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Hypatia had never before felt the dichotomy of emotions that she felt now. It was a strange concoction that had her feeling almost... bubbly inside. As if she were a mixture set to boil and enjoying the bouncing, gurgling sensations beneath her skin.
Firstly, there was discomfort. An emotion she was occasionally privy to when held in a social event that she felt unprepared for. Possibly because the company was that far greater than her own or because her sister and mother were in their usual full force of social alacrity and she was left to decorate a corner with a smile of calm uselessness upon her face. Yet she had never felt the sensation on a physical level.
Walking along the streets of Israel, Hypatia almost tripped for what felt like the dozenth time upon the hem of the simlah she wore. A Hebrew garment of thick cloth, it was warm and cosy and, due to the fact that it belonged to Jael, dwarfed her to a degree of extremity. Unlike her Grecian chitons, which flowed and floated on the air in silken waves so light that the simple passage of her body through air lifted them from beneath her feet and saw to the creation of an open path before each step... the simlah was thicker and slooped about her feet, stubborn against the wayward breeze of movement and frequently becoming trapped beneath her sandals, around her ankles and, occasionally between her toes.
It was this that occurred on her next step and caused her to pause in the middle of the street and shake out her foot in order to dislodge the material from beneath the kid strap of her shoe. In doing so, Hypatia glanced about in order to ensure that she was not witnessed in her awkwardness but this earlier in the morning the only signs of life came from within the buildings rather than outside. Yet, she was observant enough to spot the stocking socks that Jael wore beneath her own full Judean garb and wondered if that might be the reason for them: The avoidance of awkward toe entrapment.
Settling herself back on two legs, Hypatia re-wrapped the outer layer of Hebrew attire around her little frame. Beneath it, she wore her own classical Grecian gown - one of vibrant orange that morphed into tones of peachy yellow across the bustline and around its hem. Golden fibulae kept the chiton in place above each of her shoulders and her sandals were a shining sunshine tone to match. A braided gold belt was cinched around her waist to give the impression of an impossibly small being - for she had little curves to speak of and her petite thinness was one of the few elements of her visage that made her femininely fragile. Given that a himation was too bulky to fit beneath the outerwear, Hypatia had - instead - donned a thin epiblema of gauzy yellow that hung around her back and over each elbow. She had no fear of the piece falling from beneath her Judean shell, however, for she had to keep her arms raised and bent - trapping the epiblema in place - if she was to hold the simlah across her front. The long and snowy white cloth felt like some sort of wedding shroud as she folded it across her chest and held it in around her waist, her hands hidden in the folds of large and white sleeves.
The garment was heavy on her shoulders and made her feel embraced and cosy. But it was weightier than anything she normally wore and almost had her walking funny under its structure and shape. Not to mention the way in which she was regularly stepping on the edging and risking colliding her nose with the ground. So, in total, it was warm but cumbersome.
The headscarf, on the other hand, was just frustrating in all ways. She had struggled in vain to fasten the garment around her head in a way that did not disturb her hair or the powders upon her face. How Judean ladies were expected to wear one at all times when out of doors and yet maintain a polished and ladylike appearance within their homes or that of whom they were visiting was beyond her.
Luckily - or perhaps unfortunately, depending on how it might appear to those around her with a discerning eye - Hypatia had been unable to dress and formulate herself with the same level of grace and detail as she might normally. So early a start in the morning - an hour or so before sunrise - had seen her unable to summon ladies’ maids or servants to her care for the morning ablutions. For, were she to do so, her mother would surely here of such arrangements and wonder at her early start? Naive it might have been but Hypatia was hoping to be able to return to the estate quietly enough that she might be able to plead the need for a cup of water as to why she had left her room at all...
Europa need not know her second born daughter's ventures beyond the walls of the city...
For despite the fact that, on a technical basis Hypatia was doing nothing wrong, she suspected that her mother would not share such an opinion.
Swallowing, her throat moving softly against the collar of the simlah, Hypatia sped up her step just a little as if in fear that she would be noticed on the streets by the woman herself, her stride dogged by Jael behind her. She turned to smile at the woman apologetically for the young lady carried her class supplies so that she might hold tight her disguise. As she moved to check on the servant, her headscarf shifting over her face, likely sending her uncurled and uncultured hair into a frizzy mess of vibrant energy. It was hot and stuffy inside the veil and she knew that she would gasp in pleasure to have it stripped from her face by the time they reached the olive grove that was their destination.
A thrill sparked in her chest.
For that was the countering dichotomy to her feelings that morning.
As the sun broke over the furthest burnished edge of the city streets announcing that she was soon to be late to the meeting her tutor had arranged, Hypatia felt a zing of current in her limbs and muscles that set her feet moving, heedless of the trip hazards before her and her lips widening into a private smile behind her veil.
It had been just over a week now since she had last seen Isaiah - a longer period between lessons than usual. But she hadn't found herself lonely of his company. Instead of feeling his absence, she had thought upon him several times. When something had occurred that made her smile or laugh, she had thought about telling him. When she had found her lessons in etiquette frustrating and her tutor impatient with her petulance her ears had heard Isaiah's calming voice and her heart wished for a different lesson in a different place.
She had noticed a strange sort of phenomenon when such thoughts had invaded her mind, drifting into her thoughts... With the image of Isaiah's face came a slight lifting of her shoulders, a lowering of her jaw... her back curled just a little and she found herself moving into a soft, fragile and almost defensive position. As if she were the old fat cat in their stables at home curling into a ball ready to be petted. A tension of awaited pleasure.
Feeling her cheeks heat, Hypatia cleared her throat, shook such daydreams from before her eyes and turned her focus on where she was going. For the gates that led out of Israel and down towards the open orchards beyond were just in sight...
By the time Hypatia and her now faithful servant Jael reached their destination, Hypatia felt almost grubby. With the sun hot overhead, the mitz-mitzpa…. The shawl that she wore around her head had set her skin burning in a cocoon of heat. Her shoulders, by comparison, felt as if to ache for the warmth of the sunshine, shielded and sheltered beneath the heavy simlah. Her feet were dusty – as was the ends of the white garment that she pulled tightly around herself – and one was smarting from where she had caught it and bent it back in the creased hemline. She knew from the dark reflection of her shadow that little strands of her hair had tufted their way free of the wrappings of the headscarf and stood proudly in sprouts of unruliness. With no real powders on her face and what little there might have been eroded by the material over her features… no real design twisted within her hair and her finery in clothes and jewels hidden in a simple Judean cloak, Hypatia felt a small bout of concern…
For Isaiah would not care for such things… would he?
This character is currently a work in progress.
Check out their information page here.
This character is currently a work in progress.
Check out their information page here.
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Hypatia had never before felt the dichotomy of emotions that she felt now. It was a strange concoction that had her feeling almost... bubbly inside. As if she were a mixture set to boil and enjoying the bouncing, gurgling sensations beneath her skin.
Firstly, there was discomfort. An emotion she was occasionally privy to when held in a social event that she felt unprepared for. Possibly because the company was that far greater than her own or because her sister and mother were in their usual full force of social alacrity and she was left to decorate a corner with a smile of calm uselessness upon her face. Yet she had never felt the sensation on a physical level.
Walking along the streets of Israel, Hypatia almost tripped for what felt like the dozenth time upon the hem of the simlah she wore. A Hebrew garment of thick cloth, it was warm and cosy and, due to the fact that it belonged to Jael, dwarfed her to a degree of extremity. Unlike her Grecian chitons, which flowed and floated on the air in silken waves so light that the simple passage of her body through air lifted them from beneath her feet and saw to the creation of an open path before each step... the simlah was thicker and slooped about her feet, stubborn against the wayward breeze of movement and frequently becoming trapped beneath her sandals, around her ankles and, occasionally between her toes.
It was this that occurred on her next step and caused her to pause in the middle of the street and shake out her foot in order to dislodge the material from beneath the kid strap of her shoe. In doing so, Hypatia glanced about in order to ensure that she was not witnessed in her awkwardness but this earlier in the morning the only signs of life came from within the buildings rather than outside. Yet, she was observant enough to spot the stocking socks that Jael wore beneath her own full Judean garb and wondered if that might be the reason for them: The avoidance of awkward toe entrapment.
Settling herself back on two legs, Hypatia re-wrapped the outer layer of Hebrew attire around her little frame. Beneath it, she wore her own classical Grecian gown - one of vibrant orange that morphed into tones of peachy yellow across the bustline and around its hem. Golden fibulae kept the chiton in place above each of her shoulders and her sandals were a shining sunshine tone to match. A braided gold belt was cinched around her waist to give the impression of an impossibly small being - for she had little curves to speak of and her petite thinness was one of the few elements of her visage that made her femininely fragile. Given that a himation was too bulky to fit beneath the outerwear, Hypatia had - instead - donned a thin epiblema of gauzy yellow that hung around her back and over each elbow. She had no fear of the piece falling from beneath her Judean shell, however, for she had to keep her arms raised and bent - trapping the epiblema in place - if she was to hold the simlah across her front. The long and snowy white cloth felt like some sort of wedding shroud as she folded it across her chest and held it in around her waist, her hands hidden in the folds of large and white sleeves.
The garment was heavy on her shoulders and made her feel embraced and cosy. But it was weightier than anything she normally wore and almost had her walking funny under its structure and shape. Not to mention the way in which she was regularly stepping on the edging and risking colliding her nose with the ground. So, in total, it was warm but cumbersome.
The headscarf, on the other hand, was just frustrating in all ways. She had struggled in vain to fasten the garment around her head in a way that did not disturb her hair or the powders upon her face. How Judean ladies were expected to wear one at all times when out of doors and yet maintain a polished and ladylike appearance within their homes or that of whom they were visiting was beyond her.
Luckily - or perhaps unfortunately, depending on how it might appear to those around her with a discerning eye - Hypatia had been unable to dress and formulate herself with the same level of grace and detail as she might normally. So early a start in the morning - an hour or so before sunrise - had seen her unable to summon ladies’ maids or servants to her care for the morning ablutions. For, were she to do so, her mother would surely here of such arrangements and wonder at her early start? Naive it might have been but Hypatia was hoping to be able to return to the estate quietly enough that she might be able to plead the need for a cup of water as to why she had left her room at all...
Europa need not know her second born daughter's ventures beyond the walls of the city...
For despite the fact that, on a technical basis Hypatia was doing nothing wrong, she suspected that her mother would not share such an opinion.
Swallowing, her throat moving softly against the collar of the simlah, Hypatia sped up her step just a little as if in fear that she would be noticed on the streets by the woman herself, her stride dogged by Jael behind her. She turned to smile at the woman apologetically for the young lady carried her class supplies so that she might hold tight her disguise. As she moved to check on the servant, her headscarf shifting over her face, likely sending her uncurled and uncultured hair into a frizzy mess of vibrant energy. It was hot and stuffy inside the veil and she knew that she would gasp in pleasure to have it stripped from her face by the time they reached the olive grove that was their destination.
A thrill sparked in her chest.
For that was the countering dichotomy to her feelings that morning.
As the sun broke over the furthest burnished edge of the city streets announcing that she was soon to be late to the meeting her tutor had arranged, Hypatia felt a zing of current in her limbs and muscles that set her feet moving, heedless of the trip hazards before her and her lips widening into a private smile behind her veil.
It had been just over a week now since she had last seen Isaiah - a longer period between lessons than usual. But she hadn't found herself lonely of his company. Instead of feeling his absence, she had thought upon him several times. When something had occurred that made her smile or laugh, she had thought about telling him. When she had found her lessons in etiquette frustrating and her tutor impatient with her petulance her ears had heard Isaiah's calming voice and her heart wished for a different lesson in a different place.
She had noticed a strange sort of phenomenon when such thoughts had invaded her mind, drifting into her thoughts... With the image of Isaiah's face came a slight lifting of her shoulders, a lowering of her jaw... her back curled just a little and she found herself moving into a soft, fragile and almost defensive position. As if she were the old fat cat in their stables at home curling into a ball ready to be petted. A tension of awaited pleasure.
Feeling her cheeks heat, Hypatia cleared her throat, shook such daydreams from before her eyes and turned her focus on where she was going. For the gates that led out of Israel and down towards the open orchards beyond were just in sight...
By the time Hypatia and her now faithful servant Jael reached their destination, Hypatia felt almost grubby. With the sun hot overhead, the mitz-mitzpa…. The shawl that she wore around her head had set her skin burning in a cocoon of heat. Her shoulders, by comparison, felt as if to ache for the warmth of the sunshine, shielded and sheltered beneath the heavy simlah. Her feet were dusty – as was the ends of the white garment that she pulled tightly around herself – and one was smarting from where she had caught it and bent it back in the creased hemline. She knew from the dark reflection of her shadow that little strands of her hair had tufted their way free of the wrappings of the headscarf and stood proudly in sprouts of unruliness. With no real powders on her face and what little there might have been eroded by the material over her features… no real design twisted within her hair and her finery in clothes and jewels hidden in a simple Judean cloak, Hypatia felt a small bout of concern…
For Isaiah would not care for such things… would he?
Hypatia had never before felt the dichotomy of emotions that she felt now. It was a strange concoction that had her feeling almost... bubbly inside. As if she were a mixture set to boil and enjoying the bouncing, gurgling sensations beneath her skin.
Firstly, there was discomfort. An emotion she was occasionally privy to when held in a social event that she felt unprepared for. Possibly because the company was that far greater than her own or because her sister and mother were in their usual full force of social alacrity and she was left to decorate a corner with a smile of calm uselessness upon her face. Yet she had never felt the sensation on a physical level.
Walking along the streets of Israel, Hypatia almost tripped for what felt like the dozenth time upon the hem of the simlah she wore. A Hebrew garment of thick cloth, it was warm and cosy and, due to the fact that it belonged to Jael, dwarfed her to a degree of extremity. Unlike her Grecian chitons, which flowed and floated on the air in silken waves so light that the simple passage of her body through air lifted them from beneath her feet and saw to the creation of an open path before each step... the simlah was thicker and slooped about her feet, stubborn against the wayward breeze of movement and frequently becoming trapped beneath her sandals, around her ankles and, occasionally between her toes.
It was this that occurred on her next step and caused her to pause in the middle of the street and shake out her foot in order to dislodge the material from beneath the kid strap of her shoe. In doing so, Hypatia glanced about in order to ensure that she was not witnessed in her awkwardness but this earlier in the morning the only signs of life came from within the buildings rather than outside. Yet, she was observant enough to spot the stocking socks that Jael wore beneath her own full Judean garb and wondered if that might be the reason for them: The avoidance of awkward toe entrapment.
Settling herself back on two legs, Hypatia re-wrapped the outer layer of Hebrew attire around her little frame. Beneath it, she wore her own classical Grecian gown - one of vibrant orange that morphed into tones of peachy yellow across the bustline and around its hem. Golden fibulae kept the chiton in place above each of her shoulders and her sandals were a shining sunshine tone to match. A braided gold belt was cinched around her waist to give the impression of an impossibly small being - for she had little curves to speak of and her petite thinness was one of the few elements of her visage that made her femininely fragile. Given that a himation was too bulky to fit beneath the outerwear, Hypatia had - instead - donned a thin epiblema of gauzy yellow that hung around her back and over each elbow. She had no fear of the piece falling from beneath her Judean shell, however, for she had to keep her arms raised and bent - trapping the epiblema in place - if she was to hold the simlah across her front. The long and snowy white cloth felt like some sort of wedding shroud as she folded it across her chest and held it in around her waist, her hands hidden in the folds of large and white sleeves.
The garment was heavy on her shoulders and made her feel embraced and cosy. But it was weightier than anything she normally wore and almost had her walking funny under its structure and shape. Not to mention the way in which she was regularly stepping on the edging and risking colliding her nose with the ground. So, in total, it was warm but cumbersome.
The headscarf, on the other hand, was just frustrating in all ways. She had struggled in vain to fasten the garment around her head in a way that did not disturb her hair or the powders upon her face. How Judean ladies were expected to wear one at all times when out of doors and yet maintain a polished and ladylike appearance within their homes or that of whom they were visiting was beyond her.
Luckily - or perhaps unfortunately, depending on how it might appear to those around her with a discerning eye - Hypatia had been unable to dress and formulate herself with the same level of grace and detail as she might normally. So early a start in the morning - an hour or so before sunrise - had seen her unable to summon ladies’ maids or servants to her care for the morning ablutions. For, were she to do so, her mother would surely here of such arrangements and wonder at her early start? Naive it might have been but Hypatia was hoping to be able to return to the estate quietly enough that she might be able to plead the need for a cup of water as to why she had left her room at all...
Europa need not know her second born daughter's ventures beyond the walls of the city...
For despite the fact that, on a technical basis Hypatia was doing nothing wrong, she suspected that her mother would not share such an opinion.
Swallowing, her throat moving softly against the collar of the simlah, Hypatia sped up her step just a little as if in fear that she would be noticed on the streets by the woman herself, her stride dogged by Jael behind her. She turned to smile at the woman apologetically for the young lady carried her class supplies so that she might hold tight her disguise. As she moved to check on the servant, her headscarf shifting over her face, likely sending her uncurled and uncultured hair into a frizzy mess of vibrant energy. It was hot and stuffy inside the veil and she knew that she would gasp in pleasure to have it stripped from her face by the time they reached the olive grove that was their destination.
A thrill sparked in her chest.
For that was the countering dichotomy to her feelings that morning.
As the sun broke over the furthest burnished edge of the city streets announcing that she was soon to be late to the meeting her tutor had arranged, Hypatia felt a zing of current in her limbs and muscles that set her feet moving, heedless of the trip hazards before her and her lips widening into a private smile behind her veil.
It had been just over a week now since she had last seen Isaiah - a longer period between lessons than usual. But she hadn't found herself lonely of his company. Instead of feeling his absence, she had thought upon him several times. When something had occurred that made her smile or laugh, she had thought about telling him. When she had found her lessons in etiquette frustrating and her tutor impatient with her petulance her ears had heard Isaiah's calming voice and her heart wished for a different lesson in a different place.
She had noticed a strange sort of phenomenon when such thoughts had invaded her mind, drifting into her thoughts... With the image of Isaiah's face came a slight lifting of her shoulders, a lowering of her jaw... her back curled just a little and she found herself moving into a soft, fragile and almost defensive position. As if she were the old fat cat in their stables at home curling into a ball ready to be petted. A tension of awaited pleasure.
Feeling her cheeks heat, Hypatia cleared her throat, shook such daydreams from before her eyes and turned her focus on where she was going. For the gates that led out of Israel and down towards the open orchards beyond were just in sight...
By the time Hypatia and her now faithful servant Jael reached their destination, Hypatia felt almost grubby. With the sun hot overhead, the mitz-mitzpa…. The shawl that she wore around her head had set her skin burning in a cocoon of heat. Her shoulders, by comparison, felt as if to ache for the warmth of the sunshine, shielded and sheltered beneath the heavy simlah. Her feet were dusty – as was the ends of the white garment that she pulled tightly around herself – and one was smarting from where she had caught it and bent it back in the creased hemline. She knew from the dark reflection of her shadow that little strands of her hair had tufted their way free of the wrappings of the headscarf and stood proudly in sprouts of unruliness. With no real powders on her face and what little there might have been eroded by the material over her features… no real design twisted within her hair and her finery in clothes and jewels hidden in a simple Judean cloak, Hypatia felt a small bout of concern…
For Isaiah would not care for such things… would he?
