The grass came up to his thighs and to her waist as they ran, the thin strands bending as they passed, garments warding off their sting. She laughed under her breath as she felt the tips of the blades brush against her raised arms, glad there was no one to see them in such foolery. His stride was large and he chanced a look over his shoulder only to let out an involuntary squeal when he saw just how close she was to him. He tried to make his legs move faster but the laughter inside weakened his frame and it was all he could do to keep running.
The sun reflected off two pairs of copper shoulders, the warm breeze rippling the meadow like the sea. Aged-golden and cornflower butterflies fluttered on the breath of summer, clustering about the oaks that ringed the glen.
“Ronon,” Teyla panted through a grin, a laugh in her voice.
From a glimpse she could see his eyes thin as he grinned at her tone. His gait betrayed that laughter threatened to steal his precious breath and she knew he couldn’t possibly run much further without stumbling in amusement. He raised an arm and tossed the rucksack with her lunch a ways from him before slowing, apparently hoping his surrender of the snatched item would change her course, but it was not to be.
Teyla watched as her rucksack soared away from Ronon, disappearing into the tall grass. His playful theft of it was what had instigated her pursuit, yet now it seemed beside the point. She kept her momentum as he slowed, launching herself at his mid-section, toppling him over as they both landed in a shelter of deep green, the soil beneath cool and damp.
Ronon felt much of the air cough out of his lungs as his back hit the ground, the Athosian landing on his ribs. The firm flesh of his chest was warm beneath her fingertips as she pressed against the cloth of his shirt and rose, pausing to smash a fistful of the soil against his cheek, grinning at his surprised wonder. The grass hissed as she slipped through, heading for her pack as Ronon struggled to breathe, brushing the sand off his cheek as he sat up. Her smile grew as she felt his eyes upon her, hearing him climb to his feet, and she reigned in her thoughts, not allowing her mind to wander enough to acknowledge his touch as the source of her enjoyment.
She disappeared in the grass as she crouched to retrieve her bag. She arched a brow at him when she arose, pack slung over one shoulder. She attempted to force admonition into her voice but her laugh stripped it away. “Are you happy with yourself, Ronon Dex?”
He looked sideways to the sky and lifted his brows in mock-consideration. She tried not to stare as he bit the inside corner of his lower lip. He looked back to her and the hissing of the pulsating grass between them hid the thumping of hearts. “I’d have been happier with myself if I’d made it to the river and thrown it in.”
She forced her eyes to narrow at him, the laughing lilt in his voice and the way the greens of his eyes danced as the sun on the meadow grass lifting her heart. She held her head a little higher and strode past him. “You never would have made it that far.” She intentionally bumped her shoulder against his arm as she stepped past, the breeze fluttering her bangs and the wisps of hair that escaped her braid.
Her smile broadened then faltered when she fell, barely catching herself before her chest slammed into the ground.
“Ooops.” Ronon kept a straight face as he pulled his foot away from hers. She ignored the stinging grass cuts on her bare arms as she looked up to him in surprise. He crouched next to her, hands idly resting on his knees with no offer of aid. “Guess that makes us even, doesn’t it?” He gave the top of her head a light pat as he rose then began to stride back towards their rendezvous point with Sheppard.
Teyla shoved herself back up, resisting the urge to shake her head at him for his impishness. She watched him walk for a few moments, cocking her head at how he trailed his fingertips over the tasseled tops of the grasses, how he watched them sway at his touch, as if finding solace with them.
She looked over her shoulder as he rounded behind an oak, a sudden longing to find the river they heard in the distance. But they weren’t supposed to split up, and she tore her eyes from the distant tree line and its whispering temptation. With a sigh, she began through the grass toward the large rocks she and Ronon had been resting on earlier. She glanced about for Ronon and called his name when she could not see him.
“What?”
She let her shoulders slump as his predictably brief answer came from behind a grove of pines and granite. She slipped the pack from her shoulder and sat down as she undid the latch. She’d just decided on what to eat first when Ronon called her name, and she stood up, unable to discern if his voice was colored with urgency or something unknown.
“Yes?” She picked up her P-90 and started toward his voice.
“Come and see this!”
She paused, letting the gun fall to her side. He sounded intrigued, not endangered. With a slight roll of the eyes, she wove through the pines and hopped over a protruding rock of moss-pocketed granite, spying Ronon on the edge of another glade. She stepped up beside him, glancing to his profile then to the meadow, greeted by the pinks, purples, whites and yellows of blooming wildflowers, blending with the foam-topped green of the grasses. She looked to his profile again, amused by their shared appreciation of the beauty before them. The wind blew the sweet scents of grasses, the tang of the pines and the earth of the oaks, joining in nature’s welcome. She closed her eyes as the scents wafted over her, hating to exhale for the loss it would bring, yet rewarded with each inhalation.
She started a little when his hand suddenly closed on hers and he stepped forward. “I want to show you something,” was all he replied to her startled look to him.
Letting him lead her, she stepped into the meadow, the insects milling about the flowers occasionally curiously swooping near to their faces. The ground sank a little beneath her boots and she looked down to notice drying mud. The grasses grew darker and more lush in a line through the meadow, thriving in a spring.
It was here that Ronon stopped, tugging her down with him as he crouched among the grasses. The spring trickled beside him, glinting now and then in the sunlight. She wiped at the sweat on her nose with her knuckle, wondering if the spring were what Ronon found so remarkable and why.
