Cahal and the Maiden of the Lake

It had been raining for days, and it was the first day with clear skies in weeks. The ancient waterfall was engorged with masses of water falling from high above into the pool below. Green moss covered the rocks, forever moistened by the wild waters. Large evergreen trees on the top of the rocks were leaning dangerously over the edge like they could tumble down any day. But strong roots were holding on to the rock and soil, trees that had withstood meteorological storms and the storms of time for hundreds of years. The waterfall had been there for thousands of years, and it would always be there. It had seen travelers refreshing on their journeys, washed animal blood off hunters, rinsed berries the women had picked, watered wild and domestic animals for centuries, had been there when the shamans worshipped their gods and sacrificed to the entities in realms beyond the human world.

The sky above was clear, but the sun was absent as the evening had set in. It had been a clear day nonetheless, and the warmth of the evening lingered. She stood at the side of the shallow pool. He sat there, holding himself up on his hands and watching as she untied the strings of her white gown. She let the cover slide over her shoulders, and it fell around her feet on the mossy ground beneath her.

She was naked; where her skin was not painted with lasting ink, it was pale like white sand and smooth like a rock having lain in the water for many years. Feminine curves shaped her body, and her long fiery hair fell over her white breasts and down to her belly. She had born children from men who had planted seeds into her. She was ripe in her age but not too old to bear more children. The men she had let enter her hut were lovers for a night and fathers of her children forever. She used the men for just that, giving her the gift of motherhood and bearing children. She raised and taught the girls in the ancient arts passed to her by the women before her while she sent her sons to live with families in the villages, learning to tend to the land or train in the art of warfare and battle.

She stood there and gazed at him. He looked up at her, and his eyes studied the depictions on her skin. Animals, images of nature and creatures covered her long legs and her arms. An image of a sun was stitched into the skin around her navel. Her pubes were prominent and always ready to host large phalluses of strong and wild men that could give her children. Every time he saw her, he was anew overwhelmed with his admiration and fascination for her.

He was a man different than all the men she usually invited in. When she summoned him, he was the only man she met at the ancient waterfall by the lake. She called for him when she wanted him, and she wanted him often because what he did with his hands and fingers brought her to the realms of lust and desire without planting seeds in her that would transform into children. His skillful mouth and tongue caused her lustful moans and wild cries. He couldn’t give her children because his body was broken, but that is not what she needed him for. She wanted him to satisfy her primal needs, and he was always able to break the woman in her. And when she was with him, her heart beat like a shaman’s drum and her mind was completely occupied with him.

The men who came to her hut were men with strong legs and walked, ran, and sprinted through the forests, over the plains, and climbed rocks or ancient trees, even higher as the waterfall.

He was no such man; he was forever sitting or lying. He wasn’t walking and running; he was forced to stay close to the ground, never to be upright again. He used to be like the strong, wild men with muscular legs and seemingly unbreakable bones, a strong warrior for many years until fate met him one day in an ambush of warriors from another tribe in a forest far from his home. When they threw him off a rocky slope and thought he was dead, he lay there looking up into the treetops with the sky peeking through, and he was waiting for the eternal light to come for him. The light never came, but instead, the day turned into night, darkness came, stars shone through the trees, but the eternal light never came for him. He lay there in agony and longed to leave the earthly realm, but he couldn’t leave. He also couldn’t move; his legs seemed like they were gone, but when he looked up, he saw his legs were still attached to his body. He saw his legs, but they had disappeared from his mind.

The night turned into day; the day turned into night, and night turned into day again before hunters from another tribe found him. They dragged him through the forest like one of the animals they had killed; he screamed and cried because of the unbearable pain in the upper half of his body. He still longed for the eternal light, but it didn’t come for him. For reasons unknown to him, they didn’t kill him, but an old shaman nursed him to strength and one day strapped him to a cart and pulled him for several days and nights back to his native village and dropped him off in the square in the middle for him to be found the next morning.