Having waited for this moment for the last seven days, having thought of it whilst eating the evening meal, while sitting in temple and half listening to the priest reading from the scrolls, from dreamily falling asleep at night imagining Hypatia’s face, Isaiah was walking on air as he made his way to the bath house. He woke long before his family, was the first one to use the bath house and met no one on the way home. Plans for the lesson swirled in his mind as he walked in the front door. He had to keep his hand under the door handle and keep it pressed up so that the door wouldn’t creak on its hinges as he closed it. For a few moments, he looked up at the ceiling, listening for movements. Only silence greeted him and then the pitiful wails of his hungry nephew.
The floor creaked as Rebekah got out of bed to care for him. Isaiah smiled to himself. Any noise would now be attributed to his sister in law and nephew. It was as though Yahweh was smiling down on his plan to see Hypatia. Not that Yahweh would approve. Isaiah wasn’t naive enough to assume that, but Yahweh did love kindness. This was simply a kindness.
His mother was nothing if not a wonderful cook and she usually had the foresight to have some food ready for in the morning so that her day wasn’t quite so hectic. Isaiah found where she’d stashed a few apples in a bowl, took a bit of stale, leftover bread, and some cured lamb that rounded out his breakfast, and headed back out into the street. If not for the buildings in the way, he’d have been able to see the mount where the olive trees grew. It wasn’t until he’d navigated several narrow streets, crossing under archways of stone that he saw the first hint of a tree bough against the watery blue sky.
Isaiah bit into his apple, savoring the juices on his tongue as he swept along the dirt path leading him to the base of the hill. Already the cool night air was dissipating, bringing on a steady heat in its wake. Isaiah tossed the apple core aside as he made his way up the steep, curving trail and started on the lamb rolled up inside the bread. Even without the prospect of seeing Hannah in less than half an hour, this walk was one of his favorites. It was quiet and the gnarled trunks of the olive trees never failed to interest him. This hillside was a pretty one this time of year, full of grasses and flowers, as well as comfortable sitting spots beneath the shade of the trees.
He veered off the main path, striking out toward his family’s plot and settled at the roots of a tree he often used when he wanted to look out over the city and have time to reflect on his own. This particular tree had a rounded groove in the trunk that gave it an almost chairlike quality. If Isaiah were to place down a cushion, he’d be the most comfortable man on the mount, though, now that he’d thought of it, he did wish that those little creature comforts hadn’t slipped his mind. Sitting in the dirt was nothing to him but Hypatia’s delicate dresses wouldn’t do well out here. In fact, as he thought of her in the elegant rooms of marble and alabaster, it was hard to picture her sitting on the earth at all. She was practically a queen and deserved a throne…
Isaiah shrugged out of his outer robe and laid it out beside him, smoothing out the corners to be sure that it was suitable. He stood, looking down at it, now realizing it was less than suitable - it was sad. What a pathetic thing to offer her. Not a blanket. Not a cushion. His coat. Resolving within himself to apologize profusely, he turned when he heard dirt crunching under sandals and little pebbles tumbling back down the side of the hill.
He managed not to whirl around too quickly, but what confronted him was just as confusing as it must be for Hypatia to see him in a simple robe without the outer, more elaborate covering overtop. Use to seeing her in a confection of delicate fabrics and pagan powders, with her gorgeous hair on full display, this muted, almost lumpy figure was a bit of a shock to the system. Isaiah smiled and frowned in slight confusion, but chose not to actually comment on it because he was suddenly struck with the intoxicating idea that she might be coming to tell him she was converting to Judaism. His head swam and he gestured towards his coat.
Somewhere between settling at the base of the tree with her, and trying not to stare, he thought he might have made some kind of apology but he wasn’t totally sure what that had come out like. He was growing used to being a flustered idiot in her presence, especially because he was less confused and more enamoured. Their sessions had finally found a sense of normalcy but the clandestine nature of this one had twisted it back on itself and left him feeling almost proud that she would risk coming out early to see him. For Isaiah had long since dismissed her interest in the language as not tied to himself. There were too many signs to indicate that he was at least part of the reason, which was as intoxicating as everything else. The woman he would have chosen if not for a few critical details liked him in return. It was too tempting to not cherish that thought. Though he shouldn’t, he did think about her all the time.
Would they actually get married? Of course not. Would he even offer? Absolutely not. She was pagan. Would she accept even if he did ask? No way. He was too poor. But did that stop him from thinking her the most beautiful creature to walk upon Yahweh’s earth? Never.
This character is currently a work in progress.
Check out their information page here.
This character is currently a work in progress.
Check out their information page here.
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Having waited for this moment for the last seven days, having thought of it whilst eating the evening meal, while sitting in temple and half listening to the priest reading from the scrolls, from dreamily falling asleep at night imagining Hypatia’s face, Isaiah was walking on air as he made his way to the bath house. He woke long before his family, was the first one to use the bath house and met no one on the way home. Plans for the lesson swirled in his mind as he walked in the front door. He had to keep his hand under the door handle and keep it pressed up so that the door wouldn’t creak on its hinges as he closed it. For a few moments, he looked up at the ceiling, listening for movements. Only silence greeted him and then the pitiful wails of his hungry nephew.
The floor creaked as Rebekah got out of bed to care for him. Isaiah smiled to himself. Any noise would now be attributed to his sister in law and nephew. It was as though Yahweh was smiling down on his plan to see Hypatia. Not that Yahweh would approve. Isaiah wasn’t naive enough to assume that, but Yahweh did love kindness. This was simply a kindness.
His mother was nothing if not a wonderful cook and she usually had the foresight to have some food ready for in the morning so that her day wasn’t quite so hectic. Isaiah found where she’d stashed a few apples in a bowl, took a bit of stale, leftover bread, and some cured lamb that rounded out his breakfast, and headed back out into the street. If not for the buildings in the way, he’d have been able to see the mount where the olive trees grew. It wasn’t until he’d navigated several narrow streets, crossing under archways of stone that he saw the first hint of a tree bough against the watery blue sky.
Isaiah bit into his apple, savoring the juices on his tongue as he swept along the dirt path leading him to the base of the hill. Already the cool night air was dissipating, bringing on a steady heat in its wake. Isaiah tossed the apple core aside as he made his way up the steep, curving trail and started on the lamb rolled up inside the bread. Even without the prospect of seeing Hannah in less than half an hour, this walk was one of his favorites. It was quiet and the gnarled trunks of the olive trees never failed to interest him. This hillside was a pretty one this time of year, full of grasses and flowers, as well as comfortable sitting spots beneath the shade of the trees.
He veered off the main path, striking out toward his family’s plot and settled at the roots of a tree he often used when he wanted to look out over the city and have time to reflect on his own. This particular tree had a rounded groove in the trunk that gave it an almost chairlike quality. If Isaiah were to place down a cushion, he’d be the most comfortable man on the mount, though, now that he’d thought of it, he did wish that those little creature comforts hadn’t slipped his mind. Sitting in the dirt was nothing to him but Hypatia’s delicate dresses wouldn’t do well out here. In fact, as he thought of her in the elegant rooms of marble and alabaster, it was hard to picture her sitting on the earth at all. She was practically a queen and deserved a throne…
Isaiah shrugged out of his outer robe and laid it out beside him, smoothing out the corners to be sure that it was suitable. He stood, looking down at it, now realizing it was less than suitable - it was sad. What a pathetic thing to offer her. Not a blanket. Not a cushion. His coat. Resolving within himself to apologize profusely, he turned when he heard dirt crunching under sandals and little pebbles tumbling back down the side of the hill.
He managed not to whirl around too quickly, but what confronted him was just as confusing as it must be for Hypatia to see him in a simple robe without the outer, more elaborate covering overtop. Use to seeing her in a confection of delicate fabrics and pagan powders, with her gorgeous hair on full display, this muted, almost lumpy figure was a bit of a shock to the system. Isaiah smiled and frowned in slight confusion, but chose not to actually comment on it because he was suddenly struck with the intoxicating idea that she might be coming to tell him she was converting to Judaism. His head swam and he gestured towards his coat.
Somewhere between settling at the base of the tree with her, and trying not to stare, he thought he might have made some kind of apology but he wasn’t totally sure what that had come out like. He was growing used to being a flustered idiot in her presence, especially because he was less confused and more enamoured. Their sessions had finally found a sense of normalcy but the clandestine nature of this one had twisted it back on itself and left him feeling almost proud that she would risk coming out early to see him. For Isaiah had long since dismissed her interest in the language as not tied to himself. There were too many signs to indicate that he was at least part of the reason, which was as intoxicating as everything else. The woman he would have chosen if not for a few critical details liked him in return. It was too tempting to not cherish that thought. Though he shouldn’t, he did think about her all the time.
Would they actually get married? Of course not. Would he even offer? Absolutely not. She was pagan. Would she accept even if he did ask? No way. He was too poor. But did that stop him from thinking her the most beautiful creature to walk upon Yahweh’s earth? Never.
Having waited for this moment for the last seven days, having thought of it whilst eating the evening meal, while sitting in temple and half listening to the priest reading from the scrolls, from dreamily falling asleep at night imagining Hypatia’s face, Isaiah was walking on air as he made his way to the bath house. He woke long before his family, was the first one to use the bath house and met no one on the way home. Plans for the lesson swirled in his mind as he walked in the front door. He had to keep his hand under the door handle and keep it pressed up so that the door wouldn’t creak on its hinges as he closed it. For a few moments, he looked up at the ceiling, listening for movements. Only silence greeted him and then the pitiful wails of his hungry nephew.
The floor creaked as Rebekah got out of bed to care for him. Isaiah smiled to himself. Any noise would now be attributed to his sister in law and nephew. It was as though Yahweh was smiling down on his plan to see Hypatia. Not that Yahweh would approve. Isaiah wasn’t naive enough to assume that, but Yahweh did love kindness. This was simply a kindness.
His mother was nothing if not a wonderful cook and she usually had the foresight to have some food ready for in the morning so that her day wasn’t quite so hectic. Isaiah found where she’d stashed a few apples in a bowl, took a bit of stale, leftover bread, and some cured lamb that rounded out his breakfast, and headed back out into the street. If not for the buildings in the way, he’d have been able to see the mount where the olive trees grew. It wasn’t until he’d navigated several narrow streets, crossing under archways of stone that he saw the first hint of a tree bough against the watery blue sky.
Isaiah bit into his apple, savoring the juices on his tongue as he swept along the dirt path leading him to the base of the hill. Already the cool night air was dissipating, bringing on a steady heat in its wake. Isaiah tossed the apple core aside as he made his way up the steep, curving trail and started on the lamb rolled up inside the bread. Even without the prospect of seeing Hannah in less than half an hour, this walk was one of his favorites. It was quiet and the gnarled trunks of the olive trees never failed to interest him. This hillside was a pretty one this time of year, full of grasses and flowers, as well as comfortable sitting spots beneath the shade of the trees.
He veered off the main path, striking out toward his family’s plot and settled at the roots of a tree he often used when he wanted to look out over the city and have time to reflect on his own. This particular tree had a rounded groove in the trunk that gave it an almost chairlike quality. If Isaiah were to place down a cushion, he’d be the most comfortable man on the mount, though, now that he’d thought of it, he did wish that those little creature comforts hadn’t slipped his mind. Sitting in the dirt was nothing to him but Hypatia’s delicate dresses wouldn’t do well out here. In fact, as he thought of her in the elegant rooms of marble and alabaster, it was hard to picture her sitting on the earth at all. She was practically a queen and deserved a throne…
Isaiah shrugged out of his outer robe and laid it out beside him, smoothing out the corners to be sure that it was suitable. He stood, looking down at it, now realizing it was less than suitable - it was sad. What a pathetic thing to offer her. Not a blanket. Not a cushion. His coat. Resolving within himself to apologize profusely, he turned when he heard dirt crunching under sandals and little pebbles tumbling back down the side of the hill.
He managed not to whirl around too quickly, but what confronted him was just as confusing as it must be for Hypatia to see him in a simple robe without the outer, more elaborate covering overtop. Use to seeing her in a confection of delicate fabrics and pagan powders, with her gorgeous hair on full display, this muted, almost lumpy figure was a bit of a shock to the system. Isaiah smiled and frowned in slight confusion, but chose not to actually comment on it because he was suddenly struck with the intoxicating idea that she might be coming to tell him she was converting to Judaism. His head swam and he gestured towards his coat.
Somewhere between settling at the base of the tree with her, and trying not to stare, he thought he might have made some kind of apology but he wasn’t totally sure what that had come out like. He was growing used to being a flustered idiot in her presence, especially because he was less confused and more enamoured. Their sessions had finally found a sense of normalcy but the clandestine nature of this one had twisted it back on itself and left him feeling almost proud that she would risk coming out early to see him. For Isaiah had long since dismissed her interest in the language as not tied to himself. There were too many signs to indicate that he was at least part of the reason, which was as intoxicating as everything else. The woman he would have chosen if not for a few critical details liked him in return. It was too tempting to not cherish that thought. Though he shouldn’t, he did think about her all the time.
Would they actually get married? Of course not. Would he even offer? Absolutely not. She was pagan. Would she accept even if he did ask? No way. He was too poor. But did that stop him from thinking her the most beautiful creature to walk upon Yahweh’s earth? Never.
Hypatia new nothing of oil farming. The intensive labour, the careful cultivation of life and the balance of commercial economy and sustainable plants were beyond her understanding. Farming and fruitation were hardly subjects for a lady to ever need within her syllabus regardless of appropriateness. She was bred and raised to be of significance based on how she was attached to others. The wife of a man, the mother of children. Why would someone without an independent life of their own need to know a craft or trade? The only change to such a tutorship had happened in recent months, as the possible arrangement with a military man become more then simple whisper or hypothesis. She was given lessons in the very basics of supporting and running a militia. Never anything upon fighting, never technique or tactical analysis - for such things were too intellectual for her to understand she was sure. But the simplistic notions of how an army ran upon their stomachs, the required funds to financially aid a working regiment and the role of a Commander in such things. All so that she might better support Commander Alexios in his life as leader of the Grecian militia in Israel.
Yet such lessons had never held her attention as those of Hebrew had.
Isaiah's internal judgement - that she was interested in the teacher as much as she might be the lessons - was true enough, but still a mystery to her own self. Having never felt affection or romantic inclination towards the male of the species, men had simply been the embodiment of what they stood for. A soldier was a soldier; a politician was a politician. A potential husband was a potential husband. There was no personality or individual connection to be discovered within them, just as there wasn't for herself. The world had been presented to her as a theatrical production, where everyone played their parts and none of the performers ever dropped their masks.
Yet Isaiah had entered her life in a very real fashion. With the language barrier between the two of them, neither had been able to follow a predetermined script. Neither had been able to truly perform their roles or hide behind masks. And she had learnt what it meant to interact with a man, to befriend him.
Back in Taengea, Hypatia could name only two or three men that she would count as anything more than acquaintances. Yet measuring the emotions set to each within her heart was a difficult, nay impossible process. Had she the mentality for assessment and comparison, Hypatia might have laid her consideration of Captain Krysto beside that of Isaiah... and seen a stark difference if she had.
When around those that she considered friends - the Captain Krysto included - Hypatia felt light. She felt an openness and a simplicity and an enjoyment of company that left her lungs open and her heart light. Her head was never heavy and her lips never tense. From the curls of her hair to the tips of her silver sandals, she had been relaxed.
With Isaiah, there was no such lightness.
As she moved through the little orchard, with trees only a few feet higher than her own head, she recognised that lack of open acceptance in herself. There was a soft tension in her belly, a tightening of her shoulders and limbs. An apparent need to tuck her lower lip below her teeth or pull in her cheeks in a manner that sparked dimples. She had never before noticed that she had dimples.
As she moved nervously between several of the brush and olive trees, she worried for a moment if she would be able to spot the slight frame of Isaiah among branches and greenery, but she realised quickly that she needn't have worried. The spaced organisation of the trees left open routes of vision that had her noticing his waiting figure just a little to the east.
In mostly shadow as the sun rose and lit the forestry from green to almost yellow, Hypatia felt that delicious awkwardness transfuse her body into a gesture that was reminiscent of cold. Like she were drawing in her limbs and extremities from the weather. Yet she felt only warmth. Such a bizarre reaction that had her unable to restrain a smile.
If only she were experience or mature enough in mind to recognise the beginnings of love.
With Jael only a few steps behind her, Hypatia headed down an open row of sparser branches, and up a slight slope towards the spot that Isaiah had chosen for their lesson. So as to ensure she did not fully trip and embarrass herself before her tutor, the Grecian pulled up the layers of Judean clothing carefully, her gold sandals sparkling into view as she moved to mount the rising turf.
Once on a level with Isaiah, Hypatia was reminded once more of his height, surprised how she could forget it every time. In her mind, the man was unthreatening and sweetly disposed in body and character. Completely different to the large and imposing lines on which Commander Alexios had grown. There was nothing about Isaiah that frightened her, despite the tension she muscles decided to use to try to fool her into notions of fear. Yet her mind’s eye always failed to do his masculinity justice. For the man was tall and wide in the shoulder before tapering into this lean and slender shape. The virility of other things - such as his facial hair - was lost to her because all she seemed able to see in his face was his smile. And the way it lit up his eyes.
Blinking awkwardly, unable to see his features for another step, as the sun turned them to darkness, Hypatia finally met his gaze and smiled as she stood only a few strides from the trunk of the tree that he had been resting against. She could tell, because he had flattened a coat out upon the ground to sit upon.
After simple greetings of awkward half sentences, and following his direction, Hypatia was careful to keep the simlah arranged around her as she lowered to the ground. The actions were clumsy but the descent graceful as she found a spot upon the material and then made certain to shift so that he might occupy the other side. When he did so, she blinked in surprise at his appearance. Too preoccupied with what he might think of her attire, and how clumsy she must appear attempting to handle it, she had not yet digested his own. Without the outer layer of his garb - his own simlah - Isaiah wore a simple tunic. It was longer in sleeve than Grecian tunics and hung to his elbows but it clung closer to his frame than a cloak or overcoat might rest. His forearms were left bare, his lower legs risking exposure and the shape of his torso was clearer to the naked eye. Hypatia found herself looking upon his neck. The line that ran from behind his ear to the dip of his collarbone, hidden just beneath the fold of his clothing. Like the rest of him, that tendon of sinew and shape was a golden tan and interrupted only by a lock of dark hair that had fallen from behind his ear.
Hypatia glanced away quickly, her cheeks warm.
Pointing to the wrapped scarf around her head, Hypatia's voice came out slightly muffled but light with amusement.
"It is a good mask for when I should not be seen leaving my mother. But it is a little hot in here." As she made her reasons plain, Hypatia reached to take hold of a piece of the headscarf but paused momentarily when she realised an issue. She glanced at Isaiah. "I would like to remove this. But you must not look." She flapped a hand at him to encourage he gaze in the other direction. For she would not remove the thing if she could not settle whatever state her hair was in before he looked upon her.
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This character is currently a work in progress.
Check out their information page here.
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Hypatia new nothing of oil farming. The intensive labour, the careful cultivation of life and the balance of commercial economy and sustainable plants were beyond her understanding. Farming and fruitation were hardly subjects for a lady to ever need within her syllabus regardless of appropriateness. She was bred and raised to be of significance based on how she was attached to others. The wife of a man, the mother of children. Why would someone without an independent life of their own need to know a craft or trade? The only change to such a tutorship had happened in recent months, as the possible arrangement with a military man become more then simple whisper or hypothesis. She was given lessons in the very basics of supporting and running a militia. Never anything upon fighting, never technique or tactical analysis - for such things were too intellectual for her to understand she was sure. But the simplistic notions of how an army ran upon their stomachs, the required funds to financially aid a working regiment and the role of a Commander in such things. All so that she might better support Commander Alexios in his life as leader of the Grecian militia in Israel.
