I could start fires with what I feel for you.

— David Ramirez

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Him

"I'm a butterfly."

She circles around a rose and flutters her arms as if they're her wings. He stands nearby with his bow and the wooden sword he has given her.

"Butterflies and roses," she sings to herself. "Nightingales in proses." She comes to a stop and then turns to him. "You can be a nightingale, Joojoo."

"But I cannot sing," he points out.

"But you know the song!" she exclaims with a grin. "Butterfly loves the rose. And nightingale loves the rose. You can learn to sing to it, and I'll fly around it."

"Can you fly?"

She giggles and smacks her forehead, as if finding him stupid. "I can dance like flying, silly."

She goes back to circling around the bush, this time with a skip in her step, as if giving him a demonstration of the said dance.

"See, I'm the butterfly. Now will you be the nightingale?"

He nods enthusiastically and goes to join her, abandoning his bow and her sword on the ground.

"I'll be the nightingale. I know the song."

Her

The night hums. Her heart races. Beneath her ear on his chest, unlike the maelstrom within her ribcage, his heart thuds softly. Her arms are limp on her side. His arms hold her tightly. She breathes a trembling breath and closes her eyes. He rests his chin atop her head. Noura knows no escape.

His hand continues to stroke her hair. Then he curls a strand at the back of her head around his finger and tugs it gently, until she's forced to look up at him. Their eyes meet and where their gazes intersect, the air freezes between them.

"Where are you coming from, Noura?" he asks again, this time with ice in his voice, making her shiver. "What had you sneaking away from me in my sleep?"

"Library," she mumbles, the fear of hurting him imparting her judgement of whether to confess the truth or not. "I went to meet syed Zahir."

He releases her, the warmth of his embrace leaving her, and walks towards the fireplace that has now burnt out.

"It will wound me greatly if you lie to me."

"I'm not lying to you," she defends, revealing only half the truth.

"Tell me then," he kneels before the fireplace and starts rekindling the fire, his back towards her, "why did you meet Daryush?"

She's left stunned by him once more, speechless, only staring at his back but unable to form a response. Noura doesn't ask him how he knows, or when he learnt. He was never a man to be underestimated. He isn't now either. But she surely didn't expect to be confronted like this. She struggles to give him a response.

The flames flare up in the fireplace. He sits down before it and turns to her. The glow illuminates his face. His features are pulled taut, cutting the light from the fire like a knife instead of allowing it to slide softly over them. But his eyes remain unfathomable and hollow, not permitting her to understand him this once.

"When I told you not to, Noura, why did you go to meet Daryush?" he repeats, much sternly this time.

"Let me explain," she requests, making her way towards him. "Please do not misunderstand anything."

He doesn't reply and she goes to sit beside him. He looks away into the flames and she looks at him. None of them speak for a while, until Noura reaches out to take his hand in hers.

"If I tell you it was for you, would it make a difference?" she asks quietly.

"I forbade you for you. What difference did it make?"

"If you already knew I was meeting him, why didn't you stop me then?"

He turns back to her, their gazes crashing again like a frantic wave against seashore.

"When have I ever succeeded stopping you in the past? If I had stopped you today, you'd have found another way tomorrow. You're stubborn like that."

"Are you complaining?" she says incredulously, a little flustered.

He huffs, his lips curling up to one side ironically. "I cannot keep you under my eyes all the time. But I can trust you. And if you break my trust, it's not like I'll praise you for it."

"You cannot expect me to do nothing but wait for things to fall into place-- to miraculously work in our favor," she reasons. "I'm not blind to anything. I see you struggling. I know it's difficult for you. That's why I want you to rely on me, Adam. Because if you hurt, I hurt."

"Nothing can hurt me but that which hurts you," he argues back with a calm rage. "Do you know how painful it is to listen to someone only in your memories? To never see them or hear them again? To never feel them in touch but live with a ghost of them? I don't want you to be that ghost, do you not understand? Because I've enough of others to make me feel that way. And it's not a feeling I fancy."

"What scares you?" she dares him to answer, not letting her eyes waver from him. "Is it the thought that I'll run away or the thought that I'll die? Because I can fight everyone for you without ever running away. But if death is destined for me, I cannot fight God for you. And you cannot fight God for me either. Then do you fear that I won't be able to shoulder your burden with you?"

"That doesn't mean you've to jump in the abyss of death every chance you get." He pulls his hand back from her. "But you've to test me mercilessly. Wallahi sometimes I think this heart is not a piece of flesh. Sometimes it's a burning coal. I wonder how my chest homes something like this. I marvel at it. But I hold onto it with my bare hands, Noura. I keep this heart burning for you. But then you go around and burn me like this instead."

His words sends a pang through her and she blinks back tears. "I didn't know my soul is a torture to you."

"For God's sake," he scolds.

"I understand now why you chose to keep me away all this time."

She tries to get up but he grasps her forearm and pulls her back. Noura avoids looks at him for the fear of breaking down before him. She doesn't want to fight him. But she cannot bear to be the cause of his anguish either.

"That is the problem, you never understand," he speaks tenderly this time, no anger lacing his tone. "You're trouble, I wish you would understand that. You've been too fierce ever since your childhood. And I'm not in oblivion to it-- how you're unruly, undaunted, unusual. You don't understand that I'm willing to keep this heart burning for you if it can light your life. But that for me to do this, I need to be sure that you are with me, safe with me. That you don't burn in the process, Noura."

She sniffs and closes her eyes, her voice shaking as she replies to him, "If this fire burns you then I don't want it."

"I'm miserable in your love," he jokes with her and she smiles weakly in response.

