Chapter Sixty - Being With The Man I Love

"Have you finished fixing the leak on the roof yet?" Slate called out as he made the final preparations of the dawn meal; fruit compote for Willow and a heartier meal of wading bird and herb salad for himself.

"Just about!" Willow replied. A few minutes later there came a note of relief and the jade-skinned man descended agilely using the rope vines onto the bridge that attached their unique home to the forest trees. It was a mishmash of stone bricks towering upward and natural cave descending down with an upper craft room made of wood slightly off to one side and all finished with a wooden tiled roof. It had taken them a couple of years to complete when they had moved here needing to be part of the trees for Willow and part of the shadowed earth for Slate and his grandfather.

After Basalt had returned to Slate's village nearly a decade past, the man had claimed that his sister had run from him as they were returning home. He had chased her, but had ultimately been forced to watch as she had leapt to her death, committing suicide in heartbreak. The village Chief was driven mad with grief and had exiled Slate, who he immediately blamed for not loving his daughter thus driving her to such lengths. The hunters of the village were shocked, some even wanted to revolt angered by the accusations on their comrade's behalf. But Slate had asked them to stand down. He would leave. His grandfather, absolutely disgusted by the Chief's attitude and behaviour over the past few years, had decided to leave with him.

"Where do you want to go now?" The old man had asked him. Slate had shaken his head, he wasn't sure. The cave by the lake was a good place to shelter in when meeting his lover, but it was far to small to live in and there were no decent sized caves attached to it either. The old man, however, was of a miner's background and had not lived in the village all his life. He had taken Slate to a place he recalled, which once had a few odd veins of iron. They had not lasted as long as the nomadic villagers who had lived there had thought, so the place was abandoned now.

"Your mother loved to disappear when she was young, just like you," The old man had told him. "My wife would absolutely be running in circles trying to find her! One day, that kid got lost and was found by a trader wandering near caves at the surface, where he had met with forest people." The two men had explored the abandoned village, which had no permanent buildings remaining and those caves Slate's mother had found herself lost in. The latter were perfect. Most were underground, ranging between small and large, though not cavernous in size or exposed. The entrances into them were few and most could be filled with brick and rocks to make the shelter more complete. But what had truly sold it to Slate was the fact that one opened out into the forest, making meetings with Willow still viable.

However, Willow had been no longer satisfied with simply meeting Slate. "I will move in with you."

"But you are uncomfortable underground!" Slate had mentioned. Of course he was ecstatic that Willow wished to be with him, but he did not want Willow to be unhappy or uncomfortable with that choice.

"Then I will craft a room for myself above ground!" Willow had replied.

The couple still lived in those broken moments, as the sun rose and as the sun set, though Slate's eyes were not quite so sensitive to the sun and Willow was not quite so uncomfortable below ground, they could not overcome their natures. And so they shared meals together, twice a day, would play games and talk, or embrace each other in their bedroom until one slept and the other went about their day.

Willow savoured each bite of his breakfast. Slate had taken to preparing all of their meals and Willow found the food much more enjoyable that the snacks he made himself during the day. "Did you offer greetings to grandfather, like you said?" Willow asked.

"Yeah," Slate replied. "I tidied up the grave a bit." The old man had passed away a couple of years ago and they had buried his bones within a cave near to their home with a cairn of rocks as he would have wished. Slate visited it once a month to clear the cave of dust and debris and talk to the old man about how things were going between them. "I told him about the birth of your newest little niece."

Willow laughed, his sister's and brother's wife had produced a plethora of grandchildren for his parents and the old man had sort of adopted them as if they were his own great grand babies; spoiling them whenever Willow's family came to visit and trade. Willow's wares were still very much in demand as if they were a fashionable accessory for any forest home. They had become so wanted over the years, that people from other villages and even Outsiders asked to trade with them. It had lead to their home becoming quite comfortable with many creature comforts available both on and off world.

"Do you ever regret not having children of your own?" Slate had never asked Willow this before, he'd never thought about it as they had never been so surrounded by little ones as when Willow's family came to visit. Even when he was Matthew, his own nieces and nephews were often left in the care of nannies during visits so he and Cornelius were never close to them often when they were small.

"No," Willow replied almost immediately, but then added. "It's not that it wouldn't be nice to have little ones, but not having them with you is worse than not having them at all."

Slate smiled then asked Willow if he was finished with his meal, before whisking him away to their bed and making sweet love to him.

*****

Song Jian and Zhang Min rose through the ranks as the years passed and when the general who took command after Zhang Min's mother retired, finally stepped down, Song Jian was voted in as General. Yes, as far away as they were from the Home World, the soldiers on Fortonine felt there was little point waiting for the lengthy period it would take for the higher ups over there to pick and send a suitable candidate, they simply picked their own.

They still had to deal with dissatisfied reports from the mining industry over the quantity of transported goods and they still had to deal with disgruntled new soldiers sent to them as they were not wanted elsewhere and unhappy miners who couldn't get work elsewhere. The latest batch to land were sent to immigration and told that if they had any complaints to deal with the general's wife. They saw the one wore bore that title was a small, wirey looking soldier with a mess of dark curls peppered with silver, so at first the complainants thought they had been tricked, but then decided the title was a joke. They also thought they could easily win their arguments with the man who they beat in both height and breadth (this often included the few women).

However they swallowed down said notions when the General neared, his presence of being crushing them with its pressure and could only watch paralysed as he placed a deep and lustful kiss upon the smaller man's lips, who blushed furiously in response. Satisfied the man would stand behind his 'wife' smugly and glare at those who dared think about uttering words of complaint.

Rather than whinge about his accommodations or the schedule of duties handed to him, one instead turned his attention to the many rules and regulations that were outside the army's norm, hoping this would at least be heard. "I have a question," said the man, who had once been a corporal until he had been caught with his superiors wife. "Why are we allowing the natives such liberties? Not fighting with them, not taking their women... they are just savages after all."

"Heh," Zhang Min mused, revealing the secret that he had learnt so many years ago and was determined to spill. "Saying such things about your ancestors, good grief man. Where is your honour?"

That was right. A millenia ago or so the people of his Home World had been even more advanced than they were of today, however technological advancement does not necessarily mean contentment and happiness and many people sought a simpler way. One such people had immigrated to Fortonine and as their people's nature was highly adaptive, they had developed into two new species in a handful of generations. The forest people and cave people had long forgotten their past for whatever reason, with only certain 'devices' as reminders of their ancestors.

The Home World had lost contact with all immigrants as embroiled into wars they became until wrecked and nearly exhausted of resources, the people of their world could only make peace and look to the stars for ways to rebuild their past and begin their futures. But the knowledge that they had accidentally massacred remnants of their own ancestors did not sit well with a world trying to forget their bloody past, so they had buried it under red tape. Red tape that Zhang Min was determined to cut, even if it was just the tape blinding the ignorant new soldiers his husband was in charge of he cut.

And besides, he sort of felt he owed the cave and forest people for his current life, in more ways than one.

Author's note; I think I may have left a few holes in this whole thing.  It sounded so much better when I planned it out.  Ah I patched as best I could, maybe I will revisit... probably not.  Anyway, I plan to post a few extra's now.  I have two written, a third planned, but again if there is anything you fill I missed and you wished to read in these four arcs, please let me know.  I have taken into consideration requests already posted.

Ah one additional thing, I most likely won't make worlds m-preg.  It's hard to leave a lover behind, harder to leave children.  I'm not against m-preg tales... I am in the midst of publishing one, writing another and planning more, but I have other ideas for this story that make m-preg difficult.