He was from then on a man of no use to anyone, not a hunter, not a warrior, not a husband, not a father. After only living through thirty winters, he was then a man who was invisible to the people in his village. He had to rely on the mercy of strangers and kind people in the village to bring him food and water. In his hut outside the village, he usually lay on the straw cot with the chickens pecking around him, keeping the insects at bay in the summer and lying next to him on the cold days. A hound had found its way to his hut one night and had never left his side since then.

It was a warm night in summer when he had been startled by a soft knock on the narrow, wooden door of his hut. It was a messenger, his cloak pulled far into his face so he couldn’t see him, but the messenger told him that the Maiden of the water had sent him. He had never heard of a maiden by the water, but the messenger had come to summon him for the Maiden and promised him that a horse with a cart would come and gather him up the next night. He told him to trust the horse and just let it take him. He told him to be ready and clean as the Maiden wanted to see his body and bathe with him. Before he could ask any more questions, the messenger had left his hut. He lay in the shadows of his hut bewildered by the strange summoning.

The next day, he dragged himself out to the small water hole by his hut and cleaned his body to his best abilities. His dark hair was long, and he dipped his head in the water and rubbed his hands through his hair to freshen it. With his blade, he scraped over his face to shorten his facial hair. When the water became still, he looked at his reflection on the surface of the pond. Thirty-two winters had come and gone since he had been born, and his mother had died as she gave him life. He had never known his father, but he had been taken in by a warrior and was trained in warfare and battle strategies to keep his tribe safe. He had been a great warrior until he had been pushed off the rocky cliff in the forest.

As he stared at his reflection, his mind was wondering about the Maiden that had summoned him. He had never heard of a maiden by the water, and he had not heard of water with a maiden living by it. He didn’t know if it was a lake, a creek, a stream or even the water that was never-ending. He had seen the never-ending water once as a young man, and he had run along its side barefoot in the sand with the screeching white and grey birds above him. He had seen nothing but water on the horizon as he had run along, and he was sure that it was the end of earth he had seen.

The day faded, and it became dusk. He was sitting outside his hut, the hound next to him. The hound never left his side except to hunt a bird or a small animal. He sat leaning on the side of the hut and looked along the path that led to his hut. He lived away from the village as an outsider, a scorned one, an odd one with legs that didn’t help him stand or walk anymore. His legs were dead; his manhood was just as dead. A medicine woman from the village had come before to give him bundles of rigid dried reeds, and she had shown him how to push a reed into the opening of his manhood and let the yellow water flow out of it. With his fingers, he had to dispose of the digested food that traveled through his body and came out from his behind.

He had cleaned his body and had pulled a tunic over his chest and thin britches over his still legs. He didn’t have anything to cover his feet; he was always barefoot. He sat in front of his small hut and looked out to the path that led to his hut from the forest. As the sun was setting behind the trees, a cart pulled by a black horse came along the path. He was afraid of the large horse; he hadn’t seen a horse in a long time. The hound ran around and barked, showing his teeth.

He called to him to stop the unrest, and the horse bopped its large head, and the hound stopped and sat down, only whimpering.

He told the hound to guard the hut until he would return. The hound stayed, and as he was about to pull himself over to the cart, he ran his hand over the animal’s head and told him to be a good hound and wait for him and protect the chickens. The horse snorted softly and bopped its head again.

He petted the dog once more and promised that he would be back. Then he twisted his body and pulled himself over to the cart, his lifeless legs dragging behind him. He was breathing quickly but was relieved that the cart was not too high off the ground, and he could pull himself up in it. It was lined with a thick bear fur, and he adjusted his lifeless limbs in the cart and leaned back. He looked over the rail once more at the hound, and the horse dug its front hoof into the dirt, bopped its head and turned around, trotting away from the hut and along the path.

