If you're good. Those words did something to me, turned my insides to liquid heat. When he said it with that voice I couldn't think of anything else and even though I knew we were in a bar filled with crowded people I still felt my attention drawn to the doors that would lead us deeper into this establishment into quieter and quieter rooms.

"Another time," his murmur was sweet and hot against my ear, "maybe tonight?"

There was that teasing question lingering at the edge of my senses that would keep me on edge all day today until we did something, whatever that something might be. "Hopefully me," that needy part of me whispered through my mind sneaking out from within that crumbling wall. "Maybe tonight," I whispered back. The whole world hollowed out until there was nothing but Esayr and me standing there.

He canted his head to the side watching me curiously, then finally a brilliant smile split his face, "I'll be looking forward to it."

Damn that smile and the fact that --more than anything else in the world-- it could ruin me in the most exquisite way.

Esayr pulled me closer and closer and until I was safely in the circle of his arms and his chin was resting on the top of my head. The world still swirled around us, but for just a little bit longer we were savoring just that sensation of being with each other.

I wrapped my arms around his middle and held him tight, squeezed him tighter than I even really meant to until I could feel his chuckle radiate up my arms and rumble beneath my cheek where I'd rested it on his chest. "I love you," I whispered it to him because he'd deserved to hear it far more than I'd been willing to say it all this time.

"Hmm, if you keep saying things like that we won't make it to that ephemeral 'maybe tonight'."

I let the heat of his body seep into me, warming all the places where we'd melded together, "You deserve to hear it anyway," as I said it he brushed a few of the short strands of my hair back away from my face.

When I looked up at him, there was a softness to his intensity, an unrushed calm he'd never had the luxury of feeling and it flooded my senses starting at the tip of my tongue and spreading up until I could smell that sweet scent of vanilla in the air around us, "I love you too. You make me believe in that intangible future, Addison."

I'd gotten so used to my nickname with him that something as simple as him using my full name gave weight to his declarations, though they'd never quite been in need of it. From the moment I'd stepped into our room and he'd laid himself bare at my feet with words that would have been saved for whatever ceremony we would have had, he'd been carving a path for us yards in front of me while I had only followed along aimlessly behind him.

From here on out, we carve it together. No holding back. "You are my future, Esayr. Forgive me, since I'm going to steal some pretty words I heard once upon a week ago," I still laughed at the absurdity of it, even now, "but I'm going to say them here and now because you need to hear it: You were my intangible, ephemeral future that I didn't know I was approaching. You were my event horizon just on the edge of that distant lip across the sky. I didn't know I was searching, and yet I thank the circumstances of fate or the doings of your gods that brought us together because; You are the only creature in this universe I have ever and will ever want. From the day that you ended up in my section at Bruschetta's until we follow each other past that last fair night and into a bright new fond morning; I'm yours. I will walk each day with you forever. Always know that you have my heart. Always know that you are my soul."

He'd buried one of his hands in the fabric of my shirt, where it had bunched at the small of my back. I could feel his grip tighten, grasping at the fabric before quickly releasing it a few times. The other arm that was laid across my shoulders pulled me in even tighter. He let out a breath in one heavy gust, I could feel my hair move by the force of it, but he didn't speak for long enough that I'd begun to think he wouldn't at all.

"I still remember the day I started to think of those words. Laene had gotten into a fight after our classes and had followed me home, it was after..." he stopped for only a moment before he corrected, "it was at the beginning of a rough span of years for him. I remember laying in bed well past when we were supposed to fall asleep, whispering in the dark trying to remind him of all those things in the future worth seeing. All things considered, I probably shouldn't have even brought up the Searching, but I did. Laene either ignored it or had fallen asleep," Esayr's voice was wistful and soft, far away in some other thought or memory, "but I couldn't. We'd been taught about it, grown-up knowing of the Searching and it had never quite mattered in that way that the mysteries of maturity elude most children, but that night it lingered. I wondered what you'd be like. When I'd meet you. How our lives would unfold together. Then, all at once, it became pressingly urgent to me that I knew what I'd say to you at our Tying Ceremony."