"You're formidable and brooding. I don't see you being miserable."

"Do I scare you?"

She shakes her head and puts her arms around his neck, burying her face in the crook of it.

"But sometimes I see a glimpse of Al Shafay in you, Adam. And I'd rather have you be my timid, little prince than the caliph people feared."

She hears him sigh and he runs a hand down her back. He presses his cheek to the side of her head and she takes a whiff of his masculine scent.

"Listen to me, hayati," he says lovingly, though Noura cannot miss the weight it contains. "You're the solace I find at the end of everyday. When I return to you from a long day, I leave the world behind the doors. And when I guard you, it isn't because I think of you incapable of shouldering my burden, but because I won't be able to do so without you. I cannot have any harm come to you."

"I'm sorry for upsetting you."

"Just keep away from Daryush."

"I actually found something about him."

"I already know."

Noura pulls away from him, blinking in surprise. "How? Syed Zahir didn't seem to know."

"From the same source you learnt from."

Her eyebrows go up on her forehead. "Tamara?"

Adam hums. "I've decided she will no more be your handmaiden."

"But--"

"And that goes without any argument," he firmly declares.

"But why? She was trying to help us."

"I fail to see how. It looks to me she was only helping herself. I don't trust her."

"Did she tell you I was meeting Daryush?"

"She didn't need to tell me that. I knew you were meeting him after learning that you had discovered his secret." He grazes her jaw with his knuckles and smirks. "What else was I to assume but that you went to threaten him for me? I have a history with you."

"Yet you seem to mind that I threatened him for you," she mocks playfully.

"Because I've learnt good from our history. Your dagger at my throat bore more passion than threats. There shall be no one after me."

Though she knows he is jesting, but something dark overcast his orbs. There is a seriousness behind the words that are spoken lightly.

"You accuse me of the impossible," she replies.

"Say, some day I'm no more and you're given another chance at love, will you move on?"

Noura frowns at him in displeasure, pushing against his chest. "Such an ugly supposition."

"A supposition nonetheless."

She looks at him. He stares back, awaiting her response.

"What would you want me to do?"

He chuckles sinfully. "Don't ask me. I'm a selfish man. I'll want you to mourn me forever."

"To be miserable in your love?" she adds.

His flicks his tongue between his lips. "No, but if another man ever takes you in his arms," he scowls at his own statement, "you deceive his love for my love by thinking of me."

"That is evil of you."

"Wouldn't you want me to do the same?" he challenges, leaning back on the cushions. "To remember you to my grave?"

"I would never want to consider such a possibility."

The humor leaves him and he smiles faintly, motioning her near. She scoots closer to him.

"But if it happens so, habibti, God forbid, where I'm not with you and you find yourself forgetting me, if our love fades and you move on, then I hope my ghost will not come to haunt you."

"But will your soul be happy?"

"It will pity itself. But it will be happy for you."

"Noble of you. For if it is me, I'll curse your every new lover to hell. And I'll come to haunt you."

This makes him grin and he wraps his arm around her. Noura nestles against him.

"What do you dream of?" he asks.

"Nothing much. But often of us together," she admits, growing shy. "Of building a home together, raising our children together. Giving you a family. Wouldn't you like that?" she asks slightly meekly and gazes up at him with hope.

He tilts his head to kiss her forehead. "Someday, if God wills it."

"Someday?" she mumbles back, unable to hide her dejection.

"Yes, someday when I don't live in the fear of leaving them behind at the mercy of someone else. I can bear everything, but I cannot bear for my children to live a life I've lived."

"But if you cannot reclaim the throne?" she suggests uneasily, not even sure if she wants to hear his reply. But he replies and it breaks her as she expects.

"Then I'm afraid I won't be living to see the day."

"Adam." Noura shushes him, straddling him and puts her palm over his mouth. "Either you become a caliph yourself, or I become a queen and make you my king."

He edges closer but she doesn't budge and remains straddling him. His hands come to hold her waist and she can feel him smile underneath her palm. Like before, he licks it. But unlike before, she keeps it in place.

"I'll hear no objections."

Her hand slips away and her fingers hover above his lips. His eyes color a deeper shade, of fervor and affection, and she drowns to the bottom of them.

"I've none, malikati (my queen)."

"Adam." She tilts her head until her lips replace her hovering fingers, a breath away but not touching his own. "Tu hame chiz man hasti (you're everything to me)."

He smiles but doesn't attempt to meet her lips. She holds onto his shoulders, his shirt crippled under her grip, yearning for so much more than her mind can comprehend.

"Yaram, deldaram, jaan o qalb man (my friend, my beloved, my soul and my heart)." She bumps her nose against his. "Tu donyaye man hasti (you're my world)."

"I don't understand Persian," he whispers to her a sweet lie.

"Good," she whispers back. "It was a secret you weren't supposed to know."

"I've a secret too."

"What?"

"Tu eshgh zendagi man hasti (you're the love of my life)."

She bites her lip to keep herself from grinning. "Pity for you. I understand Persian and now I know your secret."

"Then keep it safe for me, will you?"

"If you can lock it behind my lips," she mumbles seductively, teasing him, and he teases back, his tongue poking to run over his own lips.

"Let me warn you," he rasps, "I'll drag out your soul to dwell into mine. Don't ask back for it."

"But what do I get?"

He suddenly stands up with her in his arms and she has to wrap her legs around his torso not to fall down. Adam walks them towards the bed.

"All of me," he growls.

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That unintentionally got heated. Trust me, in real life I'm cold as an arctic glacier.

PS: my college has reopened and I struggle making time to write. Updates might be slow.

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