"That really is a very…complicated way to exist in the world," she murmured, not quite able to resist reaching out and touching his cheek, just so she could watch the ghostly tendrils shift about her own face. "Though being able to see through another person’s eyes is just as remarkable a thing to me."
His response was to kiss her once again. After that came a slow exploration, and she watched herself as he saw her, and was fascinated by the sheer complexity.
"You spend the whole of your life surrounded by this?" she asked, and then sucked in her breath as he trailed fingers across her lower stomach.
"I can modulate the visual component," he said, pausing to show Laura her face as if through a series of strange filters. Patterns, shadows, and a haze of coloured light. And, finally, just Laura without any added complexity, wearing an expression of pleased wonder. "Sights can never be turned off, but there is no effort in maintaining a particular visual mode. The other aspects of Place are not so easily managed."
All the slow exploration had become too much for Laura’s restraint, so she began touching him in turn, and that led to another demonstration of the impact of Place Sight, and then a shower, and a slightly-damp return to bed.
"When is your flight tomorrow?" she asked, to cover that she found sleeping together in some ways more challenging than the sex.
"Dawn." He shifted beside her, arranging himself at a comfortable proximity, and curling his fingers through hers, but clearly avoiding touching her otherwise. "I have arranged to be collected a quarter-kasse before. There’s no need to get up—I will breakfast on the flight."
Laura studied his face, feeling grave and unsure and yet pleasantly enervated. And wryly aware that every doubt or flutter of excitement would be clear to him.
"I like getting up early," she said, and carefully lifted their linked hands to kiss the back of his fingers before dimming the lights and settling down to at least attempt to sleep. Gidds squeezed her hand in response, then let go, and lay still.
Giving her privacy, she realised. Or, perhaps, simple self-preservation for a busy man who had a dawn flight and, if he maintained contact, would be unable not to follow the emotional rollercoaster that was now boarding for a ride through Laura’s head.
After Mike had walked out on their marriage, it had taken Laura a few years to give in to her sisters' insistence she try dating. Sometimes that had worked out, but she’d never brought men home, or stayed the whole night at their place. That was down to the complexities of children, and also because her bedroom had been her workroom, and a sanctuary to her.
Laura glanced across at the door to her new workroom, firmly shut, and wondered if Gidds' Place Sight had plastered the sliding panel with large keep out signs.
She was getting ahead of herself. Occasional dates followed by dinner and sex had been relatively simple things. They should be even simpler on Muina, where contraception and a lack of STDs were a near-certainty. But Laura had to admit she did suffer from what Sue called ambivalence in the afterglow. Or, at least, had not in all of the last decade found a man who had inspired her to more than a few dates, and some strictly limited physical activity.
She already knew that Gidds Selkie wouldn’t fit this pattern. In part because the last hour had left her simply…stunned. And definitely keen for a repeat performance.
Or fifty.
But in other circumstances, without the storm, she doubted she would have been quick to spend the whole night with the man. He attracted but outright confused her: so overwhelming, impossibly intense, and yet somehow quiet, comfortable.
She hadn’t quite intended that last gesture. Kissing his fingers. An odd combination of affection and comfort, and she was not sure what she’d intended to convey with it.
Not sure at all.
Laura woke, surprised at herself. Instead of spending an hour or two turning over the wisdom of leaping into bed with technically-alien military officers, she must have dropped off almost immediately. And now was arranged along said military officer’s back, with an arm slung across his ribs.
Mindful of Cass' comments regarding the sensitivity of sleeping Sight talents, Laura removed the arm, so he wouldn’t be woken by a continuation of her internal debate, then slid out of the bed and took herself off to her bathroom.
Wasted effort. She heard him shift before she shut the door. Although, since it was a little over an hour before dawn, perhaps he was responding to an alarm.
And, in truth, she’d hopped off her rollercoaster before the first drop. There was mutual attraction, and hopefully would be more sex, and she would get to know him better. It hadn’t really bothered her at all to have Gidds spend the night. Of course, the bedroom was quite empty, almost impersonal, for her carefully arranged art supplies and current projects were safely locked away in her workroom.
When she emerged, after a considerately brief period, she found him partially dressed, standing in the now-open doorway of the bedroom patio. Impossible not to give into the temptation to slip her arms around his waist and kiss his shoulder, and kiss him more when he turned around, but then she was distracted by what he’d been looking at outside: a little sea of mist, ineffectually lit by the spill of light from the doorway.
"This island certainly has weather," she murmured, before adding: "Is there a way to avoid accidentally waking you?"
"It’s not worth trying. Anyone with strong Combat Sight will react to the movement of living creatures. We grow adept at falling asleep again after establishing there is no threat, but it is one of the reasons Sight talents often have shielding on their rooms."
He let go of her with a satisfying reluctance, and took himself off into the bathroom. Laura visited her cavernous walk-in wardrobe to pull on something warm, and then went out to the kitchen to make a couple of mugs of an herbal tea that was a popular Muinan breakfast drink. Then she opened the patio doors to interestedly consider the mist. Her house had become a ship on a sea of white.
"Do you drink this?" she asked as Gidds joined her, and handed him the second mug when he nodded.
They sipped, and there was a not-quite-awkward pause where they were both very clearly deciding what to say next. But then Gidds, with a hint of amusement leaking into his voice, said: "I would like to see you again, when I return from Tare."
"I would enjoy that," Laura said, smiling at the echo of their exchange last night, before adding: "Do you have a role in the Thanksgiving Ceremonies? Cass seems to have a long line of commitments."
"Not the Ceremonies. The week has become a time of review for the Triplanetary Council, and I have multiple reports to go over with Committees. My schedule is very full for the rest of the month."
"Come to dinner on the first, then."
"I will do that." Gidds was being extremely serious again, and in that voice. Laura managed to keep her mug upright, but it was a near thing.
A rising hum gave bare warning that they were out of time. The mist billowed, and a small flying vehicle rose out of the filmy sea to hover above the north patio. A woman in a green uniform, her face almost entirely obscured by goggles, brought the machine to a stop a precise four feet out from the door—and two feet up.
"Until then," Gidds said, handing Laura his mug. He took three steps, and another onto the landing strut, climbing effortlessly into the seat beside the pilot.
Holding two near-full mugs, Laura did not wave, but she watched with considerable envy as the flyer zipped away, glowing blue impellers marking the machine’s wake.