The journey through the forest and up the hills was bumpy, but the bear fur made it tolerable for him in the cart. He watched the scenery go by, and he wondered if he would ever return to his hut or if this was one last journey to a place he never knew existed and a woman who would possibly kill him as a sacrifice to the gods. The horse seemed to know exactly where it needed to go. He was at the mercy of an animal taking him to an unknown location. If he didn’t return, no one would miss him, no one would look for him, and no one would send a search party. His hound would eat the chickens and leave the hut in search of another man.

Dusk had turned into darkness when he arrived at a lake high up in the mountains. The full moon shone over it, casting a glistening shimmer over it. Water softly splashed against the shore that was lined with trees and brush. The horse stopped, and he looked around when he saw her for the first time. He was still in the cart but had pulled himself up to emerge from the cart if that was what was expected of him. She came out from the thicket where he saw flames behind her in the brush. It looked like a clearing with a homestead. She seemed to be sweeping towards him on light feet, and she was the most beautiful thing he had ever laid eyes on. Her hair was a mane around her head, red as fire and wavy as the water after a rock had been skipped on its surface. It fell over her front and down to her womanhood. She wore a white flowing dress; he noticed she was barefoot as well.

This was how he had lain eyes on her for the first time, and immediately, he was stricken with her beauty. Her angelic face had a warm expression, one of fondness and tenderness for a man as he was. His heart was beating fast like the drums he heard from the shamans in a full moon night. From then on, she would summon him over and over to connect with him in the most intimate ways between man and woman.

And on this evening once again, he looked up at her as she stood next to him, her bare feet in his line of sight. He couldn’t stand, and he couldn’t walk; he was always at her passionate mercy. It wasn’t a bad fate; it was the most amazing thing for him. For many days and nights, he longed for her calls, and sometimes it took so long until she needed him again and as days turned into nights, and nights into days, he would be uneasy, wondering if she would summon him again. But he was always ready for her, and throughout two earth cycles, she had always summoned him. The anticipation of finding himself in her presence soon had kept him from ending his earthly life when his pain and suffering seemed too much to bear.

Her body was that of a goddess, and for a few hours, this goddess was for him to devour and shower with all his affection, skillfully massage her, use his mouth, lips, and long tongue to make her scream into the earth or underwater, causing the eruption of bubbles and small spouts on the surface. She was one with the water when he held her there on the shoreline of the lake. Continuously, water escaping from the ancient thermal holes underwater kept the lake warm and enjoyable.

She stood over him and gazed down at him as he sat there, holding himself on his hands. She never spoke much. A nod at him with a tender smile made him lean over and kiss the bridge of her feet. And his heart was beating fast at touching his lips to her cold skin.

She lowered herself down to him and sat next to him, her long hair touching the ground. She put her slender hands to his tunic, and he let her pull it over his head. Just as her body was decorated with ancient symbols and marks, his was as well. Drawings of battle and war were forever etched with hot iron pokers dipped into black ink into his chest and shoulders. His upper body still presented itself as a strong warrior, but his lower body was lifeless as a casualty of the murders he had committed. Legs that used to be strong now lay strewn limp on the ground, a fate he would forever endure as he dragged himself through his earthly life.

She tossed his tunic to the side and gently loosened the string on his britches. He held himself there, watching her thin, long fingers gently loosen the strings, and she tugged, sliding them over his dead legs. He was naked just as she was, and they were sitting on the shore of the warm lake. The waterfall was swollen from the snowmelt and noisily splashed into the lake as they looked at each other, scanning over their nude bodies. Her breasts were white like the snow, her nipples like two hard hazelnuts in its bed. He moistened his lips as he looked at her, and she moved closer to him, and with her hot breath, she blew over his shoulders and strong chest. His breathing quickened as the hot breezes flowing from her mouth brushed over his skin. Warm waves of the lake gently ran up on the shore, reaching them where they sat.

