Her Elemental Kisses

(956 words) (Written for a Writer's Cramp Prompt that I missed the deadline on.)

After so much encouragement and wonderful feedback from reviewers this story will be expanded upon in the near future. Thank you again for all of your kind words and valuable input!

         We were a secret from everyone but ourselves, it simply had to be that way. Out and about among the World you would think that we truly disliked one another, we were so careful to avoid the usual greetings and glances. The only time we ever ‘saw’ one another was when we would find the gifts we would leave in that place, the place where we risked it all and fell in love. The gifts wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else. To be perfectly honest, they weren’t extraordinary, but we were careful to hide them high up in the branches of that lemon tree lest they be discovered and taken by someone else. They were all we had to remember our love by, to show our affection, for if we were revealed it would be the death of both of us and everyone we loved. Our love is forbidden by the laws of both our kinds, and the consequences continue into the entire pod, we owed it to the little ones to remain hidden.
         Now you wouldn’t think it, but even at our age, and perhaps because of the clandestine nature of it all, we were as enamored with one another than the younger ones usually are. Her luminescent skin had such a romantic glow about it, while many of her species might shine brighter it was her light that burned for me as I burned for her. I marveled at her smoothness, among my kind we are made of more leathery stuff. During our one and only kiss I recall being afraid that I might somehow mark her or that she might recoil from my touch. I should have been terrified of what would happen if we were caught. I should have been thinking of my lineage, but for the rarest and most precious of moments when she confirmed her affection, I forgot all fear, worry and concern and just melted into her lips.
         Did I mention that her lips were translucent? Kissing her was rather like kissing water, cool and refreshing, yet firm enough to be unlike water. Ah, my love was her own element, and without her in the world there are things that will never be the same again. You see, I believe she is gone from me now, and I feel an emptiness I can share with no one. Even now the repercussions could hurt those that she held dear, and even if she has passed away from me, I could never do her harm. The last gift I left her in the lemon tree has been there since before the snows, and now there are smaller lemons trees growing nearby putting forth tender little leaves. I fear I shall not see her again. The worst of it is that I cannot even inquire, I will never know if she still lives, or if she has tired of me, or perhaps our love was simply too much danger.
         I am an old Brauchen, long past the time when the alpha males of other pods would see me as a suitable mate for any of their daughters. I do not know if the Lytheles mate longer, I do not know if she has been given to another. She spoke briefly of being older than her sisters, of fearing she might not ever have younglings of her own, as much as my heart aches now, that is how I would like to picture her. Yes, that is a better picture, the matriarch of her own pod, little Lytheles gathered round her ankles seeking her elemental kisses. I could never have given her younglings, and even if I could have, what would they have had to face in a world so divided?          Even if we could have found a place to run, a way to survive, eventually we would have been found out.
I shall die alone. I shall ask my pod to bury my remains here with this lemon tree. It is all I have left to remember her by. I am thankful that these fruit trees here in the gathering place are sacred and shall never be cut down for Winter wood. I like to imagine that she and I will one day lie together beneath its bright branches. I need to believe she will come here from time to time to remember me. Lytheles live so much longer than we Brauchen, it must be her coming here to remember me. If this is my last Summer, I will live it by leaving her gifts in its branches. Perhaps one day she will come here with her little Lytheles and pluck them my treasures and remember me fondly.
         I know that she can never tell them from whence the little trinkets came, we are a secret to everyone but ourselves, and so we must remain. In a world divided, the Lytheles and the Brauchen can never be seen to defile the bloodlines, or the destruction of our lineage shall destroy all those we love. The Agenitions did not bring us all the way from the Nether for us to defy them, and they will not allow us to destroy that which they fought so hard to preserve from the destruction of the collapse. If we are to remain in the safety of their engineered world, we must obey. If only our hearts were not so disobedient. Until I die I shall remain in agony for my Lytheles whose name I cannot pronounce, who may yet be gone from me altogether.
         Until then I am simply a sad old Brauchen beneath a lemon tree, weeping tears none of my kind can understand, covered in a blanket of sorrow I can never explain.