Yet such lessons had never held her attention as those of Hebrew had.
Isaiah's internal judgement - that she was interested in the teacher as much as she might be the lessons - was true enough, but still a mystery to her own self. Having never felt affection or romantic inclination towards the male of the species, men had simply been the embodiment of what they stood for. A soldier was a soldier; a politician was a politician. A potential husband was a potential husband. There was no personality or individual connection to be discovered within them, just as there wasn't for herself. The world had been presented to her as a theatrical production, where everyone played their parts and none of the performers ever dropped their masks.
Yet Isaiah had entered her life in a very real fashion. With the language barrier between the two of them, neither had been able to follow a predetermined script. Neither had been able to truly perform their roles or hide behind masks. And she had learnt what it meant to interact with a man, to befriend him.
Back in Taengea, Hypatia could name only two or three men that she would count as anything more than acquaintances. Yet measuring the emotions set to each within her heart was a difficult, nay impossible process. Had she the mentality for assessment and comparison, Hypatia might have laid her consideration of Captain Krysto beside that of Isaiah... and seen a stark difference if she had.
When around those that she considered friends - the Captain Krysto included - Hypatia felt light. She felt an openness and a simplicity and an enjoyment of company that left her lungs open and her heart light. Her head was never heavy and her lips never tense. From the curls of her hair to the tips of her silver sandals, she had been relaxed.
With Isaiah, there was no such lightness.
As she moved through the little orchard, with trees only a few feet higher than her own head, she recognised that lack of open acceptance in herself. There was a soft tension in her belly, a tightening of her shoulders and limbs. An apparent need to tuck her lower lip below her teeth or pull in her cheeks in a manner that sparked dimples. She had never before noticed that she had dimples.
As she moved nervously between several of the brush and olive trees, she worried for a moment if she would be able to spot the slight frame of Isaiah among branches and greenery, but she realised quickly that she needn't have worried. The spaced organisation of the trees left open routes of vision that had her noticing his waiting figure just a little to the east.
In mostly shadow as the sun rose and lit the forestry from green to almost yellow, Hypatia felt that delicious awkwardness transfuse her body into a gesture that was reminiscent of cold. Like she were drawing in her limbs and extremities from the weather. Yet she felt only warmth. Such a bizarre reaction that had her unable to restrain a smile.
If only she were experience or mature enough in mind to recognise the beginnings of love.
With Jael only a few steps behind her, Hypatia headed down an open row of sparser branches, and up a slight slope towards the spot that Isaiah had chosen for their lesson. So as to ensure she did not fully trip and embarrass herself before her tutor, the Grecian pulled up the layers of Judean clothing carefully, her gold sandals sparkling into view as she moved to mount the rising turf.
Once on a level with Isaiah, Hypatia was reminded once more of his height, surprised how she could forget it every time. In her mind, the man was unthreatening and sweetly disposed in body and character. Completely different to the large and imposing lines on which Commander Alexios had grown. There was nothing about Isaiah that frightened her, despite the tension she muscles decided to use to try to fool her into notions of fear. Yet her mind’s eye always failed to do his masculinity justice. For the man was tall and wide in the shoulder before tapering into this lean and slender shape. The virility of other things - such as his facial hair - was lost to her because all she seemed able to see in his face was his smile. And the way it lit up his eyes.
Blinking awkwardly, unable to see his features for another step, as the sun turned them to darkness, Hypatia finally met his gaze and smiled as she stood only a few strides from the trunk of the tree that he had been resting against. She could tell, because he had flattened a coat out upon the ground to sit upon.
After simple greetings of awkward half sentences, and following his direction, Hypatia was careful to keep the simlah arranged around her as she lowered to the ground. The actions were clumsy but the descent graceful as she found a spot upon the material and then made certain to shift so that he might occupy the other side. When he did so, she blinked in surprise at his appearance. Too preoccupied with what he might think of her attire, and how clumsy she must appear attempting to handle it, she had not yet digested his own. Without the outer layer of his garb - his own simlah - Isaiah wore a simple tunic. It was longer in sleeve than Grecian tunics and hung to his elbows but it clung closer to his frame than a cloak or overcoat might rest. His forearms were left bare, his lower legs risking exposure and the shape of his torso was clearer to the naked eye. Hypatia found herself looking upon his neck. The line that ran from behind his ear to the dip of his collarbone, hidden just beneath the fold of his clothing. Like the rest of him, that tendon of sinew and shape was a golden tan and interrupted only by a lock of dark hair that had fallen from behind his ear.
Hypatia glanced away quickly, her cheeks warm.
Pointing to the wrapped scarf around her head, Hypatia's voice came out slightly muffled but light with amusement.
"It is a good mask for when I should not be seen leaving my mother. But it is a little hot in here." As she made her reasons plain, Hypatia reached to take hold of a piece of the headscarf but paused momentarily when she realised an issue. She glanced at Isaiah. "I would like to remove this. But you must not look." She flapped a hand at him to encourage he gaze in the other direction. For she would not remove the thing if she could not settle whatever state her hair was in before he looked upon her.
Hypatia new nothing of oil farming. The intensive labour, the careful cultivation of life and the balance of commercial economy and sustainable plants were beyond her understanding. Farming and fruitation were hardly subjects for a lady to ever need within her syllabus regardless of appropriateness. She was bred and raised to be of significance based on how she was attached to others. The wife of a man, the mother of children. Why would someone without an independent life of their own need to know a craft or trade? The only change to such a tutorship had happened in recent months, as the possible arrangement with a military man become more then simple whisper or hypothesis. She was given lessons in the very basics of supporting and running a militia. Never anything upon fighting, never technique or tactical analysis - for such things were too intellectual for her to understand she was sure. But the simplistic notions of how an army ran upon their stomachs, the required funds to financially aid a working regiment and the role of a Commander in such things. All so that she might better support Commander Alexios in his life as leader of the Grecian militia in Israel.
Yet such lessons had never held her attention as those of Hebrew had.
Isaiah's internal judgement - that she was interested in the teacher as much as she might be the lessons - was true enough, but still a mystery to her own self. Having never felt affection or romantic inclination towards the male of the species, men had simply been the embodiment of what they stood for. A soldier was a soldier; a politician was a politician. A potential husband was a potential husband. There was no personality or individual connection to be discovered within them, just as there wasn't for herself. The world had been presented to her as a theatrical production, where everyone played their parts and none of the performers ever dropped their masks.
Yet Isaiah had entered her life in a very real fashion. With the language barrier between the two of them, neither had been able to follow a predetermined script. Neither had been able to truly perform their roles or hide behind masks. And she had learnt what it meant to interact with a man, to befriend him.
Back in Taengea, Hypatia could name only two or three men that she would count as anything more than acquaintances. Yet measuring the emotions set to each within her heart was a difficult, nay impossible process. Had she the mentality for assessment and comparison, Hypatia might have laid her consideration of Captain Krysto beside that of Isaiah... and seen a stark difference if she had.
When around those that she considered friends - the Captain Krysto included - Hypatia felt light. She felt an openness and a simplicity and an enjoyment of company that left her lungs open and her heart light. Her head was never heavy and her lips never tense. From the curls of her hair to the tips of her silver sandals, she had been relaxed.
With Isaiah, there was no such lightness.
As she moved through the little orchard, with trees only a few feet higher than her own head, she recognised that lack of open acceptance in herself. There was a soft tension in her belly, a tightening of her shoulders and limbs. An apparent need to tuck her lower lip below her teeth or pull in her cheeks in a manner that sparked dimples. She had never before noticed that she had dimples.
As she moved nervously between several of the brush and olive trees, she worried for a moment if she would be able to spot the slight frame of Isaiah among branches and greenery, but she realised quickly that she needn't have worried. The spaced organisation of the trees left open routes of vision that had her noticing his waiting figure just a little to the east.
In mostly shadow as the sun rose and lit the forestry from green to almost yellow, Hypatia felt that delicious awkwardness transfuse her body into a gesture that was reminiscent of cold. Like she were drawing in her limbs and extremities from the weather. Yet she felt only warmth. Such a bizarre reaction that had her unable to restrain a smile.
If only she were experience or mature enough in mind to recognise the beginnings of love.
With Jael only a few steps behind her, Hypatia headed down an open row of sparser branches, and up a slight slope towards the spot that Isaiah had chosen for their lesson. So as to ensure she did not fully trip and embarrass herself before her tutor, the Grecian pulled up the layers of Judean clothing carefully, her gold sandals sparkling into view as she moved to mount the rising turf.
Once on a level with Isaiah, Hypatia was reminded once more of his height, surprised how she could forget it every time. In her mind, the man was unthreatening and sweetly disposed in body and character. Completely different to the large and imposing lines on which Commander Alexios had grown. There was nothing about Isaiah that frightened her, despite the tension she muscles decided to use to try to fool her into notions of fear. Yet her mind’s eye always failed to do his masculinity justice. For the man was tall and wide in the shoulder before tapering into this lean and slender shape. The virility of other things - such as his facial hair - was lost to her because all she seemed able to see in his face was his smile. And the way it lit up his eyes.
Blinking awkwardly, unable to see his features for another step, as the sun turned them to darkness, Hypatia finally met his gaze and smiled as she stood only a few strides from the trunk of the tree that he had been resting against. She could tell, because he had flattened a coat out upon the ground to sit upon.
After simple greetings of awkward half sentences, and following his direction, Hypatia was careful to keep the simlah arranged around her as she lowered to the ground. The actions were clumsy but the descent graceful as she found a spot upon the material and then made certain to shift so that he might occupy the other side. When he did so, she blinked in surprise at his appearance. Too preoccupied with what he might think of her attire, and how clumsy she must appear attempting to handle it, she had not yet digested his own. Without the outer layer of his garb - his own simlah - Isaiah wore a simple tunic. It was longer in sleeve than Grecian tunics and hung to his elbows but it clung closer to his frame than a cloak or overcoat might rest. His forearms were left bare, his lower legs risking exposure and the shape of his torso was clearer to the naked eye. Hypatia found herself looking upon his neck. The line that ran from behind his ear to the dip of his collarbone, hidden just beneath the fold of his clothing. Like the rest of him, that tendon of sinew and shape was a golden tan and interrupted only by a lock of dark hair that had fallen from behind his ear.
Hypatia glanced away quickly, her cheeks warm.
Pointing to the wrapped scarf around her head, Hypatia's voice came out slightly muffled but light with amusement.
"It is a good mask for when I should not be seen leaving my mother. But it is a little hot in here." As she made her reasons plain, Hypatia reached to take hold of a piece of the headscarf but paused momentarily when she realised an issue. She glanced at Isaiah. "I would like to remove this. But you must not look." She flapped a hand at him to encourage he gaze in the other direction. For she would not remove the thing if she could not settle whatever state her hair was in before he looked upon her.
Where Hypatia felt a heaviness pulling her down to earth, a weight that gave her delicate life more gravity, Isaiah was walking in the clouds. He couldn’t be bothered with the mundane realities of life. Not when there was an angel to meet in the skies above. If he dwelled too long, a pressure would wrap about him, too. It would snake up his limbs, tethering around his ankles and wrists, and chain him to the realization that this was wrong. Their two cultures were problematic enough, but the evidence of her standing before him, her face flushed a gentle pink, her eyes sparkling above the veil, showed this was no great obstacle. Indeed, they’d proved over and over that it was not. Their beliefs, however, were a chasm that he knew they could not cross. There was no bridge between his god and her many, nor did he believe hers to be real at all. They were figments, and from all he knew, disgusting ones at that.
No. It was best to keep his thoughts light, high above ground and city, out of his mouth and away from the prying eyes of others. His own family, he knew, would never accept this pagan woman and so he would not dare. This was all he could have, and currently the only real joy he had in his life. This pure, sweet, wonderful girl, with her open mind and soft ways. She was so different to the women he knew. Less judgemental, for one thing. This was partially why he didn’t look at her maidservant. He knew what he’d see there. For all the help Jael gave Hypatia, Isaiah felt in his heart she didn’t approve of this. Whatever the servant’s motives for fulfilling her mistress’s requests, Isaiah did not believe for one, single second, that she liked what she was a part of.
Part of what? he reminded himself briskly as they sat down. The only wrong doing I’m performing is simply being in her presence. And some men take foreign wives, do they not? Surely it can be a sin that is not so very great, just to be friends with a pagan… Hypatia directed him to look away just then and he smiled, but did as she asked, though not without the smallest peek over his shoulder. He caught the faintest hint of shimmering gold under the dapples of sunlight and the pale swipe of what might have been a wrist or a hand.
“Apologies!” his voice was as warm as the air around them and he stared at the blades of grass just beyond the hem of his coat. They were fairly close together this way. The cloth was only so big and he hadn’t planned it, but he wasn’t sorry. He was careful not to touch her in any way - not so much as an accidental brush of the knee or graze of the hand. She was to be respected and returned to her home exactly as she was now, though, hopefully in better possession still of the Hebrew tongue. Her remarkable progress was impressive and he did not feel that he would learn her native tongue half so fast. For all his good qualities, Isaiah was not studious. He’d done enough of his letters to get by but book learning was not in the least bit his passion.
“You do not have to cover your face like that,” he said, once he was bidden to turn back. His passive smile still played about his lips and he leaned back on his hands, stretching his legs out to cross them at the ankle. He was more at his ease here, beneath his family’s trees. This early, there was no one to catch them, no servants to usher him hastily out of the Commander’s home. They were outside the city walls and, it felt, outside the rules. Though, Jael’s presence reminded him that this would not last forever.
“Sandstorms,” he continued, making a gesture like pulling a veil over his own face. “Or wind. Or weddings,” he added. “But those are much more elaborate. Though,” he said, feeling compelled to make her not self conscious, as he belatedly realized he must be doing. “Disguise is a perfectly good reason.”
His attention wandered from her down through the trees rolling away from them down the hill and toward the beautiful city below. “What do you think?” he looked up and gestured to the trees. “We are sitting on my family’s plot of land. This is where our olives come from.” This wasn’t riveting conversation but he didn’t want silence to fall between them. He wanted to hear her speak and to make her speak. For practice, of course.
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This character is currently a work in progress.
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Where Hypatia felt a heaviness pulling her down to earth, a weight that gave her delicate life more gravity, Isaiah was walking in the clouds. He couldn’t be bothered with the mundane realities of life. Not when there was an angel to meet in the skies above. If he dwelled too long, a pressure would wrap about him, too. It would snake up his limbs, tethering around his ankles and wrists, and chain him to the realization that this was wrong. Their two cultures were problematic enough, but the evidence of her standing before him, her face flushed a gentle pink, her eyes sparkling above the veil, showed this was no great obstacle. Indeed, they’d proved over and over that it was not. Their beliefs, however, were a chasm that he knew they could not cross. There was no bridge between his god and her many, nor did he believe hers to be real at all. They were figments, and from all he knew, disgusting ones at that.
No. It was best to keep his thoughts light, high above ground and city, out of his mouth and away from the prying eyes of others. His own family, he knew, would never accept this pagan woman and so he would not dare. This was all he could have, and currently the only real joy he had in his life. This pure, sweet, wonderful girl, with her open mind and soft ways. She was so different to the women he knew. Less judgemental, for one thing. This was partially why he didn’t look at her maidservant. He knew what he’d see there. For all the help Jael gave Hypatia, Isaiah felt in his heart she didn’t approve of this. Whatever the servant’s motives for fulfilling her mistress’s requests, Isaiah did not believe for one, single second, that she liked what she was a part of.
Part of what? he reminded himself briskly as they sat down. The only wrong doing I’m performing is simply being in her presence. And some men take foreign wives, do they not? Surely it can be a sin that is not so very great, just to be friends with a pagan… Hypatia directed him to look away just then and he smiled, but did as she asked, though not without the smallest peek over his shoulder. He caught the faintest hint of shimmering gold under the dapples of sunlight and the pale swipe of what might have been a wrist or a hand.
“Apologies!” his voice was as warm as the air around them and he stared at the blades of grass just beyond the hem of his coat. They were fairly close together this way. The cloth was only so big and he hadn’t planned it, but he wasn’t sorry. He was careful not to touch her in any way - not so much as an accidental brush of the knee or graze of the hand. She was to be respected and returned to her home exactly as she was now, though, hopefully in better possession still of the Hebrew tongue. Her remarkable progress was impressive and he did not feel that he would learn her native tongue half so fast. For all his good qualities, Isaiah was not studious. He’d done enough of his letters to get by but book learning was not in the least bit his passion.
“You do not have to cover your face like that,” he said, once he was bidden to turn back. His passive smile still played about his lips and he leaned back on his hands, stretching his legs out to cross them at the ankle. He was more at his ease here, beneath his family’s trees. This early, there was no one to catch them, no servants to usher him hastily out of the Commander’s home. They were outside the city walls and, it felt, outside the rules. Though, Jael’s presence reminded him that this would not last forever.
“Sandstorms,” he continued, making a gesture like pulling a veil over his own face. “Or wind. Or weddings,” he added. “But those are much more elaborate. Though,” he said, feeling compelled to make her not self conscious, as he belatedly realized he must be doing. “Disguise is a perfectly good reason.”
His attention wandered from her down through the trees rolling away from them down the hill and toward the beautiful city below. “What do you think?” he looked up and gestured to the trees. “We are sitting on my family’s plot of land. This is where our olives come from.” This wasn’t riveting conversation but he didn’t want silence to fall between them. He wanted to hear her speak and to make her speak. For practice, of course.
Where Hypatia felt a heaviness pulling her down to earth, a weight that gave her delicate life more gravity, Isaiah was walking in the clouds. He couldn’t be bothered with the mundane realities of life. Not when there was an angel to meet in the skies above. If he dwelled too long, a pressure would wrap about him, too. It would snake up his limbs, tethering around his ankles and wrists, and chain him to the realization that this was wrong. Their two cultures were problematic enough, but the evidence of her standing before him, her face flushed a gentle pink, her eyes sparkling above the veil, showed this was no great obstacle. Indeed, they’d proved over and over that it was not. Their beliefs, however, were a chasm that he knew they could not cross. There was no bridge between his god and her many, nor did he believe hers to be real at all. They were figments, and from all he knew, disgusting ones at that.
No. It was best to keep his thoughts light, high above ground and city, out of his mouth and away from the prying eyes of others. His own family, he knew, would never accept this pagan woman and so he would not dare. This was all he could have, and currently the only real joy he had in his life. This pure, sweet, wonderful girl, with her open mind and soft ways. She was so different to the women he knew. Less judgemental, for one thing. This was partially why he didn’t look at her maidservant. He knew what he’d see there. For all the help Jael gave Hypatia, Isaiah felt in his heart she didn’t approve of this. Whatever the servant’s motives for fulfilling her mistress’s requests, Isaiah did not believe for one, single second, that she liked what she was a part of.
Part of what? he reminded himself briskly as they sat down. The only wrong doing I’m performing is simply being in her presence. And some men take foreign wives, do they not? Surely it can be a sin that is not so very great, just to be friends with a pagan… Hypatia directed him to look away just then and he smiled, but did as she asked, though not without the smallest peek over his shoulder. He caught the faintest hint of shimmering gold under the dapples of sunlight and the pale swipe of what might have been a wrist or a hand.