As she carried her hot breath over him, she hushed, “I’ve longed for you and your body, dearest Cahal. I’ve longed to breathe on you, to let my tongue run over your skin and let my hands explore the lifeless half of you. I dream of you when the stars are in the sky, and I dream of you when the sun warms my bosom. I touch myself when I see your face and your body in my dreams; thinking of your legs makes my loins shudder, and moisture run from within me as I long to be consumed by you.”

Cahal was his name. He didn’t hear it from anyone’s mouth often as he lived alone and was forgotten in his hut away from the village. The Maiden of the water was the only one who said his name, and when she screamed it, he indulged in it, and he treasured her moaning his name because only he could give her what she hungered and thirsted for. He was different from the men she usually lay with, and he knew he had a power over her that brought her to her knees, and she became weak and childlike in his presence.

When he lay on his cot in his hut, alone and cold, he imagined her screaming his name: Cahal, you’re my hunger and my thirst, and only you can still it. You make me a woman at her most primal self, bringing me to soar high as the sky and drowning me in the depths of the ocean.

Cahal enjoyed the touches of her hot breath, anticipating her lips and tongue to touch him soon. The water from the lake ran up on shore, and she pushed him down into the wet ground, grasses and mosses under him. He let her, and she hovered over him for a few moments, looking at him with glistening eyes, smiling warmly.

“Cahal, my sweet Cahal. Endless joy overcomes me when you’re with me. Your life is my life; your death will be my sorrow until eternity.”

Cahal kept his eyes on her, wondering why she talked about his death.

He was alarmed when a golden tear dripped from her emerald eye. He gazed at her, and with his finger, he wiped the tear away, scanning over her face curiously and questioning.

His heart was beating fast in his chest. The Maiden of the Water lost another golden tear, and she gently touched the side of his face.

“Your death is near; you are but just a man, Cahal. Man dies and returns to the earth; I will be forever and will forever mourn you, my dear Cahal.”

Cahal’s hand trembled at hearing her say these things, and she added, “This will be our last meeting, Cahal. Death will come to you before the next full moon is born, and people who mean you harm will come for you.”

Cahal was stunned, and he stared at her in disbelief, but she smiled at him and gently traced her fingers over the side of his face.

“Before death, you will have life with me on this night, and you will feel life in every fiber of your body.”

With that, she touched her lips to his mouth and though, he tried to forget what she had predicted, his heart was hurting as its beating intensified with her kissing. Distracted and hesitantly, he put his arms around her, pulling her body to him and returning her kissing with his own. The warm water of the lake crawled up under them, saturating and softening the ground. Tiny droplets from the waterfall moistened their skin as their tongues connected in the ancient dance of man and woman. Cahal felt pain in his heart, but he kissed her, and tears were in his eyes at the thought that this should be the last time he would ever be with her.

If only he could have given her a child such as the other men she had lain with. She was a healer, and he longed to know why she couldn’t heal him. Their bodies were entwined, the drawings on their skin connected to form pictures of a man and a woman, earth, life and death. She pushed herself to him, and feeling his limp manhood under her delicate flower, made her hold him tighter and bond with his broken body to become one.

The water of the lake surged around them, and Cahal’s long black hair was wet now. A curtain of her wild mane surrounded them, almost as to shield them while their mouths were connected in a kiss full of desire. And he pushed his tongue into her mouth, encircling her tongue and tasting her. There was cool moisture from above, warm dampness beneath them, and there was hot wetness inside her as she longed for his mouth and tongue to drink her womanly extracts.

She softly detached her lips from his, brushed her tongue over his skin, and he was breathing quickly, looking up into the sky as she caressed him with her mouth, lips and tongue. Though her body was slender and delicate, she had an invisible strength about her, and effortlessly, she pulled Cahal further into the lake's warm water. He lay emerged in the water now, and she slithered onto him, and her hands ran over his strong arms, tracing the muscles and tendons, remnants from years of battle and warfare. Cahal’s face was not submerged yet, but his body was, and though he felt the warmth of the water on his upper body, his lower body seemed like it wasn’t even there. His legs floated without any control, and only her legs on him kept them still.

