#earthrunes

Earl paints in his garret, and smiles now and then. A talkative sluagh girl nearby chatters excitedly about HER diary/journal, and her joy brings him delight as he gets the news.

"That's got to be so weird, though" he says as he paints. "like sorting through your own bones."

"Aye! What a rare opportunity!"

"I think you might be there. There was an artist..."

A pause, and look at her, "Truly? that's... I have had dreams sometimes after trips to the deep dreaming and the like. " A pause "Was the artist nice?"

"Oh sorry, you're not able read it fully yet"

"It is very delicate, I do not wish to manhandle it - the copy shall be for study."

"The artist, I remember. Enough to taunt."

"Do you not delight in the notion that, though Death may seperate, we can find those we love again and again?"

"I do delight in it" He looks her over "I can imagine her... you, slipping in the back alleyways, guiding the crowds past those goose steppers, soaking up knowledge from them like a sponge, pestering their rabbis for yet more and more details. I bet she was curious too." And then "And yes, I rather like the idea that you and I might grow old together in this life, and then meet and fall in love again"

A soft sigh. "Aye..."

A look over her "I wonder if in your next life you'll come back as a DeBuke and I'll come back Jewish" A smirk "American gothic farm girl desperate to hit the big city and I can be the charming urban city boy who corrupts you"

A little sniff. "Oh, but it is so much fun corrupting you."

"I confess," He says looking back at her now and then as he paints "It's fun being corrupted." A flicker of wolf grin, "Zara, I do believe you like the idea that you're the 'bad girl' and temptress"

"The 'Great Corrupter,' nu?" She stretches, languorously, on his bed.

The bed is huge, of course, and the style if it much more fashionable and fitting. She moves across it like a pale rain drop with a hint of moonlight in it

And yes, he looks back "You, my love, are a delightful distraction"

"Good." As smug as a cat.

He puts the brush away, after a good wipe. The painting half finished but he can get back to it, and he moves to her. Compared to her raindrop in moonlight he must seem like a rather abrupt glacier

A glacier, an oak, a boulder shaped by wind and rain... but one that welcomes her touch, cold and gentle.

"Is it wrong that I'm actually glad for the plague? " He says "Love in a time of COVID and all that? You and I can wander the world, while you do your studies online, and care for your library , visit your folks on holy days and more? The whole bit?"

"Aye. It has been a gift."

Earl takes one of her hands and kisses the inside of her wrist.

"You're the gift."

Zara smiles.

"Flattery... will you get very far, actually."

"I've dived fathoms into thy eyes, and my fingers have navigated the pale paths of your thighs, my mouth has measured every inch of your slender throat. Yet you are the journey I never tire of. Far I go, and I travel by river" Earl's eyes drink her in.

"Ah, my poet." Possessive.

A blush "Only seem to manage it when you're around, poetry I mean"

"So thy flowered words are min own private garden. A couplet here, a border of sonnets, a hedgerow in haiku..."

That gets a chuckle of him, "A hedgerow in Haiku, I think you're the one with a gift for words" then a look "Speaking of which" And he starts to kiss along her neck "When" Kiss "are " Kiss "you" Kiss " Going to share" Kiss behind the ear "And pursue this chance to publish now that it's in their hands anyway?"

"Fffft."

"Don't ffft me, " He says "I maybe a different sort of artist but I know talent." He pins her delightfully one arm at each side as he keeps kissing "You're good. Not just good tasting, but good at writing" a nother kiss "You should do it"

"I know not... it... they were not written with such in mind. Tis.. fanfiction. Scribbling."

"Hardly fan fiction, or are you going to tell me you wrote Edward Cullen and Vlad Tepes having a dance battle for king of the vampires while Scarlet O Hara and Isabella Linton each eagerly hope to become the bride of the winner?" a brow

"Nay... though, you know those awful fifty shades novels are Twilight fan-fiction?"

"I do, and you know, my respect for the Twilight author actually went up a bit. She was cool with it, remarkably so .. I still think Twilight is painful and a waste of a good title.." Biased "But I do prefer Poe and King.." A pause "Mostly Poe, King can be shameless"

"King is good for the proper mood. I fear he bears redcap, not sluagh, in his blood."

"I think you're right, an intellectual redcap kinain , but still redcap" A nod "he lacks the patience for sticking to the sublime and subtle for long." A finger along her "But you change the subject. You should try to publish. Use a pen name if you fear riddicule"

"That... well, I have so many names. What is another?"

"Aye, perhaps just so. What pen name do you hope to use then as you try to be published?" A kiss on her knuckles

"Mm.."

"something with a nod to your shadow? Who may have made it all possible? Or just a nod to her in the credits?"

"Talia, mayhaps. I always liked the sound of it..."

"Talia..." he nods "Very pretty. " Mischief in his eyes

"Surnames, though... hm."

"Mmm Talia Rivers?" A pondering

"Mmm.. mayhaps a specific one. Saône? Danube?"

"...Amur?"

"Talia Amur? Sounds exotic"