“Apologies!” his voice was as warm as the air around them and he stared at the blades of grass just beyond the hem of his coat. They were fairly close together this way. The cloth was only so big and he hadn’t planned it, but he wasn’t sorry. He was careful not to touch her in any way - not so much as an accidental brush of the knee or graze of the hand. She was to be respected and returned to her home exactly as she was now, though, hopefully in better possession still of the Hebrew tongue. Her remarkable progress was impressive and he did not feel that he would learn her native tongue half so fast. For all his good qualities, Isaiah was not studious. He’d done enough of his letters to get by but book learning was not in the least bit his passion.
“You do not have to cover your face like that,” he said, once he was bidden to turn back. His passive smile still played about his lips and he leaned back on his hands, stretching his legs out to cross them at the ankle. He was more at his ease here, beneath his family’s trees. This early, there was no one to catch them, no servants to usher him hastily out of the Commander’s home. They were outside the city walls and, it felt, outside the rules. Though, Jael’s presence reminded him that this would not last forever.
“Sandstorms,” he continued, making a gesture like pulling a veil over his own face. “Or wind. Or weddings,” he added. “But those are much more elaborate. Though,” he said, feeling compelled to make her not self conscious, as he belatedly realized he must be doing. “Disguise is a perfectly good reason.”
His attention wandered from her down through the trees rolling away from them down the hill and toward the beautiful city below. “What do you think?” he looked up and gestured to the trees. “We are sitting on my family’s plot of land. This is where our olives come from.” This wasn’t riveting conversation but he didn’t want silence to fall between them. He wanted to hear her speak and to make her speak. For practice, of course.
When Isaiah did as she bid and turned a cheek to offer her the privacy of settling her appearance once more, Hypatia unwound the cloth about her head. The long streams of soft fabric naturally curled and coiled into an elegant mess upon her lap. She sat with her feet flat upon the floor, her knees raised just enough to offer the implication of demurity and form the basis of a lap into which the shawl could settle. Quickly, she let go of the cloth and reached up to her hair that had been tied back that morning by her own hands. It was a simple design in which she had fastened the hair into a knot on the back of her head, braided the length of the tail and then wound such a braid around the knot to create a pretty little bun. But her attentions were upon the top and sides of her scalp, where wispy bits of soft, fluffy hair had been shaken from their smooth look by the mask of the mitzpa-thing.
Her hands smoothing over her head and then her cheeks to ensure that the limited pink powder she had applied to her cheeks had not smeared into obvious streaks, Hypatia glanced upon her companion enough to spot his surreptitious little look in her direction. Her eyes widened in reproach and surprise and he quickly turned his gaze back across the fields with a smile and a quick apology. She sniffed in a manner that was haughty and comical over his abuse of her trust and then, with her visage as best as could be expected under the circumstances, turned her attentions to the shawl in her lap.
When Isaiah spoke of the headpiece and how it was traditional but not wholly necessary, Hypatia glanced towards him from her peripheral vision, her lips rounding in interested over the cultural diversity. She knew that Isaiah would not lie to her but Jael had mentioned something different upon the piece. That all women should wear one in public until they were married. Clearly there was variations on the severity of tradition and practice within the Judean people - just as there was in Greece.
Hypatia had found, upon the description from her maid - an older woman that stood a little away from the two of them, her arms folded and her attentions trained elsewhere despite suspicious glances in their direction - that there was a part of her that liked the notion. That a woman was only to be seen by the man she gave her life to.
In Greece it was different. A husband was likely to wish his wife shown off, exposed to the highest of societies with the richest of jewels or the finest of gowns. It was a display of possession and of power. To show that he had won such a woman. And whilst her mother had always spoken of this practice with reverence - as if it were a great honour to be displayed as a grand prize - Hypatia had never liked the limelight and so never liked the concept herself. There was something about the privacy of a woman's appearance that leant an intimacy to he who could see it. Like a secret. Like their meetings now. Just theirs.
Not that such a thing was of any realistic significance to her now, she reminded herself. Her thoughts moving to her mother and to the Commander Alexios. She had been in Judea for over a month now and talks had turned to more serious arrangements of dowries and financial negotiations. Until such things had been settled and come to an agreement between the two families, there would be no formal betrothal - she was not tied to the man yet. But as soon as she was, these lessons would be forced to cease. She could not imagine they had that many of these clandestine lessons left in their limited future.
Not wishing to allow a cloud to darken an otherwise sunny day of enjoyment, Hypatia permitted Isaiah's words to draw her focus away from the headscarf that she had been carefully folding, smoothing and then opening again upon her lap, her hands looking for occupation.
At his words about the orchard she looked up and over the small and vibrant lands of his family's stock and smiled.
"I think that it is full of life." She told him. It was the same impression she got when she looked out over the fields of equines that rested in her own family's estate - animals that her father was tending to at any one time and recovering enough to be turned loose upon the meadow. She had always liked such a view far more than the painted walls of her mother's parlour where she had been forced to learn her etiquette lessons for large portions of the day. "I have not seen lots of green in Judea." She said, her sentence forms still a little clumsy but her meanings now clear enough. "It is nice to see green. And it smells good." She closed her eyes and inhaled long through her nose.
As Isaiah leant back upon his hands, she glanced towards him and mimicked the gesture, unsure how else to sit. The movement had her eyes turning upwards to the olives in the tree they sat beneath. She smiled.
"I see the olives. Do you..." She frowned a moment, not knowing the word she needed. She sat up a little and clapped her hands together softly, implying pressure. "...to make them oil?"
It was as she settled back again to lean once more that the hand nearest Isaiah landed upon his fingers. The accidental touch was corrected as she moved her hand, apparently physically shocked by the warmth of his hand. She felt her cheeks flame and she swallowed.
"Apologies." This time, it was her turn for contrition.
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This character is currently a work in progress.
Check out their information page here.
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When Isaiah did as she bid and turned a cheek to offer her the privacy of settling her appearance once more, Hypatia unwound the cloth about her head. The long streams of soft fabric naturally curled and coiled into an elegant mess upon her lap. She sat with her feet flat upon the floor, her knees raised just enough to offer the implication of demurity and form the basis of a lap into which the shawl could settle. Quickly, she let go of the cloth and reached up to her hair that had been tied back that morning by her own hands. It was a simple design in which she had fastened the hair into a knot on the back of her head, braided the length of the tail and then wound such a braid around the knot to create a pretty little bun. But her attentions were upon the top and sides of her scalp, where wispy bits of soft, fluffy hair had been shaken from their smooth look by the mask of the mitzpa-thing.
Her hands smoothing over her head and then her cheeks to ensure that the limited pink powder she had applied to her cheeks had not smeared into obvious streaks, Hypatia glanced upon her companion enough to spot his surreptitious little look in her direction. Her eyes widened in reproach and surprise and he quickly turned his gaze back across the fields with a smile and a quick apology. She sniffed in a manner that was haughty and comical over his abuse of her trust and then, with her visage as best as could be expected under the circumstances, turned her attentions to the shawl in her lap.
When Isaiah spoke of the headpiece and how it was traditional but not wholly necessary, Hypatia glanced towards him from her peripheral vision, her lips rounding in interested over the cultural diversity. She knew that Isaiah would not lie to her but Jael had mentioned something different upon the piece. That all women should wear one in public until they were married. Clearly there was variations on the severity of tradition and practice within the Judean people - just as there was in Greece.
Hypatia had found, upon the description from her maid - an older woman that stood a little away from the two of them, her arms folded and her attentions trained elsewhere despite suspicious glances in their direction - that there was a part of her that liked the notion. That a woman was only to be seen by the man she gave her life to.
In Greece it was different. A husband was likely to wish his wife shown off, exposed to the highest of societies with the richest of jewels or the finest of gowns. It was a display of possession and of power. To show that he had won such a woman. And whilst her mother had always spoken of this practice with reverence - as if it were a great honour to be displayed as a grand prize - Hypatia had never liked the limelight and so never liked the concept herself. There was something about the privacy of a woman's appearance that leant an intimacy to he who could see it. Like a secret. Like their meetings now. Just theirs.
Not that such a thing was of any realistic significance to her now, she reminded herself. Her thoughts moving to her mother and to the Commander Alexios. She had been in Judea for over a month now and talks had turned to more serious arrangements of dowries and financial negotiations. Until such things had been settled and come to an agreement between the two families, there would be no formal betrothal - she was not tied to the man yet. But as soon as she was, these lessons would be forced to cease. She could not imagine they had that many of these clandestine lessons left in their limited future.
Not wishing to allow a cloud to darken an otherwise sunny day of enjoyment, Hypatia permitted Isaiah's words to draw her focus away from the headscarf that she had been carefully folding, smoothing and then opening again upon her lap, her hands looking for occupation.
At his words about the orchard she looked up and over the small and vibrant lands of his family's stock and smiled.
"I think that it is full of life." She told him. It was the same impression she got when she looked out over the fields of equines that rested in her own family's estate - animals that her father was tending to at any one time and recovering enough to be turned loose upon the meadow. She had always liked such a view far more than the painted walls of her mother's parlour where she had been forced to learn her etiquette lessons for large portions of the day. "I have not seen lots of green in Judea." She said, her sentence forms still a little clumsy but her meanings now clear enough. "It is nice to see green. And it smells good." She closed her eyes and inhaled long through her nose.
As Isaiah leant back upon his hands, she glanced towards him and mimicked the gesture, unsure how else to sit. The movement had her eyes turning upwards to the olives in the tree they sat beneath. She smiled.
"I see the olives. Do you..." She frowned a moment, not knowing the word she needed. She sat up a little and clapped her hands together softly, implying pressure. "...to make them oil?"
It was as she settled back again to lean once more that the hand nearest Isaiah landed upon his fingers. The accidental touch was corrected as she moved her hand, apparently physically shocked by the warmth of his hand. She felt her cheeks flame and she swallowed.
"Apologies." This time, it was her turn for contrition.
When Isaiah did as she bid and turned a cheek to offer her the privacy of settling her appearance once more, Hypatia unwound the cloth about her head. The long streams of soft fabric naturally curled and coiled into an elegant mess upon her lap. She sat with her feet flat upon the floor, her knees raised just enough to offer the implication of demurity and form the basis of a lap into which the shawl could settle. Quickly, she let go of the cloth and reached up to her hair that had been tied back that morning by her own hands. It was a simple design in which she had fastened the hair into a knot on the back of her head, braided the length of the tail and then wound such a braid around the knot to create a pretty little bun. But her attentions were upon the top and sides of her scalp, where wispy bits of soft, fluffy hair had been shaken from their smooth look by the mask of the mitzpa-thing.
Her hands smoothing over her head and then her cheeks to ensure that the limited pink powder she had applied to her cheeks had not smeared into obvious streaks, Hypatia glanced upon her companion enough to spot his surreptitious little look in her direction. Her eyes widened in reproach and surprise and he quickly turned his gaze back across the fields with a smile and a quick apology. She sniffed in a manner that was haughty and comical over his abuse of her trust and then, with her visage as best as could be expected under the circumstances, turned her attentions to the shawl in her lap.
When Isaiah spoke of the headpiece and how it was traditional but not wholly necessary, Hypatia glanced towards him from her peripheral vision, her lips rounding in interested over the cultural diversity. She knew that Isaiah would not lie to her but Jael had mentioned something different upon the piece. That all women should wear one in public until they were married. Clearly there was variations on the severity of tradition and practice within the Judean people - just as there was in Greece.
Hypatia had found, upon the description from her maid - an older woman that stood a little away from the two of them, her arms folded and her attentions trained elsewhere despite suspicious glances in their direction - that there was a part of her that liked the notion. That a woman was only to be seen by the man she gave her life to.
In Greece it was different. A husband was likely to wish his wife shown off, exposed to the highest of societies with the richest of jewels or the finest of gowns. It was a display of possession and of power. To show that he had won such a woman. And whilst her mother had always spoken of this practice with reverence - as if it were a great honour to be displayed as a grand prize - Hypatia had never liked the limelight and so never liked the concept herself. There was something about the privacy of a woman's appearance that leant an intimacy to he who could see it. Like a secret. Like their meetings now. Just theirs.
Not that such a thing was of any realistic significance to her now, she reminded herself. Her thoughts moving to her mother and to the Commander Alexios. She had been in Judea for over a month now and talks had turned to more serious arrangements of dowries and financial negotiations. Until such things had been settled and come to an agreement between the two families, there would be no formal betrothal - she was not tied to the man yet. But as soon as she was, these lessons would be forced to cease. She could not imagine they had that many of these clandestine lessons left in their limited future.
Not wishing to allow a cloud to darken an otherwise sunny day of enjoyment, Hypatia permitted Isaiah's words to draw her focus away from the headscarf that she had been carefully folding, smoothing and then opening again upon her lap, her hands looking for occupation.
At his words about the orchard she looked up and over the small and vibrant lands of his family's stock and smiled.
"I think that it is full of life." She told him. It was the same impression she got when she looked out over the fields of equines that rested in her own family's estate - animals that her father was tending to at any one time and recovering enough to be turned loose upon the meadow. She had always liked such a view far more than the painted walls of her mother's parlour where she had been forced to learn her etiquette lessons for large portions of the day. "I have not seen lots of green in Judea." She said, her sentence forms still a little clumsy but her meanings now clear enough. "It is nice to see green. And it smells good." She closed her eyes and inhaled long through her nose.
As Isaiah leant back upon his hands, she glanced towards him and mimicked the gesture, unsure how else to sit. The movement had her eyes turning upwards to the olives in the tree they sat beneath. She smiled.
"I see the olives. Do you..." She frowned a moment, not knowing the word she needed. She sat up a little and clapped her hands together softly, implying pressure. "...to make them oil?"
It was as she settled back again to lean once more that the hand nearest Isaiah landed upon his fingers. The accidental touch was corrected as she moved her hand, apparently physically shocked by the warmth of his hand. She felt her cheeks flame and she swallowed.
"Apologies." This time, it was her turn for contrition.
“I think that it is full of life.”
The lilting accent of her words ran down him like warm honey. They were uniquely hers and he’d so memorized the sound of her voice, the way her lips formed over syllables that he could have reproduced her accent perfectly. Perhaps he should have been correcting her but he especially liked the particular way she said Judea, with the emphasis in all the wrong places. It sounded so intriguing when she said it like that; not like the dull, perfectly ordinary way he heard it from himself and others around him. In her mouth, the word held promise and the way her eyes lit up when she mentioned that she had not seen much green in his country made him want to whisk her away to the parts of it that held rolling hills of gently swaying grasses. They had fields upon fields in some places, and forests and chalky white coasts. But he could do no such thing. He had not the means nor the ability and the best he could do for her was to show her these trees. There were grasses along the slope, of course, but they weren’t lush, vibrant green slips. Their stalks were thin blades of faded yellow that might once have been watery green when the shoots were new and low to the ground. Now their tips were fluffy and white and blended almost entirely into the beige landscape.
He remained braced against his hands, head angled towards her but resting comfortably on his shoulder as he listened to her asking if the olives were made into oil. It was a fair question because there were so many uses and not everyone needed the oil. Some families harvested them and placed them in a brining jar, flavored with spices to sell at market. It was put on flatbreads by vendors, or given as gifts. Of course, the oil was the real gold and that was what his family had done for generations. It was a business passed down from son to son to son in an unbroken line. Of course, it wasn’t his so much as his elder brother’s but his father was going to split the land between them with his brother having the lion’s share. That did not mean that Benjamin was going to cut him out and leave him to flounder; quite the opposite. The brothers already had a plan to use their combined efforts to help Isaiah buy himself a part of this orchard or another, and then Benjamin would buy his share out, and the two of them would work collaboratively to make their business larger. However, that was hopefully a long way off. It hinged on his brother owning the land in the first place, which was after their father’s passing; a thing Isaiah did not want to think about.
Just as he was about to answer her question, a soft, warmth brushed his hand and he looked down to see her fingers jump away. It was an accident but he raised his brows anyway, heat flooding his face and watched her hand as she settled it an appropriate distance away. “Apologies.” she mumbled and he felt his own head shaking in an attempt to get her to stop apologizing.
“There is nothing to apologize for,” he said quietly and inched his fingers a fraction closer but they were in no danger of touching. Maybe on accident and he felt like an utter sinner, but he was hoping for another mishap. Unfortunately, none was forthcoming and with her maid sitting so close by, Isaiah wasn’t holding his breath that anything more would ever happen. Not, of course that it should. His more human wants were being divinely tempered by the presence of her maid rendering them impossible. Therefore, it was barely a temptation and he was free to turn his thoughts to a more wholesome topic, which was its own relief.
“Yes,” he pointed back to the building they’d had to pass on the way up here. “That’s ours. It’s where we make our oil.” As part of her ‘lesson’, Isaiah launched into a long winded explanation of how the olives were grown, harvested, and then offered to show her the basic process of how the oil was made. There was, after all, oil being expressed even while they sat. The active part wouldn’t be started until his father came up here later in the morning.
This character is currently a work in progress.
Check out their information page here.
This character is currently a work in progress.
Check out their information page here.
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“I think that it is full of life.”
The lilting accent of her words ran down him like warm honey. They were uniquely hers and he’d so memorized the sound of her voice, the way her lips formed over syllables that he could have reproduced her accent perfectly. Perhaps he should have been correcting her but he especially liked the particular way she said Judea, with the emphasis in all the wrong places. It sounded so intriguing when she said it like that; not like the dull, perfectly ordinary way he heard it from himself and others around him. In her mouth, the word held promise and the way her eyes lit up when she mentioned that she had not seen much green in his country made him want to whisk her away to the parts of it that held rolling hills of gently swaying grasses. They had fields upon fields in some places, and forests and chalky white coasts. But he could do no such thing. He had not the means nor the ability and the best he could do for her was to show her these trees. There were grasses along the slope, of course, but they weren’t lush, vibrant green slips. Their stalks were thin blades of faded yellow that might once have been watery green when the shoots were new and low to the ground. Now their tips were fluffy and white and blended almost entirely into the beige landscape.
He remained braced against his hands, head angled towards her but resting comfortably on his shoulder as he listened to her asking if the olives were made into oil. It was a fair question because there were so many uses and not everyone needed the oil. Some families harvested them and placed them in a brining jar, flavored with spices to sell at market. It was put on flatbreads by vendors, or given as gifts. Of course, the oil was the real gold and that was what his family had done for generations. It was a business passed down from son to son to son in an unbroken line. Of course, it wasn’t his so much as his elder brother’s but his father was going to split the land between them with his brother having the lion’s share. That did not mean that Benjamin was going to cut him out and leave him to flounder; quite the opposite. The brothers already had a plan to use their combined efforts to help Isaiah buy himself a part of this orchard or another, and then Benjamin would buy his share out, and the two of them would work collaboratively to make their business larger. However, that was hopefully a long way off. It hinged on his brother owning the land in the first place, which was after their father’s passing; a thing Isaiah did not want to think about.
Just as he was about to answer her question, a soft, warmth brushed his hand and he looked down to see her fingers jump away. It was an accident but he raised his brows anyway, heat flooding his face and watched her hand as she settled it an appropriate distance away. “Apologies.” she mumbled and he felt his own head shaking in an attempt to get her to stop apologizing.