She lay on him and created rhythmic friction against him as she entangled her long legs with his lifeless legs. And she sank her face into the water and licked over his body. Her fingernails scratched over his skin, causing his breath to quicken. She had powers that other women didn’t have. It didn’t take her breath away when she was underwater, and water didn’t fill her lungs. She could swim above and below the water; she became one with it as she plunged into the lake. Cahal had witnessed this many times; she plunged into the water, swam behind the waterfall, and he would watch and wait for her to return to him as he lay on the edge of the lake. He always found joy in watching her in the water. She wasn't like any women he had ever known.

She did this again, and as she disappeared behind the waterfall, he waited, and soon, she appeared in the center of the falling masses of water. She wasn’t swimming; she was floating above the water surface under the stream of the waterfall.  She smiled at him before she dropped into the water like a fish, and underwater, she swam to him again and emerged by his feet, her red hair wet in straight, long strands on either side of her face. Her eyes were emerald green and golden like the water; her lips were full and shimmered red like the flesh of a salmon.

Her tongue slithered over Cahal, and he let her caress him before she entangled herself with him again. Her face was right by his, and their lips touched again, and they fell into a kiss again. He wrapped his arms around her and held her to him. He longed so much to speak to her, but he couldn't speak when he was with her. A spell was on him when he was in her presence, and he didn’t have a voice. He could only talk with his hands, his mouth and his eyes.

She now was locked as one with him as his thin, bony legs were clamped between her smooth legs. And she put her arms around him, and he held her to him. Their lips remained connected while the water around them became wilder and higher. Any other man would have been afraid at this, but Cahal wasn’t because he knew what would happen. She pressed herself against him, and as the water became wilder, it changed into a fountain under them, and Cahal could feel the power of the water. As she held him to her and their bodies were as one, the water lifted them from the ground, and they soared up surrounded by wild, warm water. She detached her lips from his, and they looked at each other, and as she smiled at Cahal, she sang her siren song, holding him and carrying him up with her. They surrendered to the power of the water lifting them. He was powerless at this mystery as the water encircled them in a tornado and pressed them to each other, spinning them and lifting them even higher.

Sounds of joy and desire came from her lungs as they soared to the top of the waterfall, with the tornado spinning them up. Cahal wanted to be with her like this forever and never come back down to the earth beneath them. He could only quietly let this happen; there was nothing he could do or say. It was their dance when they were together. She lifted him, and they were one with each other. With her legs wrapped around his legs, Cahal was in the impression that he could feel his legs while they were up there.

She sang and held him; her hair flowed around her, and her eyes didn’t move from his face. Her eyes were like the wild water around them, and drops of water came out of her mouth, rising, as she sang her ancient song.

This mystery ended as the tornado slowed and became smaller, lowering them toward the water. With their arms wrapped around each other, they gently touched the surface of the water, not at the shore but right in the middle. Cahal didn’t go under, though, because she held him still. And she swam with him in circles, from small to large, until they reached the shore. There she let go of him, and he lay there, and she lay next to him. She was quiet now and looked into the sky above them. They were wet, and their bodies were warm and excited.

It was Cahal’s turn now; she needed his touch and caress. He turned toward her and held himself over her. Her eyes were those of a regular woman now, green and deep, and he let his lips come down on her mouth and kissed her. She was not a goddess and not a healer now; she was simply a woman.

She ignited in him the man he used to be, the man that had lain with women in the tavern rooms after battles and fights. As a warrior, his body damaged and wounded, his mind tired from the fights and his hands soaked in the blood of the people he had killed, he had still needed the release only a woman could give him at the end of the day.

Wildly, Cahal kissed the Maiden and pushed his tongue into her mouth, meeting her tongue and wrapping his around hers. At the same time, his hand stroked over the mounds of her breasts, cupping them and kneading them gently before moving further down to her womanhood, her source of life and lust.