His eyes were alight with something she had yet to grow accustomed to – happiness. “Now close your eyes.”
Furrowing her brow slightly, she tilted her chin in a silent question. A corner of his mouth lifted in a smile and she returned it. “Should I be frightened?”
His expression softened, his smile in his eyes now. “Just don’t open them ‘till I say. Okay?”
She kept her gaze locked with his, slightly unsettled by his request, her mind racing through all of the possibilities of what he could be about to do yet settling on none.
When he raised his brows pleadingly, silently asking for her trust after the shenanigans he’d pulled earlier, she relented, her hand going limp in his as she closed her eyes, sitting on her haunches. “Alright.”
There was a soft rustle as he shifted his feet, then his hand was gone from hers and she found its absence a consuming distraction from the sounds and smells of the meadow. He was moving again, and the whispers of parting reeds and the light trickle and drip of water gave her focus.
She inhaled suddenly when cool water dripped on her shoulders and her eyelids instinctively began to flutter open until she remembered her pledge, and she squeezed them shut once more. There was another trickle of water and she cocked her head, listening, entirely perplexed by this ritual. She had a mind to ask him what he was doing when more handfuls of water trickled onto her shoulders, yet this time he ran his hands down her arms with the water, smoothing it across her skin. She breathed deeply as the hair on the back of her neck stood up and she fought off a small shiver, coloring slightly, knowing the water was not cold enough to elicit such a reaction.
He gently lifted each of her arms so that they warmed fully in the sun, then smoothed more water onto them. "Now, hold still.” His voice was a whisper and she stilled when she felt his breath on her as he moved away. She did as he instructed, feeling silly, wondering if her trust in him had been misplaced and that he was now silently laughing at her.
He made no sound save for the rustlings of the plants as he backed into them, how far she could not tell. Moments passed and the breeze tickled her skin, but he did not speak, and his presence blended until she lost herself in the choir of the world around her, beautiful, alive, and still.
His voice was husky when it wafted to her across the tassels of the grasses. “Now, open your eyes.”
She was so at peace that she hesitated, blinking in the return of light. Ronon was standing about ten feet from her, small wonder in his eyes as he looked at her.
He read the question on her lips before she had fully formed it and he inclined his head toward her right arm. She followed his gaze and a smile blossomed when she saw what he’d been looking at. A butterfly with wings of buttercup spotted with black and coattails dappled with iridescent blue had alighted on her forearm, drinking from the drying film of water there. Another was on her bicep, and yet another perched on her thumb, their colors shifting as they pivoted in the sunlight, slowly pumping their wings in place. She looked to her other arm and was met with a similar sight, midnight blue shifting to raspberry, then to peacock green in the light. She looked back to Ronon, eyes alight with delight, biting her lip when a butterfly landed on the top of his head.
He slowly raised a hand, palm up, asking her to rise. When she did, the butterflies took flight, air-dancing with the dozens of others that now swarmed, twirling and gliding over the tops of the flowers and the grasses that glistened from the water Ronon had painted them with. Their simple majesty danced before the collage of wildflowers, soaring and swaying in the breeze like the meadow grass, and she suddenly felt the wind hushing through the treetops - the breath of the land.
She looked back to Ronon, her eyes traveling his features as he watched the nearby leaves with the same quiet awe and adoration that welled in her chest. He must have felt her gaze on him, for he shifted his eyes to hers, an they were as a child’s, lifting her heart in their innocent wonder.
His words were barely audible, yet they resounded in her soul. “This is life.”
She knew her eyes now reflected his wonder, yet it was as much for the man before her as it was for the beauty around them. He looked away from her, his eyes traveling the whispering treetops again and she felt free to drink in his countenance.
She had never seen him so at peace, and she realized with a bashful smile as she returned her gaze to the glen, that she hadn’t felt so blissful in a long time. A gust played with her hair and she closed her eyes, letting it wash over her. “It is as if the trees sing.”
He gave her a small, slow nod, his face still wistful as he watched the boughs sway in their song. He shifted his weight, resting one foot and folding his arms over his chest. She caught herself smirking at him as she pivoted to face the trees. “Thank you, Ronon, for letting me hear their voice.”
He looked down, and the shifting shadows of dancing light from the spring painted his face. “It’s always been here, even if you couldn’t find it. You didn’t need me to hear it.” He looked back up to her, his head still slightly inclined. “Even when I’m gone you can still hear the song.”
Though she tried, she couldn’t look away from him.
Sheppard radioed, his tour of the local settlement completed, and he was on his way to their rendezvous point.
The two made their way back in companionable silence, the sights and sounds of the glade fading behind them, replaced by the distant rush of the river.
“That place was...” She attempted to speak to the peace she felt filled them, yet found herself wanting of words.
He gave her a brief look of amused understanding, tearing at a piece of grass as they walked, then his expression shifted to something deeper, his eyes traveling from her shoulders to her bangs. A hint of the same wonder she witnessed earlier returned. “Some things are just beautiful beyond words, and you think your heart’ll break.”
His eyes lingered and her breath hitched in her chest, slowing as her legs weakened from the small smile he offered her before striding ahead to greet Sheppard at the rocks.
Listen To The Wind
Listen To The Wind Home
I. Prologue: The Legends of Leaves
II. A Whisper, A Kiss In A Dream
III. Shadows Dance Behind The Firelight
V. It Always Remains
VI. I'm Not Really Gone
VII. High Up In The Trees
VIII. Epilogue: Strong Wind
