging shrub, and climb back to the plateau at the top.
"I could just dive in." She said.
"Why not?" Ghaelvord asked rhetorically.
"I could you know. I can do a great many things." She paused for a moment. Her eyes dropped. Then she went on, "I had a life before. What am I now?"
“I will not lie to you. You lost something. I believe that I myself lost that same thing long ago. In time, you will find that you can live without it. It is weakness and it is unbecoming. When you find that your opportunities are limitless, you will forget. That is what happens when the prospect of death becomes a speck on the horizon. You begin to truly live.”
"I never wanted anything before. I was happy working at the digsite... after I ran away from my home." Shenouda said.
"What about me?" Ghaelvord asked. “Are you happy with me?”
Shenouda paused to think. She felt drawn to his dark charm, but from deep in her heart she felt an emptiness in him. It frightened her, not physically, but psychically.
"Yes." She replied softly and honestly. Then she looked at the ground, “I think so.”
“Good. Let us start with that.” Ghaelvord said in his cool voice.
He joined her on the edge of the precipice. She wrapped her arms around his midsection and looked out across the void in front of her. She languidly let herself slip off the edge. As she fell she closed her eyes. She let the adrenaline rush through her. She felt the wind whip her hair back. She opened her eyes and caught a glimpse of the chaotic water rushing toward her. Then she turned and grabbed the first thing she saw. It was a root from a bush sticking out from the side of the face of the cliff. It slowed her fall. She kept grabbing and found a sure grip. She smiled wide and laughed at the sheer exhilaration of it. She did not know who she was anymore. She just let go her inhibitions. What was the alternative?
In a moment, she heard sound behind her. She turned and saw Ghaelvord falling toward the river. A puzzled look dawned across her face. He hit the water with a splash and disappeared. She did not know if he was alive or dead. She balanced delicately, yet easily on a tree branch overhanging the rift. From her perch, she watched the water begin to boil. A swirling vortex opened up amidst the mist. A familiar pale, bald, yet strong figure burst from the vortex and launched itself onto the cliff wall. The figure grappled with the meager footing on the cliff’s face. Somehow, he found traction. He began to climb.
She watched him limber about from foothold to foothold. He moved nimbly. As he neared her perch she held out her hand to pull him up. He stopped his ascension, looked at the hand, smiled, and vanished. A wave of smoke appeared and blew past Shenouda. She cringed in anticipation of the acrid smell, but instead she merely noticed a warm breeze coarse through her long black hair and smelled the faint and slightly pleasant aroma of something akin to mesquite or hickory. The smoke gathered above her and a familiar figure materialized clinging to the cliff face. His piercing eyes gazed down at her. The grey around the edges gave character to their sharp blue color. He held out his hand. She took it and felt herself flung upwards. As she flew through the air, she saw an edge to the rock wall. She grasped it and hoisted herself up onto the ledge. As she looked about, she found that the ledge was a large cleft in the side of the cliff. It was a cave overlooking a platform overlooking the great valley and the rushing river down below. The view would have taken her breath away if she had any.
In a moment, Ghaelvord hoisted himself up onto the ledge beside her. His gigantic form towered above her. They silently looked out across the vast expanse of emptiness with the intricate living jungle floor beneath it. Shenouda climbed onto Ghaelvord’s lap and kissed him deeply and longingly.
“Should I thank you?” She whispered.
“If that is what you want.” He responded.
Shenouda wanted so badly to trust him, to love him. She grew up believing that everything would be alright. She grew up thinking that nothing bad would ever happen to her, maybe to others, but never her. Even her hard life and the pain of her mother’s illness never took these foundational beliefs from her. When she left her home those many years ago, she counted herself blessed by finding the digsite kitchen job. Working for a well-run and well-funded foreign enterprise was an opportunity that few of the denizens of the Cairo slums received. Because of this premise of her belief system, she could not accept her new life as anything other than good. She fiercely tried to believe in the truth of the goodness of her new life.
“Stand by me Shenouda. I adore you. I dream about you at night and wake up thinking about you.” He stroked her hair. “Your features remind me of someone that I knew long ago, a goddess. She had a boundless zest for life. I found it intoxicating.”
“What happened to her?” Shenouda asked. She felt a twinge of jealousy at the mention of another woman.
“She was too much for this world. She had an abundance of spirit that led to her downfall at the hands of the drab and the uninspired, the imperious and the oppressive, the Aldenduenum, but dear, that is a story for another time. Tonight is about you. You are a gleaming beacon of hope for us. Your eyes sparkle in the moonlight.”
She smiled and ran her fingers down his chest. She had mixed feelings. On the one hand, she felt pure exhilaration and ecstasy. On the other, she felt a brooding nameless fear.
“Tonight, I am yours.” She said.
Ghaelvord stood up, scooped Shenouda up into his capable arms, and carried her into the cave.