He was Almost Absorbed by the System

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.