Ebb

Moanna tiptoed down the black hallway, hoping she really was as silent as she thought she was being.

This was madness, shear madness.

And here she went doing it anyway, her continuing feet not caring about the madness in the slightest.

She knew the way exactly, two years of following the same route having cemented the path into her mind. She had never actually been inside his bedchamber though. He had never expressly forbid her from entering, but he had also never invited her inside. She only knew the way because she constantly came there of her own accord, flying down the castle's passages until she could hammer on his door and ask for him to come out and visit.

He would have come visit with her regardless of her eager summoning, but the second she was awake, she couldn't think of anything else she wanted to do besides see him. And so almost every day for the two years since she had come home to the Underworld, her morning started with her knuckles rapping on his wooden door.

But this time, it was the middle of the night. This time, she was not a little girl anymore. This time, she wanted to give him everything that had alluded him for so long.

Her hand raised to knock, but she dropped it at the last moment. He might not answer or worse, he might hold the door shut so she couldn't get in.

That she was destined to marry him never fazed her, never troubled her like he always seemed to be sure it would. It was just a pleasant, little fact that played around in her mind as she played around with him during her childhood. Oh, she would marry her dear friend, and wasn't that nice, and they would have a little baby, and wasn't that nice too? The only fear she ever had over the arrangement was that of childbirth and blood, but there was no pain in this world, so that fear quickly diminished until she could hardly remember ever having it.

She clutched the golden doorknob with a fervor that surprised her.

The cloud that had hung over her happy fantasy picture had always been his look. His look, his longing, his lingering. There was something that he wanted - needed, she almost wanted to say - and it pained him to his core, and she had been powerless to help him. He helped her with everything, and the one thing that it seemed only she could help him with, she could not. Oh, how she wanted to, to ease his suffering! But how could she when she had not had the slightest idea what it was he needed, and he refused to tell her?

She turned the knob and slid into the room, slowly, slowly closing the door behind her.

It was a bit brighter in here, some light from outside making its way through the window. His chamber was almost barren, but there were so many leaves and roots and twigs and soil strewn about that the room hardly felt empty. The only furniture wasn't furniture at all. A large...nest, she would call it, for lack of a better word...hung from the ceiling by thick vines.

That's where he was, but she only stood and observed for a moment. Two years had changed him, even more so than they had changed her. Two years had given her womanly curves and a womanly mind to accompany them, two years had practically given him a complete transformation. Practically because there was still some bark, his hair was still somewhat matted, he still managed to give people a bit of a fright when they first saw him. Her hair was long and wavy down her back like her mother's had been. She looked two years older, and he looked what must have been a century younger.

He had asked her once if she found him handsome. Her answer had been no, and her answer was still no but the most tentative no because she could more than see how magnificent the end result would be. Her attraction to him had little to do with his looks anyway. It had to do with his tone and his soul and his mannerisms. It had to do with things that were ancient and earthy and secret. It had to do with his ocean to her moon.

She was at the edge of the nest now. It was made of furs and sticks and feathers, and it was soft, and the whole bed swung slightly as she climbed up.

He stirred, his eyes twitching behind their lids, but he remained asleep; she crept closer and gently touched his cheek. He jerked awake.

"Moanna..."

His voice was deep with sleep and what she now recognized as desire, and she shivered.

"Moanna?"

Now he sounded more like himself, soothing and concerned.

"Are you alright? What is wrong?"

"I'm fine." She traced a finger up and down his arm, feeling the muscles move under the tip. "But you are not."

"Me?" He appeared confused, an always-amusing thing to see on his usually self-possessed visage.

"You haven't been fine for a long, long time."

"Your Highness-" He chuckled good-humoredly. "-I assure you, I am just fine. Shall I walk you back to your chamber?"

"When did you know that we were fated to be together?"

"I-" He chose to not ignore her question. "I can't remember not knowing."

"But when was that?"

"...a long, long time ago."

"You haven't been fine for a long, long time."

"Perhaps not," he said hurriedly, "but do not trouble yourself with the feelings of a sentimental faun like me."

"But I-"

"I'm going to walk you back now."

There was determination in his voice, and she wondered if the statement was to convince her or himself.

He moved to get up, and she speedily put a palm on his chest and pushed him down.

"No."

She did not have even a fraction of his strength, but her determination was stronger than his. She hadn't come this far to be turned away.

He just stared up at her with wide eyes, a hundred conflicting emotions rendering him paralyzed.

"Pan," she breathed, coming dangerously close to him, "I know what you want."

She was kissing him.

He was still for more than a handful of moments.

"No..." His hands were on her shoulders, but he was pushing her away with zero enthusiasm. Then, "Please..." He brought a hand to his forehead as if ashamed that the plea had been spoken. "Moanna...you can't know...tell me you don't..."

"I do." She pressed herself flush against him and could feel his heart thundering against her chest. "And I want it too."

"I-I'm sorry," he rambled. "You must think me vulgar and carnal and-"

"I think that you are in love and have been for enough time that other men would have been driven insane."

"Insane." He scoffed. "And who says I am not? You have no idea...you cannot comprehend how I have burned for you."

She was frightened by his intensity, but it turned to a kind of thrilling burning of her own.

"You are not ready. You are going to leave now, and tomorrow we will fail to mention that this happened, and you will never come here again."

"You can't make me." She kissed him again, pushing against his lips with a ferocity that shocked him. "Do you think you are tortured now? I will mention this tomorrow and the next day and forever. I will never give you a moment's rest. And you will break, I know you will, I don't care how long it takes."

"You give my self-control entirely too much credit," he said in a whispered hiss, and she was on her back, her hands grasping desperately onto his horns as his mouth moved with hers.

It was eternal and powerful and gently beautiful and over too soon.

"I can't," he gasped, severing the bond. His eyes were clutching at something that looked like fright or maybe temptation. "My Princess, I can't."

"Why-"

"I've waited forever, surely two more years are manageable!"

She cupped his cheek sympathetically.

"You know that's a lie."

"A lie? I could wait another eternity if that was what you wanted."

"But it's not what I want. I want you." She leaned up into him, and she heard him groan. "Please."

"You will have me one day."

"You would deny me?" She was hurt, and she let it show. "You would put me through the agony you are so familiar with? How can you, if you love me?"

"I can precisely because I love you." The firmness in his tone made her shrink back a bit into the feathery bed. "Because I love your honor, and I love your virtue. Because maybe I would...I would love to watch you experience the agony that I have. Because then when the restraints are lifted, and we can have each other freely, it will be..."

"What." She was hardly breathing, hanging on his every word. "What will it be."

"Perfection." He grazed his lips against hers. "I will make you-" His fingertips brushed against the peak of one heaving breast through the thin fabric of her nightgown, one by one. "-feel magnified in reality-" He ground himself against her, and she practically cried in frustrated pleasure. "-what you could only dream of imagining."

"Two years?" Her mouth hung open sorrowfully. "Oh, Pan. How can I?"

"If you promise to go when I tell you to, if you promise to leave me be, perhaps I can-" He smiled. "-do little things every once in a while to lessen the ache."

She awoke in her room the next morning, lips swollen and hair disheveled.

His words came floating back to her.

"I could never deny you completely."

The End