The Forever Wife

She was still just as beautiful as the day he'd first laid his young, curious eyes on her.

"Corentine?" The man's raspy voice called out to his beloved fondly as she tended to her rather thinly built, exotic pet, all white fur and shifty red eyes.
She hardly looked up from where she sat pampering the creature with slow brushes and gentle scratches. "Yes my sweet?" She asked with the slightest lilt in her voice as she continued on with her almost thoughtless motions.
"Would you mind unspooling one of your most wonderous adventures for mine ears?" He asked the dark-hair beauty dressed as always in the finest this, or any other land had to offer.
"Of course." She replied with nothing more than a fleeting glance toward where he rested near the low flames that danced sluggishly in their well worn fireplace. "I don't believe I've mentioned the lands of Eowuti." She began to share in even toned splendor with her husband.
"Before the time of the great sand-builders, there lived a people known as the Eowu's." She recalled effortlessly. "They lived on a rocky lands, upon which nothing grew. Many believed this land to be tainted by a cursed, forsaken by the mighty gods of the old world, the Eowu's however believed they were blessed by the wonderous Carnajgi, the Goddess of all things living and of all things deceased…" She explained as he was soon enraptured by the almost serine lull of her voice.
His eyes began to grow heavy, and his heart swelling with fondness as she began to reveal the means by which the people's welcomed her and described in painfully vivid detail as to what the dark skinned, fair haired, and utterly divine looking Eowuta people appeared to her own eyes with their colorful silken clothing and breathtaking jewels that glinted just so under the bright moonlight, under which they gathered to greet her outlandish appearance with near revelry, as of course they should have.
"…And as I sat amoung them in their glimmering tunnel-homes, I partook in the most mouth watering feast I've been greeted with to date. Each dish was of a meat so tender, so well prepared, that I hadn't a clue as to what it might be. The scarce bit of vegetation they did consume seemed to be a mixture of a moss-like substance and of fungi that naturally grew in their lands deep beneath the infertile surface." She told him, knowing full well it would spark his scholar's mind.
"From where would they gather such vast quantities of meat?" He questioned her. "Were not their lands barren?"
"Indeed they were." She agreed. "And wondering such, I did ask to be informed as to from whence it came."
She laid down the brush in her hand before continuing. "They claimed that the fungi, the few varieties they had, each to have grown within their upper tunnels, the moss, more so in damper tunnels that ran below a nearby river, and the meat, of the sickly youth, or of a designated family, often still mere youths themselves."
"You feasted with cannibals! And yet live still?" The man gaped at his wonderous wife, heart hammering in his chest for his beloved's well being.
She met his eyes with her own still peaceful ones. "Many creatures are cannibalistic in nature. Even Aeron here-" She gestured to her pet. "Would eat his own kind if he ever felt the need to."
"What savage creatures!" The man declared before breaking off into a vicious fit of rumbling chest coughs.
Corentine, rising from where sat beside her now sleeping pet, walked over to her husband's side. "That's enough for tonight. Come, let us ready you for bed."
"No, no." He insisted. "Please, you must tell me how you managed to escape such fiends." He asked of her between weakening coughs.
Seemingly ignoring his request, the young woman helped her elderly husband up on his feet and began to escort him to his room.

Almost with the perfection of a well practiced nurse maid she prepared him for bed, never once commenting on the deep wrinkles that littered the waxy pallor that was now his skin or the dullness that had begun invading his bright green eyes. "I did not escape." She broke the stale silence as he settled in bed.
He listened intently, surprised she did not tell him of some long ago race to evade her own demise or of trickery and intellect to outwit her circumstances as she had done in Ghan, Terribol, and Roanoke.
"I became curious and stayed for quite some time." She revealed. "Eventually I married the eldest of one of the leader's sons. He lived a full decade before he passed on and left I and our two living children behind. After their deaths I faked my own. Some months later I found myself in the province of RaBullian, ruled over by what would later become the Tanuitie peoples."
Weary from the long day, he remained as vigilant as his aged mind allowed. "You chose to willingly stay amoung those creatures then?"
"I did. And I cared for my husband then as I care for you now my sweet." She assured him and caressed his face tenderly.
"Will you tell stories of me someday as well then my love?" He asked her as the need to rest began to overcome his will to remain awake.
She smiled at his meek words. "I tell of every heart that was beautiful enough to capture my own." She assured him as he began to drift.

Five mouths later as she lay beside a talented young artist in France, she saw to it her promise was well kept as the young man hung on each word she spoke of the once great philosopher, writer, and historian, doing all she could to serve his legacy just.
They were after all, each loving husbands to her, and she, forever a faithful wife to each man.