She moaned softly, humming a melody of love and desire as Cahal’s hand reached her most sacred place. He had done this countless times with her; he knew her body and reactions and knew exactly what he had to do.

He detached his lips from hers. Her hands were on his back, tracing the scars where he had been pierced and stabbed by swords and knives. She moved her fingers along his spine, knowing that it was damaged from the fall off the cliff and causing the death of his legs. And she cried as she always did because touching him in this way, his pain radiated into her, and for a short time, she took it all away from him. And life sprung into him as he assertively flicked his tongue over her neck and bit her gently, breathing quickly.

And he wanted her, and while his hand pressed gently against her flower, he lapped the water of her body and left small purple bruises on her white skin. The images and symbols on her skin stung his eyes and raced into his head, where they came alive. He kept his eyes open because he wanted to see her, and she arched her back as he neared her nether region. Her hip bones protruded, and he flicked his tongue along her curves and neared her sacredness.

She moaned and squirmed under his touches and flicks of his tongue. Water was still around them; the sun was setting behind the mountain, the waterfall caught its last orange rays, throwing a golden shimmer over the lake. Cahal was focused on her and now was with his mouth right by her sacred womanliness. She grabbed his right hand and interlocked her fingers with his, needing the connection to him as he explored her like he always did with merely his left hand and his skilled mouth and tongue.

She moaned and whimpered as he ran his tongue along her vulva, spreading her swollen labia in the process and licking through the soft canyon of the flesh between her legs, reaching her hallowed spot at the top of it. A squeal of excitement escaped from her lips as he gently pressed his lips to her clitoris, enclosing it and tenderly suckled it out of its shelter. And she arched her back toward the sky; she looked at the trees above them, looking down and witnessing hers and Cahal’s bond once again. She knew he soon was going to die, and tears flowed from her eyes as he cared and tended to her womanhood, causing her legs to tremble while his legs lay still, only the water moving them gently on the shore.

The sky was orange, and the clouds were purple as Cahal pushed his tongue into her warm opening, tasting her feminine extracts and her obvious joy of being with him. She held his hand still, and his sweat mixed with the moisture on her body and the wetness running from her opening. He pushed his tongue into her, and in exchange for his tongue coming out, he pushed three fingers in, and she flinched at the sudden sensation of his fingers filling her out. She tightened her inner muscles around his fingers, locking them inside her, and with his mouth, Cahal gently pulled out her clit and let his tongue explore the size of it, like a precious pearl in its shell.

She whimpered with desire, and she sang again a song in a language he didn’t understand. But it was the song she always sang when she almost reached the climax of her arousal. Cahal continued his quest to once again give her exactly what she needed. He drank her sweet juices and softly flicked her most sensitive spot with his tongue. He wasn’t concerned with his own gratification as he had never been able to reach the same heights she did. With the fall from the cliff and the injuries he had suffered, he had lost all sensation in the lower half of his body.

The Maiden stopped in her song and screamed into the evening, stirring a few birds in a tree as they fluttered out and soared into the sky. The waterfall was thundering behind them, the waves on the water increased, and the trees swayed in a gentle breeze as her scream echoed through the forest.

Cahal gently finished her, and she collapsed under him. Their hands were still interlocked. He looked up at her, and she met his eyes and smiled. Her face wasn’t as white anymore; it was flushed with the aftermath of her excitement.

With her hand, she gestured for Cahal to come up to her face. They let go of their interlocked hands, and Cahal pulled himself up next to her. She nestled herself into his strong arm, and he held her close and ran his fingers through her long hair as she lay there. She was still a woman, and in those moments, she wanted only to be held by him. Cahal was the only man she let do this to her. Tears collected in her eyes as she thought about his impending death. She had seen it in her dreams, and she had asked the gods for mercy for him, but they had denied her wishes.

