Welcome to Gaia! ::

Gel felt the movement and awoke, curling his arms around Aonice's small shoulders. He sighed happily, looking up at the canopy of the bed trying to remember the last time he had been this content or slept this well. Memories of life on countless worlds flooded through his mind, palaces, cabins, tents, homes of every imaginable shape and size. He had been married before, had families, his children, all of whom were grown or long dead, but all of their faces appeared in his mind as if he had just left them. Gel then looked back down at the mass of raven black hair covering his chest and smiled, he gently kissed the top of her head and spoke softly, under his breath.

"Thank you."

"Hmmm.... you weren't exactly supposed to hear that..."

He kissed her head again.

"I was just thinking about how it's been a very long time since I was this content, I usually spend my entire night reliving the more unpleasant parts of my life, tonight I had no dreams... at least none that i can remember."

"Hmmm somehow I feel like that's a dangerous question, but here goes. I was engaged to a princess once... it was kind of sudden, she was given to me by her father... Her name was Parafvina."

Gel took a few deep breaths, gathering the memories to him, some of them painful.

"No dear, there isn't a part of my life that I don't remember with a little bit of pain... but I will tell you how I came to know her father... I was wandering, as I often do, but I noticed some men carrying something and being rather secretive, they never noticed me, but as they passed I caught a glimpse of a child. merely a baby, no more than 4 years of age. The men seemed rather unsavory so I decided to follow them, when I found an opportune moment I appropriated the child. When I got a moment to get a look at the boy I realised from his clothing and speech where he was from."

"I took him home, it was an easy journey, but there were difficulties when I got there. The entire city was in turmoil, the heir to the throne had been kidnapped, and the enemies demands were terrible. I managed to get inside the city and carefully made it to the gates of the palace, the general population of the city not being the most trustworthy people. When the palace guards halted me I was finally able to reaveal my companion, who was, in fact, the heir to the throne. The Rajah proclaimed me as his own son and brought his daughters out and bade me choose a bride."

Gel looked at her and chuckled, the near-blackness not affecting his vision at all.

"Well there were 57 of them... I begged him to allow me time to choose, they were all very beautiful, and I knew it would be a difficult choice. Just as I knew that I had to choose. The Rajah laughed at me and told me they would all serve me for a week, bring me food and do my whim and at the end of the week I could make my choice. For the next six days I was waited on, hand and foot, by the most beautiful women in the kingdom, they were quite aggressive and competitive with each other. One girl caught my eye on several occaisions, she rarely got very close to me because her sisters would push her down or block her out, mainly because she was younger and less savage than they were. Occaisionally I would call her forward myself and send her on somemeaningless errand just so I could see her up close and especially so I could watch her leave to do my bidding."

"She was beautiful, and I was unimpressed by the posturing of the others... well being the kind of guy I am, I managed to come up with a useful plan. I sent her on a simple errand that got her away from the others and I set myself up in a corridor on her path and spoke to her alone... really only so I could find out her name."

Gel sighed, gently stroking his hand over Aonice's shoulders.

"Jea'olyn... she was not nearly as shy as she seemed before, and even more beautiful when she was in my arms."

"Heh, Aonice, not a single one of them had a body like yours, they were all raised in the palace, their flesh was soft, but weak. Even Jea'olyn, the most beautiful of them fell short of your assets by at least a few inches."

Gel stroked her back gently, kissing the top of her head again.