"I imagine that's like a wedding."

"Yes."

"Is it customary to exchange your own unique vows?"

"No," Esayr laughed again, jostling me just a little bit, "not particularly. A Tying Ceremony only has a few customs. First, we'll interlace our hands," he released the fabric of my shirt to trace along the side of my arm, prompting me to untangle it and reach for his questing hand. He threaded his fingers through my own and I marveled at the size of his hand as it covered mine. "It's an intimate gesture. I probably should have told you when you first did it, but I couldn't bring myself to," he turned our hands just a little bit so he could admire the look of them.

"I forgive you." Holding his hand had been a comfort, so I wasn't unhappy that I'd been able to do it without the stress that knowing would have brought on.

"You're too good to me," he joked. Before I could insist it was him that had been too good to me, he continued, "Prince Roan will then loop a ribbon around our hands, weaving it until it's tied, binding us together. Traditionally, the cord was to be kept on through the night and into the morning, when it would be traded for bands around our wrists, though now couples can choose to receive the bands after the celebration has ended."

"Would you want to keep them on?" It was an innocent question, I told myself. I wanted to know what kind of wedding he'd dreamed of when he was younger or even now as he looked at me and thought of our future together.

His hand left mine, only to close around my wrist, "I'm partial to keeping them on, myself. At the very least I think we can find a way to make do with being tied together all night."

"Sounds like we wouldn't be able to get too far from each other," I murmured. Somehow we always came back to this, didn't we?

"We'll have to stay extremely close, I'd say maybe even nearly on top of each other," his words tasted like cinnamon and cloves and an assortment of other warming spices that flooded my senses and made my mouth water.

And I wouldn't complain for a second. "Kiss me and tell me more about how you want to marry me."

His laughter was loud in the bar, though none of the rowdy patrons paid us any attention, "Always."

I expected his mouth to taste like those same spices floating around us, to give me something concrete to attribute the sensations to, but it didn't. Instead, they shifted to something warmer and slower. They were a languid heat that slipped down my spine in a slow drip, slow enough that it gave time for the anticipation to build as the tingling awareness of that heat passed each individual bone in my back, lower and lower. The heat slipped out along every line of my nerves warming me bringing a new heat back into my body pooling until I nearly felt empty.

When Esayr's mouth covered mine I opened immediately for him and the taste of honey spread across my tongue. The heat and the taste of it shifted and morphed roiling behind the dark of my eyelids into a brilliant gold. I didn't know which sensation was real, or if maybe they all were in some way.

Esayr's tongue stroked against me, conjuring images in my mind of all the places he'd been with it, and could still go to. They muddled together and bright and brilliant flashes. I surprised the both of us, I think when I let out a breathy moan that he managed to cover at the last second and swallow down with an all too pleased smile. Entirely a smug male.

"You smell divine, Addy." When he talked his lips just barely brushed mine.

"Did that taste like honey to you?"

The questioning smile he gave me reminded me he likely had no idea what Honey even was, much less what it tasted like. "The kiss did it taste sweet? Feel like a line of warmth was sliding down your back and touching every nerve there? Did it...make you see gold behind your eyes?"

I loved every second of it and if every kiss we shared was even a fraction of it we'd never have enough of each other. Every question that I asked his expression turned more and more astonished.

"Tell me more, Addy," Esayr prompted when I'd begun to go quiet. "Did you...feel anything else?"

I racked my mind for anything else I've felt, though that word didn't quite encompass the sensations that bridged between one sense and into the next so easily, "I...your words tasted like vanilla when you said..." I stopped. It wasn't his words. "I could taste vanilla when you looked at me earlier."

"How was I looking at you?" His eyes roved over my face, searching just as fervently as I was, looking for that answer we'd already both been barrelling towards.

"Calm. Unrushed. Happy. At Peace. You...it was a lingering sweetness." We both stood in silence staring at each other.

"Any others, Addy?"

"Surprise tastes and smells like citrus. If it's happy it's candied orange peels. When you want to fuck me you smell like cinnamon and cloves."

