A Moment Away (Iris)

[Marcus Rufius Honorius Caesar]

Marcus kept his silence as he worked at the knots in Iris' back. As often as she softened him, he realized that she often had just as much work as he did--if not more--and never the time to enjoy herself away from it all. There were things about Iris that Marcus had come to admire, that he had come to expect and depend upon, that he had come to care for. Love was a strange word for him to grasp; he saw it more as responsibility, and he certainly felt responsible for her. It was a responsibility deeper than that between just a master and a slave. It was something more, but it had never been given words.

She talked then, as he pressed his fingers into her muscles and smoothed his palms over her curves. The more she spoke the more passionate his movements became until he found the spots that both brought out her voice and took it away at the same time. Iris fell silent and Marcus continued to work into her. "I cannot promise that I will be here forever," he said, a realist to the core. "I cannot promise that the next time I march out into battle won't be my last. I cannot promise that a dagger won't be waiting for me when we return to Rome after this war is over."

He paused, pushing his fingers into the tight muscles of her lower neck and then up toward the back of her skull. "I cannot make any promises over things that are out of my control," he continued, "but I can promise that what things I can control to keep us close, I will." Silence fell again, Caesar continuing the labor he had set himself to finishing. He moved his hands down her back, to her sides and wrapped them about her middle in another embrace, and then he pulled Iris back against his own body to hold her there. It was a rare thing for them to have time to express what they could not show anywhere else. It was a rare thing, indeed, for them to have a moment away from it all.

FINIS