“There is nothing to apologize for,” he said quietly and inched his fingers a fraction closer but they were in no danger of touching. Maybe on accident and he felt like an utter sinner, but he was hoping for another mishap. Unfortunately, none was forthcoming and with her maid sitting so close by, Isaiah wasn’t holding his breath that anything more would ever happen. Not, of course that it should. His more human wants were being divinely tempered by the presence of her maid rendering them impossible. Therefore, it was barely a temptation and he was free to turn his thoughts to a more wholesome topic, which was its own relief.
“Yes,” he pointed back to the building they’d had to pass on the way up here. “That’s ours. It’s where we make our oil.” As part of her ‘lesson’, Isaiah launched into a long winded explanation of how the olives were grown, harvested, and then offered to show her the basic process of how the oil was made. There was, after all, oil being expressed even while they sat. The active part wouldn’t be started until his father came up here later in the morning.
“I think that it is full of life.”
The lilting accent of her words ran down him like warm honey. They were uniquely hers and he’d so memorized the sound of her voice, the way her lips formed over syllables that he could have reproduced her accent perfectly. Perhaps he should have been correcting her but he especially liked the particular way she said Judea, with the emphasis in all the wrong places. It sounded so intriguing when she said it like that; not like the dull, perfectly ordinary way he heard it from himself and others around him. In her mouth, the word held promise and the way her eyes lit up when she mentioned that she had not seen much green in his country made him want to whisk her away to the parts of it that held rolling hills of gently swaying grasses. They had fields upon fields in some places, and forests and chalky white coasts. But he could do no such thing. He had not the means nor the ability and the best he could do for her was to show her these trees. There were grasses along the slope, of course, but they weren’t lush, vibrant green slips. Their stalks were thin blades of faded yellow that might once have been watery green when the shoots were new and low to the ground. Now their tips were fluffy and white and blended almost entirely into the beige landscape.
He remained braced against his hands, head angled towards her but resting comfortably on his shoulder as he listened to her asking if the olives were made into oil. It was a fair question because there were so many uses and not everyone needed the oil. Some families harvested them and placed them in a brining jar, flavored with spices to sell at market. It was put on flatbreads by vendors, or given as gifts. Of course, the oil was the real gold and that was what his family had done for generations. It was a business passed down from son to son to son in an unbroken line. Of course, it wasn’t his so much as his elder brother’s but his father was going to split the land between them with his brother having the lion’s share. That did not mean that Benjamin was going to cut him out and leave him to flounder; quite the opposite. The brothers already had a plan to use their combined efforts to help Isaiah buy himself a part of this orchard or another, and then Benjamin would buy his share out, and the two of them would work collaboratively to make their business larger. However, that was hopefully a long way off. It hinged on his brother owning the land in the first place, which was after their father’s passing; a thing Isaiah did not want to think about.
Just as he was about to answer her question, a soft, warmth brushed his hand and he looked down to see her fingers jump away. It was an accident but he raised his brows anyway, heat flooding his face and watched her hand as she settled it an appropriate distance away. “Apologies.” she mumbled and he felt his own head shaking in an attempt to get her to stop apologizing.
“There is nothing to apologize for,” he said quietly and inched his fingers a fraction closer but they were in no danger of touching. Maybe on accident and he felt like an utter sinner, but he was hoping for another mishap. Unfortunately, none was forthcoming and with her maid sitting so close by, Isaiah wasn’t holding his breath that anything more would ever happen. Not, of course that it should. His more human wants were being divinely tempered by the presence of her maid rendering them impossible. Therefore, it was barely a temptation and he was free to turn his thoughts to a more wholesome topic, which was its own relief.
“Yes,” he pointed back to the building they’d had to pass on the way up here. “That’s ours. It’s where we make our oil.” As part of her ‘lesson’, Isaiah launched into a long winded explanation of how the olives were grown, harvested, and then offered to show her the basic process of how the oil was made. There was, after all, oil being expressed even while they sat. The active part wouldn’t be started until his father came up here later in the morning.
'There is nothing to apologize for,'
Hypatia felt a dark and wriggling sensation of guilt somewhere deep within herself. Whilst she knew her intentions to be pure and her considerations of those around her to be fair, there was an element of deceit in her even being here that made contrition a valid and real necessity. Despite all of this, Hypatia found herself too engrossed in moments of sweet harmony in Isaiah's company to feel too ashamed for her faults - small as they might have been. Her shame was a constant companion but often ignored as she went about her clandestine meeting with this Judean man that felt so much more familiar than an acquaintance of their standing should.
For the truth of the matter was that Hypatia was here to wed a man. There was no secondary purpose for her visit to the Judean shores, no bonus meaning for her journey. Her parents were not here to make trade negotiations and a marital union had been proposed through casual lines of communication; through natural growth of feeling. She was here with the sole and primary reason to become engaged to a particular individual. There were no blurred edges to that.
And here she was, openly accepting time alone with a man who was not that intended.
Logic could perhaps fall upon Hypatia's side. Her time spent with Isaiah was paid for. It was for practical lessons in Hebrew which was only pragmatic if she was to become the mistress of a household that owned Hebrew slaves and servants. She could call such arrangements those of forethought and consideration of her future position in the household of Commander Alexios. And when their encounters had begun, this was exactly the reasoning that she had given for such things. It was the objective rationale that she had lent to their meetings.
Now, things were a little more complicated. And that shame and guilt only wriggled free of her middle and began to head towards her heart when mishaps such as just occurred were felt. The way her fingers had brushed against Isaiah's setting both of their face's flaming with colour. That connection, that warmth, was not for the sake of learning a language. It served her no purpose in her intended future as wife to a military leader. She could not call such moments insignificant, nor appropriate. And the combination of those two classifications rendered her connection with Isaiah as moot. Moot, ineffective, scandalous and unfair to all involved.
And Isaiah did not know that.
It was this ignorance, this deception for which Hypatia knew that she should apologise. She knew that her skills in Hebrew had risen to the point where she might be able to explain her true situation to the man sitting beside her. She knew not the words for betrothed or engaged, but she could summon cobbled together sentences that would ensure that the point was made. And yet she had not.
Sometimes, she was able to convince herself that she had stayed quiet because there had never been a polite moment in the conversation to raise the subject. But Hypatia knew this to be only a half truth. Real a reason as it was, it was not the primary cause for her hesitation.
Instead, the simple truth of it was that she did not know Judean custom. She did not know Isaiah's thoughts and feelings upon meeting a woman due to be betrothed but not yet formally intended for another. And she enjoyed their meetings and their lessons far too greatly to ever risk the cessation of them over a simple matter of technicality.
When she was formally engaged, she would not see this man again. That was to be her agreement and burden in her union arrangements with her Grecian husband. But, until then, she could not bear the simple notion of truncating their liaison prematurely for the sake of a simple secret.
One that she was constantly forgetting when in Isaiah's company and discussing matters of great important and silly simplicity. For she liked to hear him talk.
It was with this in mind that Hypatia was able to push away her thoughts of contrition and her fears of guilt. She sat with her hands resting demurely on the tops of her knees, her face turned to the sunshine and to Isaiah. As she listened to him describing the process of the oil creation, the way his family worked to secure coin and a roof for their family, she could not help but enjoy the sound of his voice more so than his words.
Hypatia tried to listen for the language he used specifically, tried to memorise the words and phrases that he chose and how the Hebrew could be translated into Grecian syntax. She tried to remember the lessons that he had taught her over the weeks. But, in truth, Isaiah was more distracting than the occupation that he loved. His passion for his craft saw his eyes brightening, his smile broadening. The white of his teeth was stark in his prettily tanned skin and his light beard made the shifts and movements of his jaw more obvious to the naked eye. She liked the way that he pushed his hair back from his face as if entirely unconscious of the gesture. How his whole being was one of natural ease over social decorum. He was earthy... real... genuine.
As he talked, Hypatia leant a little further forward. The movement helped her see his face better, given that they were seated side by side, and eventually drew her ear to the backs of her hands. She leant over her knees with the soft and relaxed pose of a sleeping babe, her eyes open and rivetted on his face. A soft smile turned up the corners of her sweet and rounded lips. At one point, as she listened, her eyes focused on his mouth and how he formed his letters, Hypatia was entirely ignorant of the way her lower lip drew in to fix beneath her teeth.
When Isaiah finished talking, describing the way his family handled their oil, she found him glancing towards the building in which the process was carried out. Instantly, her posture was straight once more, her softness coupled with the fragile elegance of spun glass. Awkward on her bottom in the grass, she offered up her hands to Isaiah, implying that he should stand and held to lift her to her feet.
"Will you not show me, Isaiah?" She asked, her eyes darting to that little stone building, her smile bright and her gaze inquisitive and eager to learn more.
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Check out their information page here.
This character is currently a work in progress.
Check out their information page here.
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'There is nothing to apologize for,'
Hypatia felt a dark and wriggling sensation of guilt somewhere deep within herself. Whilst she knew her intentions to be pure and her considerations of those around her to be fair, there was an element of deceit in her even being here that made contrition a valid and real necessity. Despite all of this, Hypatia found herself too engrossed in moments of sweet harmony in Isaiah's company to feel too ashamed for her faults - small as they might have been. Her shame was a constant companion but often ignored as she went about her clandestine meeting with this Judean man that felt so much more familiar than an acquaintance of their standing should.
For the truth of the matter was that Hypatia was here to wed a man. There was no secondary purpose for her visit to the Judean shores, no bonus meaning for her journey. Her parents were not here to make trade negotiations and a marital union had been proposed through casual lines of communication; through natural growth of feeling. She was here with the sole and primary reason to become engaged to a particular individual. There were no blurred edges to that.
And here she was, openly accepting time alone with a man who was not that intended.
Logic could perhaps fall upon Hypatia's side. Her time spent with Isaiah was paid for. It was for practical lessons in Hebrew which was only pragmatic if she was to become the mistress of a household that owned Hebrew slaves and servants. She could call such arrangements those of forethought and consideration of her future position in the household of Commander Alexios. And when their encounters had begun, this was exactly the reasoning that she had given for such things. It was the objective rationale that she had lent to their meetings.
Now, things were a little more complicated. And that shame and guilt only wriggled free of her middle and began to head towards her heart when mishaps such as just occurred were felt. The way her fingers had brushed against Isaiah's setting both of their face's flaming with colour. That connection, that warmth, was not for the sake of learning a language. It served her no purpose in her intended future as wife to a military leader. She could not call such moments insignificant, nor appropriate. And the combination of those two classifications rendered her connection with Isaiah as moot. Moot, ineffective, scandalous and unfair to all involved.
And Isaiah did not know that.
It was this ignorance, this deception for which Hypatia knew that she should apologise. She knew that her skills in Hebrew had risen to the point where she might be able to explain her true situation to the man sitting beside her. She knew not the words for betrothed or engaged, but she could summon cobbled together sentences that would ensure that the point was made. And yet she had not.
Sometimes, she was able to convince herself that she had stayed quiet because there had never been a polite moment in the conversation to raise the subject. But Hypatia knew this to be only a half truth. Real a reason as it was, it was not the primary cause for her hesitation.
Instead, the simple truth of it was that she did not know Judean custom. She did not know Isaiah's thoughts and feelings upon meeting a woman due to be betrothed but not yet formally intended for another. And she enjoyed their meetings and their lessons far too greatly to ever risk the cessation of them over a simple matter of technicality.
When she was formally engaged, she would not see this man again. That was to be her agreement and burden in her union arrangements with her Grecian husband. But, until then, she could not bear the simple notion of truncating their liaison prematurely for the sake of a simple secret.
One that she was constantly forgetting when in Isaiah's company and discussing matters of great important and silly simplicity. For she liked to hear him talk.
It was with this in mind that Hypatia was able to push away her thoughts of contrition and her fears of guilt. She sat with her hands resting demurely on the tops of her knees, her face turned to the sunshine and to Isaiah. As she listened to him describing the process of the oil creation, the way his family worked to secure coin and a roof for their family, she could not help but enjoy the sound of his voice more so than his words.
Hypatia tried to listen for the language he used specifically, tried to memorise the words and phrases that he chose and how the Hebrew could be translated into Grecian syntax. She tried to remember the lessons that he had taught her over the weeks. But, in truth, Isaiah was more distracting than the occupation that he loved. His passion for his craft saw his eyes brightening, his smile broadening. The white of his teeth was stark in his prettily tanned skin and his light beard made the shifts and movements of his jaw more obvious to the naked eye. She liked the way that he pushed his hair back from his face as if entirely unconscious of the gesture. How his whole being was one of natural ease over social decorum. He was earthy... real... genuine.
As he talked, Hypatia leant a little further forward. The movement helped her see his face better, given that they were seated side by side, and eventually drew her ear to the backs of her hands. She leant over her knees with the soft and relaxed pose of a sleeping babe, her eyes open and rivetted on his face. A soft smile turned up the corners of her sweet and rounded lips. At one point, as she listened, her eyes focused on his mouth and how he formed his letters, Hypatia was entirely ignorant of the way her lower lip drew in to fix beneath her teeth.
When Isaiah finished talking, describing the way his family handled their oil, she found him glancing towards the building in which the process was carried out. Instantly, her posture was straight once more, her softness coupled with the fragile elegance of spun glass. Awkward on her bottom in the grass, she offered up her hands to Isaiah, implying that he should stand and held to lift her to her feet.
"Will you not show me, Isaiah?" She asked, her eyes darting to that little stone building, her smile bright and her gaze inquisitive and eager to learn more.
'There is nothing to apologize for,'
Hypatia felt a dark and wriggling sensation of guilt somewhere deep within herself. Whilst she knew her intentions to be pure and her considerations of those around her to be fair, there was an element of deceit in her even being here that made contrition a valid and real necessity. Despite all of this, Hypatia found herself too engrossed in moments of sweet harmony in Isaiah's company to feel too ashamed for her faults - small as they might have been. Her shame was a constant companion but often ignored as she went about her clandestine meeting with this Judean man that felt so much more familiar than an acquaintance of their standing should.
For the truth of the matter was that Hypatia was here to wed a man. There was no secondary purpose for her visit to the Judean shores, no bonus meaning for her journey. Her parents were not here to make trade negotiations and a marital union had been proposed through casual lines of communication; through natural growth of feeling. She was here with the sole and primary reason to become engaged to a particular individual. There were no blurred edges to that.
And here she was, openly accepting time alone with a man who was not that intended.
Logic could perhaps fall upon Hypatia's side. Her time spent with Isaiah was paid for. It was for practical lessons in Hebrew which was only pragmatic if she was to become the mistress of a household that owned Hebrew slaves and servants. She could call such arrangements those of forethought and consideration of her future position in the household of Commander Alexios. And when their encounters had begun, this was exactly the reasoning that she had given for such things. It was the objective rationale that she had lent to their meetings.
Now, things were a little more complicated. And that shame and guilt only wriggled free of her middle and began to head towards her heart when mishaps such as just occurred were felt. The way her fingers had brushed against Isaiah's setting both of their face's flaming with colour. That connection, that warmth, was not for the sake of learning a language. It served her no purpose in her intended future as wife to a military leader. She could not call such moments insignificant, nor appropriate. And the combination of those two classifications rendered her connection with Isaiah as moot. Moot, ineffective, scandalous and unfair to all involved.
And Isaiah did not know that.
It was this ignorance, this deception for which Hypatia knew that she should apologise. She knew that her skills in Hebrew had risen to the point where she might be able to explain her true situation to the man sitting beside her. She knew not the words for betrothed or engaged, but she could summon cobbled together sentences that would ensure that the point was made. And yet she had not.
Sometimes, she was able to convince herself that she had stayed quiet because there had never been a polite moment in the conversation to raise the subject. But Hypatia knew this to be only a half truth. Real a reason as it was, it was not the primary cause for her hesitation.
Instead, the simple truth of it was that she did not know Judean custom. She did not know Isaiah's thoughts and feelings upon meeting a woman due to be betrothed but not yet formally intended for another. And she enjoyed their meetings and their lessons far too greatly to ever risk the cessation of them over a simple matter of technicality.
When she was formally engaged, she would not see this man again. That was to be her agreement and burden in her union arrangements with her Grecian husband. But, until then, she could not bear the simple notion of truncating their liaison prematurely for the sake of a simple secret.
One that she was constantly forgetting when in Isaiah's company and discussing matters of great important and silly simplicity. For she liked to hear him talk.
It was with this in mind that Hypatia was able to push away her thoughts of contrition and her fears of guilt. She sat with her hands resting demurely on the tops of her knees, her face turned to the sunshine and to Isaiah. As she listened to him describing the process of the oil creation, the way his family worked to secure coin and a roof for their family, she could not help but enjoy the sound of his voice more so than his words.
Hypatia tried to listen for the language he used specifically, tried to memorise the words and phrases that he chose and how the Hebrew could be translated into Grecian syntax. She tried to remember the lessons that he had taught her over the weeks. But, in truth, Isaiah was more distracting than the occupation that he loved. His passion for his craft saw his eyes brightening, his smile broadening. The white of his teeth was stark in his prettily tanned skin and his light beard made the shifts and movements of his jaw more obvious to the naked eye. She liked the way that he pushed his hair back from his face as if entirely unconscious of the gesture. How his whole being was one of natural ease over social decorum. He was earthy... real... genuine.
As he talked, Hypatia leant a little further forward. The movement helped her see his face better, given that they were seated side by side, and eventually drew her ear to the backs of her hands. She leant over her knees with the soft and relaxed pose of a sleeping babe, her eyes open and rivetted on his face. A soft smile turned up the corners of her sweet and rounded lips. At one point, as she listened, her eyes focused on his mouth and how he formed his letters, Hypatia was entirely ignorant of the way her lower lip drew in to fix beneath her teeth.
When Isaiah finished talking, describing the way his family handled their oil, she found him glancing towards the building in which the process was carried out. Instantly, her posture was straight once more, her softness coupled with the fragile elegance of spun glass. Awkward on her bottom in the grass, she offered up her hands to Isaiah, implying that he should stand and held to lift her to her feet.
"Will you not show me, Isaiah?" She asked, her eyes darting to that little stone building, her smile bright and her gaze inquisitive and eager to learn more.
Isaiah was not conscious as he spoke that this was to be one of the moments he would think on from time to time with fondness. He didn’t notice the way the light filtered in gossamer gold, draping itself here and there around Hypatia like curtains of light. Bright flecks of dust danced in the air around her and his smile came not from talk of his family’s livelihood, but a mirror of her own smile. There wasn’t much to brighten about, he felt, to describe people standing on sturdy wooden ladders while they batted at tree branches to make the olives let go of their twigs and bounce onto the waiting blankets below. When gathering the green oblong fruit, he could fully expect his wrists and forearms to be coated in shallow scratches, his back to ache, and his body to be entirely too hot from the sun. All of that was left out of his narrative, of course. She didn’t need to understand the true work that went into it.
Nor did he tell her of a locust that had jumped into his face one time when he’d bent down to gather the corners of the blanket and drag it in a heavy bundle towards his family’s shed. His words were considered and made simple so that he’d be sure she understood what he meant. Most of the details were spared for her. If she wanted a truly in depth explanation of oil making, he could most certainly do it, but he was a little concerned that he might find her eyes wandering away and maybe a soft sigh escaping her lips as she prayed to her gods that he would stop.