As he was occupied with bringing happiness to her, he had forgotten about what she had said earlier. Now he heard her sniffle her nose, and he looked at her. He wanted to ask her what it was, but he couldn’t. All he could do was gently run his fingers through her hair and over her back.

The Maiden then pushed herself up and looked at him. Her eyes changed again and turned from a human green into an emerald and golden color. She held herself there, and her eyes scanned over his face. His dark eyes flickered curiously, and she knew he had so many things on his mind, but with the gods, she had sacrificed his voice for having his presence in her life. She often imagined what his voice would be like, and it hurt her not to hear him talk when he was with her. His eyes were questioning as he looked at her face. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out, and he swallowed the lump in his throat at the realization once again that he had no voice when he was with her.

He enclosed her hand with his and now brought it to his heart, and there he pressed her hand on his heart, and a golden tear dripped from her eye and landed in his mouth.

And his eyes took on a silver shimmer, and she told him again, “Cahal, my sweet Cahal, this is our last dance. I will miss you so much, and you will forever be in my heart and my soul.”

Cahal’s eyes glistened with tears as he now remembered what she had told him earlier and had confirmed now.

He put his hand on her heart, and their eyes stayed on each other. She then put her arm around him, and without any effort, she turned him around with her, and they were now in the lake. She held him against her, his legs were floating under him, not moving, and they looked at each other. Tears were streaming from their eyes as they held each other, and slowly they started spinning in the water. Cahal had not experienced this with her before. In the past, after they had connected most intimately, the cart with the horse would come, and he would have to leave again.

Now they spun slowly in the middle of the lake like a dance; the sky was almost black now, stars were flickering above them, the trees were like dark giants at the shore of the lake, the waterfall seemed to have slowed and didn’t sound as loud anymore.

Cahal kept his eyes on her, and she kept her eyes on him, and tears slowly ran over their faces. They kissed again, and the kiss lasted a long time. In his mind, Cahal kept hearing himself say that he loved her, and he longed so much to tell her, but he couldn’t. Nonetheless, the Maiden heard his voice echo in her head, and she cried at hearing it. It was a beautiful, gentle but deep voice.

And she sent her voice into his mind, telling him that she loved him as well and that he was the only man she would ever have loved.

Their lips were connected in a seemingly endless kiss. They were still gently spinning in the lake, and now their bodies lowered into the water, still spinning. Though there was darkness above them, everything was shimmering golden in the water, and it became quiet and calm.

And she held him to her, and they looked at each other. His eyes were dark and wondrous, and she held her gaze on him.

She spoke to him, “I love you, Cahal. You are me; I am you; we have been and always will be one in our hearts.”

And he opened his mouth, thinking the water would get in, but he now had a voice and spoke like he was on land, “I love you, I’ve loved you from the first moment I’ve laid eyes on you. Tell me your name, beautiful goddess!”

Red strands of her hair were floating around her face, and her body shimmered golden.

She spoke softly, “I am Devora.”

Cahal smiled. “Devora, I love you.”

She nodded and smiled. “I love you, my sweet Cahal.”

Cahal now realized how his mouth was filling with water, and it ran into his body. He wasn’t afraid, and while Devora held him to her and their eyes were locked, his lungs filled with water, and golden tears ran from his eyes and surrounded Devora and him as they gently kept spinning further into the deep. She didn’t let go of him as he closed his eyes and became limp in her arms. She held him close to her body and carried him down to the bottom of her lake, where she lay him to rest; Cahal was finally free.

The legend goes that Cahal’s tears had forever painted the lake, and it shimmered golden into eternity. After Cahal’s death, Devora was never seen again as she had transformed and was no longer visible to the real world. With her heart forever aching and longing for Cahal, Devora would forever sit on top of the waterfall, and through the ages, she would look down to watch lovers at the shores of the lake, connecting in love and desire just as she had with Cahal many times. And sometimes, she would see Cahal look up at her from the bottom of the lake, and he would always smile because he still loved her with all his heart.

 

Dani Deveaux