Esayr's expression turned thoughtful, I could feel a faint shiver on our bond, the barest tugging of it. "Can you feel that?"

"Barely, felt like a small tug."

Esayr murmured something.

"What?"

"It should have been more than that," he amended curiously looking around the bar. When his attention returned to me it was astonishment. "You aren't feeling me through the bond. You're feeling me through..."

"Me?"

He opened and closed his mouth as if trying to reconcile whatever he was going to say.

"I think I should go see Kados."

As one we both turned to Kayle, Lirin, and Cece. The latter of the two engrossed in their conversation over top of the inner guts of the coin which they'd deconstructed. Kayle though was already looking our way.

Two heartbeats were all it took for him and Esayr to have their exchange. With a nod, Kayle returned to his brother and Cece. A moment later they turned and waved.

Esayr's hand landed at the small of my back, steering me back towards the front door. "Kayle will watch over her while we go to Kados."

"Am I ok?" None of the sensations had quite struck me with fear, though now that I was being led back to what probably amounts to a doctor the feeling did begin to sink its claws into my chest and stomach. "Fear feels like something sharp digging into your chest," I whispered the words, though I was uncertain if it was just my own fear or something other.

Esayr hurried me out of the civilian area and into the quieter hallways. He spoke to the ship in Vallan too quick for me to even pay attention to. Strings of lights flared to life on the floor in front of us, guiding us down turns and into an elevator.

Have there been other times? I turned over every sensation and feeling, trying to sieve through the ones that were my own making, though that line was blurry and indistinguishable.

We stopped at a door. It wasn't the med bay that I was used to. Just a nondescript door in a line of thousands. Esayr pressed his hand flat just to the right of it. In a swift whoosh, the door opened revealing a shirtless Addric his hair slightly mussed. "Esayr?"

"Is Kados here?"

"I am." Addric turned revealing Kados standing farther in their room. His work uniform was mostly unbuttoned leaving a line of golden skin exposed and the flairs of the sleeving on the shirt loose. Where I'd thought he'd looked animalistic before, in his pristine uniform, the air of disarray that leisure afforded him turned him nearly predatory.

It made me remember his utmost singularity. "The other night you looked at us, it was longing and it feels like your chest has been hollowed out. Like there's something missing even though you aren't sure what it is. It pulls your shoulders forward making you want to cradle it and hide it until there's something else there to make you full again."

Two pairs of golden eyes took me in then flicked back to each other before returning to bounce between me and Esayr.

"Can we talk?" Esayr didn't sound quite ragged, but there was stress there in his voice. If I focused too hard on it, I'd say it felt like the tickling trail of bugs along the outside of my arm.

Addric stepped back out of the doorway, "Come in."

*****A/N*****

I always loved the studies of the senses in my college psychology classes. They were always so fascinating. Though there are certainly more than the 5 senses that were the assumption way back when (like temperature, balance, or pressure being included on that list now) I always loved the interplay of how senses work together like the fact that your sense of taste is largely made possible by your sense of smell. Topics like Synesthesia were always fascinating to me where one sense will trigger others and where that interplay begins.

I have a friend that if she plays one specific song on the piano, can smell maple syrup. She has no idea why at all but it just always happens. In a similar fashion, if I hear the wind rattle verticle blinds I can taste a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sour cream and onion pringles because those are things that were a constant in my childhood. The human brain is so fascinating and my love of it really largely inspired moments like these in this story.

Are there any sensations that are specific to you? Or your memories? Or even bring back memories or trigger nostalgia? It's so interesting to see the things that cement themselves so clearly into our inner subconscious.

On a less serious note, I've been playing a lot of Pokemon Unite of late. I'm terrible, but if you're having a good time with good friends then it doesn't really matter anyway.

More things worth being enjoyed: pinchable baby cheeks, watermelon popsicles in the summer, dustmotes in the sunbeams, and miniature fairy gardens. And lastly: This months rhyme I put up on my calendar in my home "I crave the Earth to move and cause the winds to blow, that way I might could say: It is Au-Gusty day" :)

I hope this new month treats us all well.

Love,

~Layla