Hypatia did not of that. The more he spoke, the more interested she seemed to be and he found himself starting to expand on things he’d already told her just to keep her happy. He’d have been an utter simpleton to miss her eyes drifting down to his mouth and he lost his train of thought completely when she bit her lip as she looked up at him through the most innocent, beautiful pose. He was no artist but if he’d wanted to paint her, he might have asked her to sit for him in just that way. The curve of her back and shoulders, the tilt of her head and slant of her eyes drawing him like nothing else she’d done yet. The white city sat below them, half hidden like a diamond amidst the green of the trees and his words finally trailed away as he sat up on his knees, just staring at her, completely and utterly entranced.
They sat like that for a few seconds before he briefly flitted his gaze away to the shed in some lame attempt to continue the conversation. No matter what he may like to do, he could not simply stare at her for the rest of the afternoon like a besotted idiot. The notion of the shed broke the spell and she sat up straight, animated once more and he reminded himself that she was not here for him to admire. She was too sweet and too naive to read his thoughts anyway but, as though in direct contradiction to that, he saw her hands lift into the air.
He shot to his feet, unwilling to pass up the chance to touch her.
“Will you not show me, Isaiah?” she asked. His fingers brushed along hers a moment later and he half grinned down at her. The motion should have been quick and fleeting. He should have taken her hands, pulled her up, and let go. It would all have been the work of seconds with minimal contact. But he did not follow the rules. Not this time.
His fingertips glided along the lengths of her fingers, smoothing down her palms until their hands pressed together for a fraction of a second too long. He held her gaze, and wrapped his warm hands around her delicate wrists, gently pulling her to her feet. If he’d remembered her maid existed, he would have stepped back but he didn’t and their bodies were so close their clothes ghosted against each other.
“I’ll show you anything you like,” he wasn’t entirely sure his voice was even. A firm clearing of the throat made him step immediately away from her, dropping her wrists, and severing contact. Swallowing hard and flicking his attention to her maid and then back to Hypatia, Isaiah cleared his throat loudly, ran his tongue along his bottom lip, and gestured to the shed. “Just over here,” he said and turned so that his back was to her. Squeezing his eyes shut, he walked the distance from the blanket to the door blindly, not needing to see what he was doing. He reached for the handle and silently prayed for Yahweh to take his mind back to pure intentions because he knew for a fact that if her maid wasn’t here, he would kiss this girl in this shed. It was literally all he could think about and he was glad of the cool interior with its overpowering scent of crushed olives to force his mind into a different direction.
The entire press was humbly made, with a wide, shallow stone basin where olives were placed. Above this was a wooden circle just small enough to fit inside the circle beneath it. A lever lowered the press and Isaiah had leaned his entire weight against it countless times, forcing the olives to release their oils into a smooth stone trough that guided down into more basins and various ways to strain the liquid until it was pure.
None of this could he tell her without his eyes drifting to her mouth. There had been many days where he’d stood in this very shed, in fact at this very spot, daydreaming but never as strongly as now. He leaned toward her with no real thought other than he wanted to be as close to her as possible. She was the most delicate, beautiful creature he’d ever seen and she was right here. He could reach out and touch her and he almost did so but his hand grasped the lever right beside her head instead at the last moment. She filled his entire vision as though she was the sun.
This character is currently a work in progress.
Check out their information page here.
This character is currently a work in progress.
Check out their information page here.
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Isaiah was not conscious as he spoke that this was to be one of the moments he would think on from time to time with fondness. He didn’t notice the way the light filtered in gossamer gold, draping itself here and there around Hypatia like curtains of light. Bright flecks of dust danced in the air around her and his smile came not from talk of his family’s livelihood, but a mirror of her own smile. There wasn’t much to brighten about, he felt, to describe people standing on sturdy wooden ladders while they batted at tree branches to make the olives let go of their twigs and bounce onto the waiting blankets below. When gathering the green oblong fruit, he could fully expect his wrists and forearms to be coated in shallow scratches, his back to ache, and his body to be entirely too hot from the sun. All of that was left out of his narrative, of course. She didn’t need to understand the true work that went into it.
Nor did he tell her of a locust that had jumped into his face one time when he’d bent down to gather the corners of the blanket and drag it in a heavy bundle towards his family’s shed. His words were considered and made simple so that he’d be sure she understood what he meant. Most of the details were spared for her. If she wanted a truly in depth explanation of oil making, he could most certainly do it, but he was a little concerned that he might find her eyes wandering away and maybe a soft sigh escaping her lips as she prayed to her gods that he would stop.
Hypatia did not of that. The more he spoke, the more interested she seemed to be and he found himself starting to expand on things he’d already told her just to keep her happy. He’d have been an utter simpleton to miss her eyes drifting down to his mouth and he lost his train of thought completely when she bit her lip as she looked up at him through the most innocent, beautiful pose. He was no artist but if he’d wanted to paint her, he might have asked her to sit for him in just that way. The curve of her back and shoulders, the tilt of her head and slant of her eyes drawing him like nothing else she’d done yet. The white city sat below them, half hidden like a diamond amidst the green of the trees and his words finally trailed away as he sat up on his knees, just staring at her, completely and utterly entranced.
They sat like that for a few seconds before he briefly flitted his gaze away to the shed in some lame attempt to continue the conversation. No matter what he may like to do, he could not simply stare at her for the rest of the afternoon like a besotted idiot. The notion of the shed broke the spell and she sat up straight, animated once more and he reminded himself that she was not here for him to admire. She was too sweet and too naive to read his thoughts anyway but, as though in direct contradiction to that, he saw her hands lift into the air.
He shot to his feet, unwilling to pass up the chance to touch her.
“Will you not show me, Isaiah?” she asked. His fingers brushed along hers a moment later and he half grinned down at her. The motion should have been quick and fleeting. He should have taken her hands, pulled her up, and let go. It would all have been the work of seconds with minimal contact. But he did not follow the rules. Not this time.
His fingertips glided along the lengths of her fingers, smoothing down her palms until their hands pressed together for a fraction of a second too long. He held her gaze, and wrapped his warm hands around her delicate wrists, gently pulling her to her feet. If he’d remembered her maid existed, he would have stepped back but he didn’t and their bodies were so close their clothes ghosted against each other.
“I’ll show you anything you like,” he wasn’t entirely sure his voice was even. A firm clearing of the throat made him step immediately away from her, dropping her wrists, and severing contact. Swallowing hard and flicking his attention to her maid and then back to Hypatia, Isaiah cleared his throat loudly, ran his tongue along his bottom lip, and gestured to the shed. “Just over here,” he said and turned so that his back was to her. Squeezing his eyes shut, he walked the distance from the blanket to the door blindly, not needing to see what he was doing. He reached for the handle and silently prayed for Yahweh to take his mind back to pure intentions because he knew for a fact that if her maid wasn’t here, he would kiss this girl in this shed. It was literally all he could think about and he was glad of the cool interior with its overpowering scent of crushed olives to force his mind into a different direction.
The entire press was humbly made, with a wide, shallow stone basin where olives were placed. Above this was a wooden circle just small enough to fit inside the circle beneath it. A lever lowered the press and Isaiah had leaned his entire weight against it countless times, forcing the olives to release their oils into a smooth stone trough that guided down into more basins and various ways to strain the liquid until it was pure.
None of this could he tell her without his eyes drifting to her mouth. There had been many days where he’d stood in this very shed, in fact at this very spot, daydreaming but never as strongly as now. He leaned toward her with no real thought other than he wanted to be as close to her as possible. She was the most delicate, beautiful creature he’d ever seen and she was right here. He could reach out and touch her and he almost did so but his hand grasped the lever right beside her head instead at the last moment. She filled his entire vision as though she was the sun.
Isaiah was not conscious as he spoke that this was to be one of the moments he would think on from time to time with fondness. He didn’t notice the way the light filtered in gossamer gold, draping itself here and there around Hypatia like curtains of light. Bright flecks of dust danced in the air around her and his smile came not from talk of his family’s livelihood, but a mirror of her own smile. There wasn’t much to brighten about, he felt, to describe people standing on sturdy wooden ladders while they batted at tree branches to make the olives let go of their twigs and bounce onto the waiting blankets below. When gathering the green oblong fruit, he could fully expect his wrists and forearms to be coated in shallow scratches, his back to ache, and his body to be entirely too hot from the sun. All of that was left out of his narrative, of course. She didn’t need to understand the true work that went into it.
Nor did he tell her of a locust that had jumped into his face one time when he’d bent down to gather the corners of the blanket and drag it in a heavy bundle towards his family’s shed. His words were considered and made simple so that he’d be sure she understood what he meant. Most of the details were spared for her. If she wanted a truly in depth explanation of oil making, he could most certainly do it, but he was a little concerned that he might find her eyes wandering away and maybe a soft sigh escaping her lips as she prayed to her gods that he would stop.
Hypatia did not of that. The more he spoke, the more interested she seemed to be and he found himself starting to expand on things he’d already told her just to keep her happy. He’d have been an utter simpleton to miss her eyes drifting down to his mouth and he lost his train of thought completely when she bit her lip as she looked up at him through the most innocent, beautiful pose. He was no artist but if he’d wanted to paint her, he might have asked her to sit for him in just that way. The curve of her back and shoulders, the tilt of her head and slant of her eyes drawing him like nothing else she’d done yet. The white city sat below them, half hidden like a diamond amidst the green of the trees and his words finally trailed away as he sat up on his knees, just staring at her, completely and utterly entranced.
They sat like that for a few seconds before he briefly flitted his gaze away to the shed in some lame attempt to continue the conversation. No matter what he may like to do, he could not simply stare at her for the rest of the afternoon like a besotted idiot. The notion of the shed broke the spell and she sat up straight, animated once more and he reminded himself that she was not here for him to admire. She was too sweet and too naive to read his thoughts anyway but, as though in direct contradiction to that, he saw her hands lift into the air.
He shot to his feet, unwilling to pass up the chance to touch her.
“Will you not show me, Isaiah?” she asked. His fingers brushed along hers a moment later and he half grinned down at her. The motion should have been quick and fleeting. He should have taken her hands, pulled her up, and let go. It would all have been the work of seconds with minimal contact. But he did not follow the rules. Not this time.
His fingertips glided along the lengths of her fingers, smoothing down her palms until their hands pressed together for a fraction of a second too long. He held her gaze, and wrapped his warm hands around her delicate wrists, gently pulling her to her feet. If he’d remembered her maid existed, he would have stepped back but he didn’t and their bodies were so close their clothes ghosted against each other.
“I’ll show you anything you like,” he wasn’t entirely sure his voice was even. A firm clearing of the throat made him step immediately away from her, dropping her wrists, and severing contact. Swallowing hard and flicking his attention to her maid and then back to Hypatia, Isaiah cleared his throat loudly, ran his tongue along his bottom lip, and gestured to the shed. “Just over here,” he said and turned so that his back was to her. Squeezing his eyes shut, he walked the distance from the blanket to the door blindly, not needing to see what he was doing. He reached for the handle and silently prayed for Yahweh to take his mind back to pure intentions because he knew for a fact that if her maid wasn’t here, he would kiss this girl in this shed. It was literally all he could think about and he was glad of the cool interior with its overpowering scent of crushed olives to force his mind into a different direction.
The entire press was humbly made, with a wide, shallow stone basin where olives were placed. Above this was a wooden circle just small enough to fit inside the circle beneath it. A lever lowered the press and Isaiah had leaned his entire weight against it countless times, forcing the olives to release their oils into a smooth stone trough that guided down into more basins and various ways to strain the liquid until it was pure.
None of this could he tell her without his eyes drifting to her mouth. There had been many days where he’d stood in this very shed, in fact at this very spot, daydreaming but never as strongly as now. He leaned toward her with no real thought other than he wanted to be as close to her as possible. She was the most delicate, beautiful creature he’d ever seen and she was right here. He could reach out and touch her and he almost did so but his hand grasped the lever right beside her head instead at the last moment. She filled his entire vision as though she was the sun.
When Hypatia had lifted her hands to Isaiah's aid, it had not been from a lazy spirit. There were numerous ways that she could have gotten up from the soft dry hillside under her own minimal strength. And she would have not been averse to attempting them. Instead, however, Hypatia was raised to seek and utilise the chances in life to be as effortless as possible. If there was a servant in the room to fetch her the book she wished for, it was to be done. If she was stepping down from a carriage or horse, then a hand was expected to help her keep her balance and ensure that the movement was graceful. It had been bred into her for so long and with such intention, that she was now almost as useless as someone might fear her to be. Not because she was determined - or needed - to be so. But because her first instinct was to see to others aiding her in actions she might have otherwise been able to perform herself.
Offering up her hands, so that she might be guided to her feet rather than expose herself to the awkward scuffle that would be her ascension under her own steam, Hypatia smiled brightly when Isaiah was quick to help. He stood before her, his back to the sun and cast a long tower of strength before her, cast into a warm shadow of reds and browns. The sunlight sparked rays behind his shoulders as he reached down to help her to her feet.
Her smile faltered, slow to hover and then part upon her lips as Isaiah's touch was not quick. He did not take her fingers as one might to brush a kiss to her knuckles, nor grab at her wrists to haul her to her feet like sailors would pull upon a rope. Each would be a quick option for having her upright and yet neither were employed.
Isaiah's hands shifted to brush along hers, his fingertips over the lengths of her fingers, then her palms. A shiver went down her arms, a soft and soundless gasp hovering on her parted lips. Her palms felt the abrasion on his - callouses of work and toil - but could not summon distaste for the signs of his upbringing. Whilst, perhaps, her mother would have turned away in disgust, have been horrified that a man with such working hands had dared to touch her, Hypatia's instinct was far different. The ever so slight roughness against her fingers was heating... warming... it sent a little tremble down her spine and made her thighs draw together. The skin upon her hips and sides turned sensitive, as if wishing for such a touch there... Curious as to what such a sensation would feel like around her waist.
When his fingers wrapped around her wrists, she did gasp. Brought up to standing by the strength in his arms and her own waiflike figure, Hypatia was drawn quickly to her feet. Her belly drew in and her body naturally arched as she found herself too close to the man. Her feet remained where they were, unwilling to shift, her figure bending a little away from him. Her eyes were wide as his clothes brushed hers and she felt hot beneath the heavy layers of Judean garments. She felt the silk of her chiton beneath clinging to her skin.
Unlike Isaiah's consideration of Jael, Hypatia had forgotten her existence entirely. Her mind was captivated by what was happening before her and her conscious thought held only the space for the man in front. The way that the sunshine cast his face into hues of reds and dark markings should have made him frightening. Looming. They should have turned him monstrous and dark. Yet, all Hypatia could see was warmth. The heat in his colouring, the essence of his body. The way his face was so incredibly close to her own.
For a moment, Hypatia forgot to breathe. She hovered there, frozen and poised, waiting to see what he would do next. Unsure of their closeness, to warm to resist stepping away and too frightened with a tempting exhilaration to know what to do next.
Her stilled lungs spasmed into action at his words. Her gasp was soft and breathy on her tongue and only sent her airless once more. He had said nothing inappropriate and yet every part of her knew that this was illicit. That such words should not have been said and yet they had each wished them spoken. It didn't even matter that Hypatia did not know the things of which he spoke, did not know what he was promising to show her. Her innocence knew no bounds when it came to the physicalities of men and women. All she knew was that something was coiling deep within. Curling at the very idea of Isaiah's promise.
And then he was stepping away.
Able to breathe once more, Hypatia was hit with the full force of the sun and still felt as if she had cooled from the moment prior. She narrowed her eyes against the sunshine, caught as he licked at his lip and darted away. It was the first time she had noticed her heartbeat and how it pounded in her ears. Gods but what was wrong with her?
Swallowing and taking a long draw of breath, Hypatia was able to recover her smile - this one more tentative and unsure than the one before - and followed Isaiah down the little hill and towards the shed he had been looking at as he spoke of his life and the work that he did.
The lower foundations of the little structure were stone and the walls rose up as wood. As they stepped within, Hypatia was hit with a sweet but slightly bitter scent and she felt her tongue watered. She swallowed and looked about the room, distracted from the riotous senses shifting through her body by all that was new and interesting. There were little gaps in the walls to allow light inside, but kept up high and barred so that animals and birds could not find their way in to the olives. Then there were brackets on the workbenches for candles when the dim and hushed light of outside was not enough by which to see. The benches themselves stretched along the walls and played host to wooden buckets and barrels, along with the tools for collecting the olives from the trees.
She found the simplicity of the contraption in the centre of the shed to be wonderful. When she had spoken of turning olives to olive oil and had made the gesture of smooshing pressure with her hands, she hadn't realised that she had been describing the exact process. She had assumed there was some sort of grand secret or contraption that would see the juices drawn from the fruits without the effort of humans but, in reality, the invention before her was simply a larger scale of her own hands. Two stones that would press together and squash the yield until it was paste.
She listened to his words as he described the craft, of how the olives were placed within, how the stones would come together and what was left of the yield when they rose once more. At first, Hypatia had watched what he was speaking of, looking at the invention from different angles and curious as to how his words detailed its behaviour. As time went on and his voice grew deeper, Hypatia had looked around only to notice his line of sight.
She felt her lips begin to tingle under his stare, her breathing becoming bated once more and her heart hitting her against her collarbone, its weight pounding against the inside of her chest. Why did she react so in his presence? What did it mean? Was she ill or feverish? Why did he continue to look at her so?
As he leaned closer and his hand reached up, Hypatia thought for a moment that he might touch her face. That he would perhaps put his fingers to the lips he watched so intently. She swallowed, the tip of her tongue appearing just at the centre of her bottom lip and then retreating. As if nervous to appear and dampen them. In its place, a tremble set upon her lower lip as she watched him draw closer.
And at the last possible moment his hand, instead of touching her, claimed purchase on the large lever that had hovered beside her head without her notice.
A moment of sorrow, a blast of confusion, a heightened state of being combined to see Hypatia's eyes begin to water. She did not know why she had gone from a heated skin and a flurry of thought to tears of anguish but her heart was too muddled to be able to give her answers. Over sensitive and over stimulated, crying seemed her body's natural outlet...
"Why..." She began, her lips reaching around the Hebrew words... "Why do you look at me so...?" She asked, begging to whichever Olympian was patron to those that did not wish to be embarrassed. She prayed that her tears would not fall and she would not be expected to answer the obvious questions that would follow. For she did not know that she could answer them.
She only knew one thing. That this man made her feel oh so much.
This character is currently a work in progress.
Check out their information page here.
This character is currently a work in progress.
Check out their information page here.
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When Hypatia had lifted her hands to Isaiah's aid, it had not been from a lazy spirit. There were numerous ways that she could have gotten up from the soft dry hillside under her own minimal strength. And she would have not been averse to attempting them. Instead, however, Hypatia was raised to seek and utilise the chances in life to be as effortless as possible. If there was a servant in the room to fetch her the book she wished for, it was to be done. If she was stepping down from a carriage or horse, then a hand was expected to help her keep her balance and ensure that the movement was graceful. It had been bred into her for so long and with such intention, that she was now almost as useless as someone might fear her to be. Not because she was determined - or needed - to be so. But because her first instinct was to see to others aiding her in actions she might have otherwise been able to perform herself.
Offering up her hands, so that she might be guided to her feet rather than expose herself to the awkward scuffle that would be her ascension under her own steam, Hypatia smiled brightly when Isaiah was quick to help. He stood before her, his back to the sun and cast a long tower of strength before her, cast into a warm shadow of reds and browns. The sunlight sparked rays behind his shoulders as he reached down to help her to her feet.
Her smile faltered, slow to hover and then part upon her lips as Isaiah's touch was not quick. He did not take her fingers as one might to brush a kiss to her knuckles, nor grab at her wrists to haul her to her feet like sailors would pull upon a rope. Each would be a quick option for having her upright and yet neither were employed.
Isaiah's hands shifted to brush along hers, his fingertips over the lengths of her fingers, then her palms. A shiver went down her arms, a soft and soundless gasp hovering on her parted lips. Her palms felt the abrasion on his - callouses of work and toil - but could not summon distaste for the signs of his upbringing. Whilst, perhaps, her mother would have turned away in disgust, have been horrified that a man with such working hands had dared to touch her, Hypatia's instinct was far different. The ever so slight roughness against her fingers was heating... warming... it sent a little tremble down her spine and made her thighs draw together. The skin upon her hips and sides turned sensitive, as if wishing for such a touch there... Curious as to what such a sensation would feel like around her waist.
When his fingers wrapped around her wrists, she did gasp. Brought up to standing by the strength in his arms and her own waiflike figure, Hypatia was drawn quickly to her feet. Her belly drew in and her body naturally arched as she found herself too close to the man. Her feet remained where they were, unwilling to shift, her figure bending a little away from him. Her eyes were wide as his clothes brushed hers and she felt hot beneath the heavy layers of Judean garments. She felt the silk of her chiton beneath clinging to her skin.
Unlike Isaiah's consideration of Jael, Hypatia had forgotten her existence entirely. Her mind was captivated by what was happening before her and her conscious thought held only the space for the man in front. The way that the sunshine cast his face into hues of reds and dark markings should have made him frightening. Looming. They should have turned him monstrous and dark. Yet, all Hypatia could see was warmth. The heat in his colouring, the essence of his body. The way his face was so incredibly close to her own.
For a moment, Hypatia forgot to breathe. She hovered there, frozen and poised, waiting to see what he would do next. Unsure of their closeness, to warm to resist stepping away and too frightened with a tempting exhilaration to know what to do next.
Her stilled lungs spasmed into action at his words. Her gasp was soft and breathy on her tongue and only sent her airless once more. He had said nothing inappropriate and yet every part of her knew that this was illicit. That such words should not have been said and yet they had each wished them spoken. It didn't even matter that Hypatia did not know the things of which he spoke, did not know what he was promising to show her. Her innocence knew no bounds when it came to the physicalities of men and women. All she knew was that something was coiling deep within. Curling at the very idea of Isaiah's promise.
And then he was stepping away.
Able to breathe once more, Hypatia was hit with the full force of the sun and still felt as if she had cooled from the moment prior. She narrowed her eyes against the sunshine, caught as he licked at his lip and darted away. It was the first time she had noticed her heartbeat and how it pounded in her ears. Gods but what was wrong with her?
Swallowing and taking a long draw of breath, Hypatia was able to recover her smile - this one more tentative and unsure than the one before - and followed Isaiah down the little hill and towards the shed he had been looking at as he spoke of his life and the work that he did.
The lower foundations of the little structure were stone and the walls rose up as wood. As they stepped within, Hypatia was hit with a sweet but slightly bitter scent and she felt her tongue watered. She swallowed and looked about the room, distracted from the riotous senses shifting through her body by all that was new and interesting. There were little gaps in the walls to allow light inside, but kept up high and barred so that animals and birds could not find their way in to the olives. Then there were brackets on the workbenches for candles when the dim and hushed light of outside was not enough by which to see. The benches themselves stretched along the walls and played host to wooden buckets and barrels, along with the tools for collecting the olives from the trees.
She found the simplicity of the contraption in the centre of the shed to be wonderful. When she had spoken of turning olives to olive oil and had made the gesture of smooshing pressure with her hands, she hadn't realised that she had been describing the exact process. She had assumed there was some sort of grand secret or contraption that would see the juices drawn from the fruits without the effort of humans but, in reality, the invention before her was simply a larger scale of her own hands. Two stones that would press together and squash the yield until it was paste.
She listened to his words as he described the craft, of how the olives were placed within, how the stones would come together and what was left of the yield when they rose once more. At first, Hypatia had watched what he was speaking of, looking at the invention from different angles and curious as to how his words detailed its behaviour. As time went on and his voice grew deeper, Hypatia had looked around only to notice his line of sight.
She felt her lips begin to tingle under his stare, her breathing becoming bated once more and her heart hitting her against her collarbone, its weight pounding against the inside of her chest. Why did she react so in his presence? What did it mean? Was she ill or feverish? Why did he continue to look at her so?
As he leaned closer and his hand reached up, Hypatia thought for a moment that he might touch her face. That he would perhaps put his fingers to the lips he watched so intently. She swallowed, the tip of her tongue appearing just at the centre of her bottom lip and then retreating. As if nervous to appear and dampen them. In its place, a tremble set upon her lower lip as she watched him draw closer.
And at the last possible moment his hand, instead of touching her, claimed purchase on the large lever that had hovered beside her head without her notice.
A moment of sorrow, a blast of confusion, a heightened state of being combined to see Hypatia's eyes begin to water. She did not know why she had gone from a heated skin and a flurry of thought to tears of anguish but her heart was too muddled to be able to give her answers. Over sensitive and over stimulated, crying seemed her body's natural outlet...
"Why..." She began, her lips reaching around the Hebrew words... "Why do you look at me so...?" She asked, begging to whichever Olympian was patron to those that did not wish to be embarrassed. She prayed that her tears would not fall and she would not be expected to answer the obvious questions that would follow. For she did not know that she could answer them.
She only knew one thing. That this man made her feel oh so much.
When Hypatia had lifted her hands to Isaiah's aid, it had not been from a lazy spirit. There were numerous ways that she could have gotten up from the soft dry hillside under her own minimal strength. And she would have not been averse to attempting them. Instead, however, Hypatia was raised to seek and utilise the chances in life to be as effortless as possible. If there was a servant in the room to fetch her the book she wished for, it was to be done. If she was stepping down from a carriage or horse, then a hand was expected to help her keep her balance and ensure that the movement was graceful. It had been bred into her for so long and with such intention, that she was now almost as useless as someone might fear her to be. Not because she was determined - or needed - to be so. But because her first instinct was to see to others aiding her in actions she might have otherwise been able to perform herself.
Offering up her hands, so that she might be guided to her feet rather than expose herself to the awkward scuffle that would be her ascension under her own steam, Hypatia smiled brightly when Isaiah was quick to help. He stood before her, his back to the sun and cast a long tower of strength before her, cast into a warm shadow of reds and browns. The sunlight sparked rays behind his shoulders as he reached down to help her to her feet.
Her smile faltered, slow to hover and then part upon her lips as Isaiah's touch was not quick. He did not take her fingers as one might to brush a kiss to her knuckles, nor grab at her wrists to haul her to her feet like sailors would pull upon a rope. Each would be a quick option for having her upright and yet neither were employed.
Isaiah's hands shifted to brush along hers, his fingertips over the lengths of her fingers, then her palms. A shiver went down her arms, a soft and soundless gasp hovering on her parted lips. Her palms felt the abrasion on his - callouses of work and toil - but could not summon distaste for the signs of his upbringing. Whilst, perhaps, her mother would have turned away in disgust, have been horrified that a man with such working hands had dared to touch her, Hypatia's instinct was far different. The ever so slight roughness against her fingers was heating... warming... it sent a little tremble down her spine and made her thighs draw together. The skin upon her hips and sides turned sensitive, as if wishing for such a touch there... Curious as to what such a sensation would feel like around her waist.
When his fingers wrapped around her wrists, she did gasp. Brought up to standing by the strength in his arms and her own waiflike figure, Hypatia was drawn quickly to her feet. Her belly drew in and her body naturally arched as she found herself too close to the man. Her feet remained where they were, unwilling to shift, her figure bending a little away from him. Her eyes were wide as his clothes brushed hers and she felt hot beneath the heavy layers of Judean garments. She felt the silk of her chiton beneath clinging to her skin.
Unlike Isaiah's consideration of Jael, Hypatia had forgotten her existence entirely. Her mind was captivated by what was happening before her and her conscious thought held only the space for the man in front. The way that the sunshine cast his face into hues of reds and dark markings should have made him frightening. Looming. They should have turned him monstrous and dark. Yet, all Hypatia could see was warmth. The heat in his colouring, the essence of his body. The way his face was so incredibly close to her own.
For a moment, Hypatia forgot to breathe. She hovered there, frozen and poised, waiting to see what he would do next. Unsure of their closeness, to warm to resist stepping away and too frightened with a tempting exhilaration to know what to do next.
Her stilled lungs spasmed into action at his words. Her gasp was soft and breathy on her tongue and only sent her airless once more. He had said nothing inappropriate and yet every part of her knew that this was illicit. That such words should not have been said and yet they had each wished them spoken. It didn't even matter that Hypatia did not know the things of which he spoke, did not know what he was promising to show her. Her innocence knew no bounds when it came to the physicalities of men and women. All she knew was that something was coiling deep within. Curling at the very idea of Isaiah's promise.
And then he was stepping away.
Able to breathe once more, Hypatia was hit with the full force of the sun and still felt as if she had cooled from the moment prior. She narrowed her eyes against the sunshine, caught as he licked at his lip and darted away. It was the first time she had noticed her heartbeat and how it pounded in her ears. Gods but what was wrong with her?
Swallowing and taking a long draw of breath, Hypatia was able to recover her smile - this one more tentative and unsure than the one before - and followed Isaiah down the little hill and towards the shed he had been looking at as he spoke of his life and the work that he did.
The lower foundations of the little structure were stone and the walls rose up as wood. As they stepped within, Hypatia was hit with a sweet but slightly bitter scent and she felt her tongue watered. She swallowed and looked about the room, distracted from the riotous senses shifting through her body by all that was new and interesting. There were little gaps in the walls to allow light inside, but kept up high and barred so that animals and birds could not find their way in to the olives. Then there were brackets on the workbenches for candles when the dim and hushed light of outside was not enough by which to see. The benches themselves stretched along the walls and played host to wooden buckets and barrels, along with the tools for collecting the olives from the trees.
She found the simplicity of the contraption in the centre of the shed to be wonderful. When she had spoken of turning olives to olive oil and had made the gesture of smooshing pressure with her hands, she hadn't realised that she had been describing the exact process. She had assumed there was some sort of grand secret or contraption that would see the juices drawn from the fruits without the effort of humans but, in reality, the invention before her was simply a larger scale of her own hands. Two stones that would press together and squash the yield until it was paste.
She listened to his words as he described the craft, of how the olives were placed within, how the stones would come together and what was left of the yield when they rose once more. At first, Hypatia had watched what he was speaking of, looking at the invention from different angles and curious as to how his words detailed its behaviour. As time went on and his voice grew deeper, Hypatia had looked around only to notice his line of sight.
She felt her lips begin to tingle under his stare, her breathing becoming bated once more and her heart hitting her against her collarbone, its weight pounding against the inside of her chest. Why did she react so in his presence? What did it mean? Was she ill or feverish? Why did he continue to look at her so?
As he leaned closer and his hand reached up, Hypatia thought for a moment that he might touch her face. That he would perhaps put his fingers to the lips he watched so intently. She swallowed, the tip of her tongue appearing just at the centre of her bottom lip and then retreating. As if nervous to appear and dampen them. In its place, a tremble set upon her lower lip as she watched him draw closer.
And at the last possible moment his hand, instead of touching her, claimed purchase on the large lever that had hovered beside her head without her notice.
A moment of sorrow, a blast of confusion, a heightened state of being combined to see Hypatia's eyes begin to water. She did not know why she had gone from a heated skin and a flurry of thought to tears of anguish but her heart was too muddled to be able to give her answers. Over sensitive and over stimulated, crying seemed her body's natural outlet...
"Why..." She began, her lips reaching around the Hebrew words... "Why do you look at me so...?" She asked, begging to whichever Olympian was patron to those that did not wish to be embarrassed. She prayed that her tears would not fall and she would not be expected to answer the obvious questions that would follow. For she did not know that she could answer them.
She only knew one thing. That this man made her feel oh so much.
The air hung heavy with the smell of old wood, laced with the tang of pressed olives, underlain with the more subtle musk of the leftover oil in the stone basin. He wouldn’t have chosen those scents if he’d been designing this perfect moment but he barely thought of them now. Even if he’d been given days to design a space in which to place her, perhaps in the center of a verdant field of rolling green hills beneath cloudless blue skies, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. Wind and sunlight weren’t playing in her hair but shafts of gold shone around her through the gaps in the wooden slats of the shed. Dust particles danced around her like swirling stars and the longer he looked at her, the more the gloom of the shed faded into obscurity.
He was lost in the oceanic depths of her eyes, the petal pink of her lips...those trembling lips. Her cheeks flushed hot and he could practically see her pulse dancing. His own heart pounded against his chest, ramming faster as her tongue appeared, retreating a second later. His unconscious mind took that as a signal that she wanted what he wanted - that this wasn’t a mistake. That they could just…
His eyes lifted back up to hers and all at once his surety slipped, tumbled, drowned beneath the weight of her tears. Her brows knitted themselves in a mask of confusion but he kept his gaze steady on hers. Even when she asked him why he looked at her that way, he didn’t look anywhere else. His hand remained on the handle over her head, but his heart had slowed considerably. He was in far less danger of being carried off by a flight of fancy. Obviously he must have read her wrong. That, or she was simply too innocent to understand.
“I look at you,” he started but paused, his own tongue pondering over his lower lip as he considered his words and tried to make them simple and easy to understand. “It is like this,” he tried a different tack, pulling back from her only very slightly. “I feel, when I am around you, like a blind man given sight..” He reached out now, hardly aware that he was doing it, and cupped her face in his hands. Her skin was softer and fairer than he’d even dared to imagine. “I feel like the world was darkness until I saw you.”
He did not kiss her. He wanted to. With all of his being he wanted to. This was the most daring he’d ever been and he was drunk with it. If only he had the time to stay with her, to show her there was nothing to fear. She needn’t cry, needn’t be afraid that he would harm her. He could never...
She was all this perfect, all things good. What he'd been led to believe about the pagans might be true for other people, but not for Hypatia. The most innocent of lambs, she could not be complicit in her people's backwards ways. She was too pure and naive to leave with these Greeks. Would not her eternal state be better off if she was with him? What if she took vows? What if...
This character is currently a work in progress.
Check out their information page here.
This character is currently a work in progress.
Check out their information page here.
Badges
Deleted
Deleted
The air hung heavy with the smell of old wood, laced with the tang of pressed olives, underlain with the more subtle musk of the leftover oil in the stone basin. He wouldn’t have chosen those scents if he’d been designing this perfect moment but he barely thought of them now. Even if he’d been given days to design a space in which to place her, perhaps in the center of a verdant field of rolling green hills beneath cloudless blue skies, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. Wind and sunlight weren’t playing in her hair but shafts of gold shone around her through the gaps in the wooden slats of the shed. Dust particles danced around her like swirling stars and the longer he looked at her, the more the gloom of the shed faded into obscurity.
He was lost in the oceanic depths of her eyes, the petal pink of her lips...those trembling lips. Her cheeks flushed hot and he could practically see her pulse dancing. His own heart pounded against his chest, ramming faster as her tongue appeared, retreating a second later. His unconscious mind took that as a signal that she wanted what he wanted - that this wasn’t a mistake. That they could just…
His eyes lifted back up to hers and all at once his surety slipped, tumbled, drowned beneath the weight of her tears. Her brows knitted themselves in a mask of confusion but he kept his gaze steady on hers. Even when she asked him why he looked at her that way, he didn’t look anywhere else. His hand remained on the handle over her head, but his heart had slowed considerably. He was in far less danger of being carried off by a flight of fancy. Obviously he must have read her wrong. That, or she was simply too innocent to understand.
“I look at you,” he started but paused, his own tongue pondering over his lower lip as he considered his words and tried to make them simple and easy to understand. “It is like this,” he tried a different tack, pulling back from her only very slightly. “I feel, when I am around you, like a blind man given sight..” He reached out now, hardly aware that he was doing it, and cupped her face in his hands. Her skin was softer and fairer than he’d even dared to imagine. “I feel like the world was darkness until I saw you.”
He did not kiss her. He wanted to. With all of his being he wanted to. This was the most daring he’d ever been and he was drunk with it. If only he had the time to stay with her, to show her there was nothing to fear. She needn’t cry, needn’t be afraid that he would harm her. He could never...
She was all this perfect, all things good. What he'd been led to believe about the pagans might be true for other people, but not for Hypatia. The most innocent of lambs, she could not be complicit in her people's backwards ways. She was too pure and naive to leave with these Greeks. Would not her eternal state be better off if she was with him? What if she took vows? What if...
The air hung heavy with the smell of old wood, laced with the tang of pressed olives, underlain with the more subtle musk of the leftover oil in the stone basin. He wouldn’t have chosen those scents if he’d been designing this perfect moment but he barely thought of them now. Even if he’d been given days to design a space in which to place her, perhaps in the center of a verdant field of rolling green hills beneath cloudless blue skies, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. Wind and sunlight weren’t playing in her hair but shafts of gold shone around her through the gaps in the wooden slats of the shed. Dust particles danced around her like swirling stars and the longer he looked at her, the more the gloom of the shed faded into obscurity.
He was lost in the oceanic depths of her eyes, the petal pink of her lips...those trembling lips. Her cheeks flushed hot and he could practically see her pulse dancing. His own heart pounded against his chest, ramming faster as her tongue appeared, retreating a second later. His unconscious mind took that as a signal that she wanted what he wanted - that this wasn’t a mistake. That they could just…
His eyes lifted back up to hers and all at once his surety slipped, tumbled, drowned beneath the weight of her tears. Her brows knitted themselves in a mask of confusion but he kept his gaze steady on hers. Even when she asked him why he looked at her that way, he didn’t look anywhere else. His hand remained on the handle over her head, but his heart had slowed considerably. He was in far less danger of being carried off by a flight of fancy. Obviously he must have read her wrong. That, or she was simply too innocent to understand.
“I look at you,” he started but paused, his own tongue pondering over his lower lip as he considered his words and tried to make them simple and easy to understand. “It is like this,” he tried a different tack, pulling back from her only very slightly. “I feel, when I am around you, like a blind man given sight..” He reached out now, hardly aware that he was doing it, and cupped her face in his hands. Her skin was softer and fairer than he’d even dared to imagine. “I feel like the world was darkness until I saw you.”
He did not kiss her. He wanted to. With all of his being he wanted to. This was the most daring he’d ever been and he was drunk with it. If only he had the time to stay with her, to show her there was nothing to fear. She needn’t cry, needn’t be afraid that he would harm her. He could never...
She was all this perfect, all things good. What he'd been led to believe about the pagans might be true for other people, but not for Hypatia. The most innocent of lambs, she could not be complicit in her people's backwards ways. She was too pure and naive to leave with these Greeks. Would not her eternal state be better off if she was with him? What if she took vows? What if...
The shed in which they stood was hardly an elaborate structure of great moment. There were no marble columns as there were back home around forums and coliseums. There were no silken drapes or water features of luxury. No wild cats prowled, no fine horses danced. There were no fish in nearby ponds frothing at the surface where air met reflection. No monarch dictated from an on high throne and there was no homage to the Gods as there were in great temples: where fine ceremonies and events were held with great aplomb.
And yet... Hypatia was sure that there was something of magnitude happening. It was neither the place, nor the time. And with herself the central pivot of its attention, it was certainly the wrong person. But here and now, Hypatia felt a shifting. As if she were standing on the precipice of something truly earth shattering.
As Isaiah’s weight released from the handle of the press, his fingers still curled around the metal, the stones settled. And yet their frisson of a groan was lost in the pounding ache in Hypatia’s chest. Her heartbeat now was so loud in her ears that it pounded a crescendo throughout her bloodstream. She had no idea how it came to be that she might even hear Isaiah’s words to come.
As Isaiah’s expression changed, as it melted into a look of confusion and insecurity, Hypatia felt something in the vicinity of her chest crack wide open. Just the furrow of his brow, the dimming of his eyes, the way his throat shifted in a swallow of uncertainty. She had hurt him. In her confusing reactions and her childish incompetence, she had injured him - made him feel a discomfort in their friendship. For her ignorance and infantile ways she had wounded the only man to have been truly kind to her since arriving in Judea.
Just how would the Gods punish such idiotic cruelty? How would her own heart?
Hypatia glanced around, her gaze suddenly erratic, her eyes flickering around him, her shame overwhelming. She swallowed. Her lips parted but she didn’t know what to say.
She couldn’t remember the last time that she had inhaled.
Perhaps it was this expression. This hurt that she witnessed on Isaiah’s face that had her turning to him with a firm focus. Perhaps it was her determination to not show him a second moment of insult that had her eyes find us face the moment that he began to speak. As if she could not bear for him to think she did not care for his words.
When he did, his voice was hoarse and deep. As if he were trying to swallow against a lump in his throat or had eaten something rough and raw. His eyes shifted between dark, warm cacao and the dull agony of a man unsure of his reception. Had Hypatia been able to understand the notions in her companion’s head she might have read this insecurity better. Instead, she only felt in his expression that wide and bleeding ache in her own chest. She found herself looking through the speckles of dust that floated in the air, seeing none of the musky dim of the shed. Only Isaiah’s face beyond and before it all.
When he spoke, Hypatia’s reaction was delayed as it usually was. Her mind was forced to translate the more complex words in his sentiment, stumbling over the word for ‘blind’. The context of his language offered her some clue but surely he could not mean so heavenly a compliment?
At his next statement of reverence, Hypatia knew her translations to be true. And her face suddenly flamed with colour. Her eyes shot wide as he reached out once more, this time finding her face as his fingertips met the curve of her cheek.
Hypatia had never considered her face to be ticklish before but Isaiah’s touch sent a quiver over her skin. A little flicker of heat that ran around her jawline, down the side of her neck and created a tighrness in her shoulder blades. The shift of her muscles bowed her a little, perhaps no more than an inch. But enough for her cheek to pressed against Isaiah’s palm. She gasped at the sensation, the exhalation moving her jaw against Isaiah’s smallest fingertip. Every reaction caused a movement that sparked a new sensation.
Hypatia could not believe that such a thing was happening. It was Eurydice that men fell for. It was Dice that held a man’s gaze and had then waxing lyrical. She had no experience with such attentions on her. She was too odd looking... not a classical Greek beauty. Too childlike.
It had escaped Hypatia’s notice altogether that, in the last few years, she had blossomed into a woman, whilst sheltered in her sister’s shadow.
Her eyes wide, her lips parted, still waiting for the return of air from her gasp, Hypatia’s feet didn’t dare move, anchored to the floor by curling toes. But even without a step, her mind drew all sorts of conclusions that told her to lean forward. Her gaze left Isaiah’s only one, to glance worriedly at his lips, a mixture of fear and excitement in their depths. Her lower lip trembled.
Hypatia had no cognitive control over what happened next. Her instincts knew what might occur but did not inform the logical part of her mind. Her emotions were overriding her morals and her propriety, fogging out and blinding her to anything beyond the four walls of the shed. Beyond Isaiah’s hand.
As if he were the sun, and she a simple little bloom, Hypatia felt herself sway forward... just a little...
This character is currently a work in progress.
Check out their information page here.
This character is currently a work in progress.
Check out their information page here.
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The shed in which they stood was hardly an elaborate structure of great moment. There were no marble columns as there were back home around forums and coliseums. There were no silken drapes or water features of luxury. No wild cats prowled, no fine horses danced. There were no fish in nearby ponds frothing at the surface where air met reflection. No monarch dictated from an on high throne and there was no homage to the Gods as there were in great temples: where fine ceremonies and events were held with great aplomb.
And yet... Hypatia was sure that there was something of magnitude happening. It was neither the place, nor the time. And with herself the central pivot of its attention, it was certainly the wrong person. But here and now, Hypatia felt a shifting. As if she were standing on the precipice of something truly earth shattering.
As Isaiah’s weight released from the handle of the press, his fingers still curled around the metal, the stones settled. And yet their frisson of a groan was lost in the pounding ache in Hypatia’s chest. Her heartbeat now was so loud in her ears that it pounded a crescendo throughout her bloodstream. She had no idea how it came to be that she might even hear Isaiah’s words to come.
As Isaiah’s expression changed, as it melted into a look of confusion and insecurity, Hypatia felt something in the vicinity of her chest crack wide open. Just the furrow of his brow, the dimming of his eyes, the way his throat shifted in a swallow of uncertainty. She had hurt him. In her confusing reactions and her childish incompetence, she had injured him - made him feel a discomfort in their friendship. For her ignorance and infantile ways she had wounded the only man to have been truly kind to her since arriving in Judea.
Just how would the Gods punish such idiotic cruelty? How would her own heart?
Hypatia glanced around, her gaze suddenly erratic, her eyes flickering around him, her shame overwhelming. She swallowed. Her lips parted but she didn’t know what to say.
She couldn’t remember the last time that she had inhaled.
Perhaps it was this expression. This hurt that she witnessed on Isaiah’s face that had her turning to him with a firm focus. Perhaps it was her determination to not show him a second moment of insult that had her eyes find us face the moment that he began to speak. As if she could not bear for him to think she did not care for his words.
When he did, his voice was hoarse and deep. As if he were trying to swallow against a lump in his throat or had eaten something rough and raw. His eyes shifted between dark, warm cacao and the dull agony of a man unsure of his reception. Had Hypatia been able to understand the notions in her companion’s head she might have read this insecurity better. Instead, she only felt in his expression that wide and bleeding ache in her own chest. She found herself looking through the speckles of dust that floated in the air, seeing none of the musky dim of the shed. Only Isaiah’s face beyond and before it all.
When he spoke, Hypatia’s reaction was delayed as it usually was. Her mind was forced to translate the more complex words in his sentiment, stumbling over the word for ‘blind’. The context of his language offered her some clue but surely he could not mean so heavenly a compliment?
At his next statement of reverence, Hypatia knew her translations to be true. And her face suddenly flamed with colour. Her eyes shot wide as he reached out once more, this time finding her face as his fingertips met the curve of her cheek.
Hypatia had never considered her face to be ticklish before but Isaiah’s touch sent a quiver over her skin. A little flicker of heat that ran around her jawline, down the side of her neck and created a tighrness in her shoulder blades. The shift of her muscles bowed her a little, perhaps no more than an inch. But enough for her cheek to pressed against Isaiah’s palm. She gasped at the sensation, the exhalation moving her jaw against Isaiah’s smallest fingertip. Every reaction caused a movement that sparked a new sensation.
Hypatia could not believe that such a thing was happening. It was Eurydice that men fell for. It was Dice that held a man’s gaze and had then waxing lyrical. She had no experience with such attentions on her. She was too odd looking... not a classical Greek beauty. Too childlike.
It had escaped Hypatia’s notice altogether that, in the last few years, she had blossomed into a woman, whilst sheltered in her sister’s shadow.
Her eyes wide, her lips parted, still waiting for the return of air from her gasp, Hypatia’s feet didn’t dare move, anchored to the floor by curling toes. But even without a step, her mind drew all sorts of conclusions that told her to lean forward. Her gaze left Isaiah’s only one, to glance worriedly at his lips, a mixture of fear and excitement in their depths. Her lower lip trembled.
Hypatia had no cognitive control over what happened next. Her instincts knew what might occur but did not inform the logical part of her mind. Her emotions were overriding her morals and her propriety, fogging out and blinding her to anything beyond the four walls of the shed. Beyond Isaiah’s hand.
As if he were the sun, and she a simple little bloom, Hypatia felt herself sway forward... just a little...
The shed in which they stood was hardly an elaborate structure of great moment. There were no marble columns as there were back home around forums and coliseums. There were no silken drapes or water features of luxury. No wild cats prowled, no fine horses danced. There were no fish in nearby ponds frothing at the surface where air met reflection. No monarch dictated from an on high throne and there was no homage to the Gods as there were in great temples: where fine ceremonies and events were held with great aplomb.
And yet... Hypatia was sure that there was something of magnitude happening. It was neither the place, nor the time. And with herself the central pivot of its attention, it was certainly the wrong person. But here and now, Hypatia felt a shifting. As if she were standing on the precipice of something truly earth shattering.
As Isaiah’s weight released from the handle of the press, his fingers still curled around the metal, the stones settled. And yet their frisson of a groan was lost in the pounding ache in Hypatia’s chest. Her heartbeat now was so loud in her ears that it pounded a crescendo throughout her bloodstream. She had no idea how it came to be that she might even hear Isaiah’s words to come.
As Isaiah’s expression changed, as it melted into a look of confusion and insecurity, Hypatia felt something in the vicinity of her chest crack wide open. Just the furrow of his brow, the dimming of his eyes, the way his throat shifted in a swallow of uncertainty. She had hurt him. In her confusing reactions and her childish incompetence, she had injured him - made him feel a discomfort in their friendship. For her ignorance and infantile ways she had wounded the only man to have been truly kind to her since arriving in Judea.
Just how would the Gods punish such idiotic cruelty? How would her own heart?
Hypatia glanced around, her gaze suddenly erratic, her eyes flickering around him, her shame overwhelming. She swallowed. Her lips parted but she didn’t know what to say.
She couldn’t remember the last time that she had inhaled.
Perhaps it was this expression. This hurt that she witnessed on Isaiah’s face that had her turning to him with a firm focus. Perhaps it was her determination to not show him a second moment of insult that had her eyes find us face the moment that he began to speak. As if she could not bear for him to think she did not care for his words.
When he did, his voice was hoarse and deep. As if he were trying to swallow against a lump in his throat or had eaten something rough and raw. His eyes shifted between dark, warm cacao and the dull agony of a man unsure of his reception. Had Hypatia been able to understand the notions in her companion’s head she might have read this insecurity better. Instead, she only felt in his expression that wide and bleeding ache in her own chest. She found herself looking through the speckles of dust that floated in the air, seeing none of the musky dim of the shed. Only Isaiah’s face beyond and before it all.
When he spoke, Hypatia’s reaction was delayed as it usually was. Her mind was forced to translate the more complex words in his sentiment, stumbling over the word for ‘blind’. The context of his language offered her some clue but surely he could not mean so heavenly a compliment?
At his next statement of reverence, Hypatia knew her translations to be true. And her face suddenly flamed with colour. Her eyes shot wide as he reached out once more, this time finding her face as his fingertips met the curve of her cheek.
Hypatia had never considered her face to be ticklish before but Isaiah’s touch sent a quiver over her skin. A little flicker of heat that ran around her jawline, down the side of her neck and created a tighrness in her shoulder blades. The shift of her muscles bowed her a little, perhaps no more than an inch. But enough for her cheek to pressed against Isaiah’s palm. She gasped at the sensation, the exhalation moving her jaw against Isaiah’s smallest fingertip. Every reaction caused a movement that sparked a new sensation.
Hypatia could not believe that such a thing was happening. It was Eurydice that men fell for. It was Dice that held a man’s gaze and had then waxing lyrical. She had no experience with such attentions on her. She was too odd looking... not a classical Greek beauty. Too childlike.
It had escaped Hypatia’s notice altogether that, in the last few years, she had blossomed into a woman, whilst sheltered in her sister’s shadow.
Her eyes wide, her lips parted, still waiting for the return of air from her gasp, Hypatia’s feet didn’t dare move, anchored to the floor by curling toes. But even without a step, her mind drew all sorts of conclusions that told her to lean forward. Her gaze left Isaiah’s only one, to glance worriedly at his lips, a mixture of fear and excitement in their depths. Her lower lip trembled.
Hypatia had no cognitive control over what happened next. Her instincts knew what might occur but did not inform the logical part of her mind. Her emotions were overriding her morals and her propriety, fogging out and blinding her to anything beyond the four walls of the shed. Beyond Isaiah’s hand.
As if he were the sun, and she a simple little bloom, Hypatia felt herself sway forward... just a little...
The air was thick and still, the way it stood stagnant and yet alive just before a storm. It was as if black clouds were boiling up from the south with lightning arcing in their depths, carrying with them the promise of rain and change. Every hair on his body stood on end. His blood thrummed and his vision narrowed. He might explode into a thousand pieces but it wasn’t the violence that a storm promised that had him in such a state. It was the power. The magnitude. The raw, unpreventable stormfront that came on land and man no matter how much one tried to shield oneself. He was caught in the open, as unable to stop the emotions and the urges as he would be to shout a storm into submission.
It might not have happened at all. He might have retained some control, except that she leaned her cheek into his hand. A simple action, so small, but not insignificant. In that one act, it answered all his hopes. It answered every dream he’d been attempting to tamp down. She wanted the same thing. Her discomfort stemmed not from his presence but from her own innocence. Her gasp drew a smile from him that he was unaware even crossed his lips.
In the dimness of the shed, so humble a place, the flaming red of her face was softened into a subtle pink. It lent her color and a flattering softness. Her cheek nuzzled against his hand and her lips parted as her eyes sought his. All thought dissolved. She was the moon, so pure, so lovely, pulling him into her as surely and easily as the tides washed in and out from shore. They were already so close that it took only a bend of his head, his arm slipping about her waist, his lips pressing to the velvet softness of hers.
All was quiet. The fever broke and he felt an overwhelming sense of calm, as though the storm clouds had bottomed out and rain shimmered in glittering sheets over the landscape. She was small and lithe, fragile and yet whole and firm. He’d not imagined that she would feel so real to him and yet stay in some ethereal, hallowed place in his mind. The kiss might have been awkward but he wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to himself. His focus was all on how to stay here, in this exact moment, forever, with his fingers sliding over the light fabric of her gown to feel the gentle curve of her spine beneath.
He’d never kissed anyone before and had rarely seen it done but that didn’t seem to matter. His body understood, in some intrinsic, completely comforting way, how to do it. He understood that their lips moved together, to tilt his head just so, that their bodies needed to be pressed together. What he did not understand was that his desire was not meant to stop. It was meant to keep going, to join them in a totality. That he had not anticipated in his daydreams that would seem childish after this moment. Chaste. But his thoughts hadn’t traveled that far. He wasn’t thinking at all. Merely acting on impulse and on the idea that she loved him, too.
This character is currently a work in progress.
Check out their information page here.
This character is currently a work in progress.
Check out their information page here.
Badges
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The air was thick and still, the way it stood stagnant and yet alive just before a storm. It was as if black clouds were boiling up from the south with lightning arcing in their depths, carrying with them the promise of rain and change. Every hair on his body stood on end. His blood thrummed and his vision narrowed. He might explode into a thousand pieces but it wasn’t the violence that a storm promised that had him in such a state. It was the power. The magnitude. The raw, unpreventable stormfront that came on land and man no matter how much one tried to shield oneself. He was caught in the open, as unable to stop the emotions and the urges as he would be to shout a storm into submission.
It might not have happened at all. He might have retained some control, except that she leaned her cheek into his hand. A simple action, so small, but not insignificant. In that one act, it answered all his hopes. It answered every dream he’d been attempting to tamp down. She wanted the same thing. Her discomfort stemmed not from his presence but from her own innocence. Her gasp drew a smile from him that he was unaware even crossed his lips.
In the dimness of the shed, so humble a place, the flaming red of her face was softened into a subtle pink. It lent her color and a flattering softness. Her cheek nuzzled against his hand and her lips parted as her eyes sought his. All thought dissolved. She was the moon, so pure, so lovely, pulling him into her as surely and easily as the tides washed in and out from shore. They were already so close that it took only a bend of his head, his arm slipping about her waist, his lips pressing to the velvet softness of hers.
All was quiet. The fever broke and he felt an overwhelming sense of calm, as though the storm clouds had bottomed out and rain shimmered in glittering sheets over the landscape. She was small and lithe, fragile and yet whole and firm. He’d not imagined that she would feel so real to him and yet stay in some ethereal, hallowed place in his mind. The kiss might have been awkward but he wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to himself. His focus was all on how to stay here, in this exact moment, forever, with his fingers sliding over the light fabric of her gown to feel the gentle curve of her spine beneath.
He’d never kissed anyone before and had rarely seen it done but that didn’t seem to matter. His body understood, in some intrinsic, completely comforting way, how to do it. He understood that their lips moved together, to tilt his head just so, that their bodies needed to be pressed together. What he did not understand was that his desire was not meant to stop. It was meant to keep going, to join them in a totality. That he had not anticipated in his daydreams that would seem childish after this moment. Chaste. But his thoughts hadn’t traveled that far. He wasn’t thinking at all. Merely acting on impulse and on the idea that she loved him, too.
The air was thick and still, the way it stood stagnant and yet alive just before a storm. It was as if black clouds were boiling up from the south with lightning arcing in their depths, carrying with them the promise of rain and change. Every hair on his body stood on end. His blood thrummed and his vision narrowed. He might explode into a thousand pieces but it wasn’t the violence that a storm promised that had him in such a state. It was the power. The magnitude. The raw, unpreventable stormfront that came on land and man no matter how much one tried to shield oneself. He was caught in the open, as unable to stop the emotions and the urges as he would be to shout a storm into submission.
It might not have happened at all. He might have retained some control, except that she leaned her cheek into his hand. A simple action, so small, but not insignificant. In that one act, it answered all his hopes. It answered every dream he’d been attempting to tamp down. She wanted the same thing. Her discomfort stemmed not from his presence but from her own innocence. Her gasp drew a smile from him that he was unaware even crossed his lips.
In the dimness of the shed, so humble a place, the flaming red of her face was softened into a subtle pink. It lent her color and a flattering softness. Her cheek nuzzled against his hand and her lips parted as her eyes sought his. All thought dissolved. She was the moon, so pure, so lovely, pulling him into her as surely and easily as the tides washed in and out from shore. They were already so close that it took only a bend of his head, his arm slipping about her waist, his lips pressing to the velvet softness of hers.
All was quiet. The fever broke and he felt an overwhelming sense of calm, as though the storm clouds had bottomed out and rain shimmered in glittering sheets over the landscape. She was small and lithe, fragile and yet whole and firm. He’d not imagined that she would feel so real to him and yet stay in some ethereal, hallowed place in his mind. The kiss might have been awkward but he wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to himself. His focus was all on how to stay here, in this exact moment, forever, with his fingers sliding over the light fabric of her gown to feel the gentle curve of her spine beneath.
He’d never kissed anyone before and had rarely seen it done but that didn’t seem to matter. His body understood, in some intrinsic, completely comforting way, how to do it. He understood that their lips moved together, to tilt his head just so, that their bodies needed to be pressed together. What he did not understand was that his desire was not meant to stop. It was meant to keep going, to join them in a totality. That he had not anticipated in his daydreams that would seem childish after this moment. Chaste. But his thoughts hadn’t traveled that far. He wasn’t thinking at all. Merely acting on impulse and on the idea that she loved him, too.