In Borsippa's district, along the eastern bank of the Euphrates, Lugal awoke, his skin hued glossy bronze, tarnishing the vestal robe of his beloved; a raiment white, discarded, body gone. He skirred the room with honeyed eyes, agglomerating sights. 'Twixt straitly fronds, he found his woman clammed within a window, bricked of sun-dried clay, her luscious figure restrained by the brink of decency. Left foot imprinting on the grime-kissed jamb as she reclined on her outstretched leg.

Thus he emerged and called on his betrothed, "Thou hadst sat all morning gazing through the gap? What reveries enjamb thy fragmented thoughts? Stare not directly in the copper light lest pupils turn to gemstones, petrified as optic nerves transform to crystal lines for then, the royals ought to reclaim their former dene to add these precious jewels to the crown."

Lilithu angled herself to his regard, her eyes, like lapis lazul, glistened in the light that ill-starredly crescented her appearance. Alofted hair, crown-tressed, lips subdued astright. She answered him, "I have no strength to fight this arid atmosphere. Such drab and priggish wafts that even the bald-headed vultures, goethite of hues, do suffer from recurrent throbbing in the ridge and they no longer herald their portents, good or ill, to our much desolate land."

Pitting through her discourse, Lugalu answered grumly, "Art thou forwearied? But by idle sitting? Dark humor overwrought thy synapses, imbalancing the sensibilities, but sparks of starry modicum can reignite thy lapsed brightness. Descry, in th' sea of darkness of eyes wide shut, a meshwork of neuronal 'ctivity, fiery as the starry hosts of heaven and in their beam celestial, hold thy purse to puise the faience batches from the spiral, now hurl the trebucket's much irksome comets."

With languishing looks, she did enact advice to no avail, then shook her head and smirked, entreating Lugal with a mien besmirched by vice. And he responded with his shoulders écart, "Alas, I'm but a curer of somatic ails. Contentment cometh from an honest heart, such warp must be addressed within thyself."

She posed her arm behind her wistful head, observing cloudless skies, glare vitreous. A salve bowl was balanced in her lap, with lithesome fingers patting lasciviously on its ornate rims. Then she said thus, "In soth, I do present a vaguer aura than what may be admitted. Raptness spans and shifts so faithlessly between diverse subjects. Imagining, without stern conscious curb to sift what appanage is virtuous, and which is barred from reason. Hence I must redress this plaint, before I catch myself in acts precarious for I wind down entrusting my own feint. We weren't hedge-born, yet for thy profession in botany. We've abandoned ziggurating lives and bought a bonny grange, cultivating farmstead, segueing to a whiss for plants."

Declaiming her strife, he said, "Such scandalous admissions, nether stocking baggages for Kur (hell), though puerile still is thine ambition. Must we then entertain the ricanous dastards? Performing drollery but to appease the lower gods of the earth? With clashing iron hurtling up, then crowls in loving conquest. Happily reserve the ending terse for kinglets drenched in foulness. May Heaven's bower become thy burnished throne, next to your man. For I alone do rive thy wit, cloven adulation and intrigue. Rein in the whimsy stones; let their lustrous stars be strewn at your feet in worship."

Taken aback by his brash eloquence, she soughed, nonplussed, for he did stand aplomb. She hastened to respond with ordinance, in pleading hope that it might palliate her remonstrance. "I ramble in talk, thoughts sashaying with each leap, from the glib flow of my loquacious tongue, my manners voluble, endorsed by thee, to throng my being for words deplorable. I stammer, caught afoot in th' errors of my mouth, speaking of well-trodden paths, but bootless and rafted on the edge of my own fumble. Ravaging flows enrapture me, downstream, to lead me down thine augured destination. And I can only watch as blustering waves engage upon my thoroughly soaked frame, bewetting even mine unwarded eyes."

He drew her closer, softly whispering, "A throbbing pain afflicts my roomy heart when I do see you cry, I'm scant uncaring to what thou sufferest. Let my cradling thwart the bothersome entreat of sere hands, which, reaching for thy bosom, did impress a scion on thy heart, its brandishing roots in scrounge of noble blood. Now rendered restless is thine appearance, why so discomposed?"

She answered him. "O maleficent roots! A treeing heritage impales my organs and chokes me blunt. gasps interment as memories beset my sprite. Fringe customs, I shiver to evoke the shrine of insanie, how mine oppressive father had me auctioned, youngish and crimson cloaked, faltering as I'm unveiled for goatish strangers.

But thou didst rescue me, of crowds unfazed for thou leanest to the nayward of such rites. Renying hierarchies and manners ruttish, and thus depriving the swelter'd state of pride to preserve mine esteem. Sithence, I dwell with thee, 'midst brassy woods. Adopted free, I serve thy pelf congenial as might beseem my rate of gratitude whilst nights are spent in studying sights ethereal."

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Last night had other uses. And the while, thou smiled so pompously, and deigning, fessed with heady screams thy love. Grinning as a spry despot in th' bed of dreams, sleep talking." She fumbled, heated by his brief attempt to turn her flush. "Aye, thou art an answer to my fervent prayers. Starkly, orbs aligned, yet now they move again, and thou must work, and I'll be left awhile, alone, distraught. No purpose to my sentence, nor a bourne. A puffer of dandelion vanes am I. What lot bedaubs the purple eyed woman when she durst fall in love."

Lugalu said, "then do me company. I note that in thine aureus bowl, divers fragrance enfleurage as the steamy scent is sorbed in fat. When boiled, it turns a balsam to allay intemperance. Howbeit, the comminuted mingling of base plants; of petals, calamus, and cyperus; crushed herbals which filleth the whole room with their pungent scent still lack the oil of seeds. Amid the pith-stemmed rushes of the marshy plains, we'll reap and gather reeds of nebbish hues."

But she protested snappishly, "Fie! the swampy environs? Keep distance from the nomad clans! Stay grounded in sagacity for I fear losing you!" Yet he promptly reassured, "The morass territories are bereft of human presence, for Sirius, the sentient star, and the Pleiades were invariably but deft to pleas of seasoned cultivators. Garbed in grosgrain of wheat and barley, marsh Arabs depend on th' cycle in the sky. Ever since th' Akkadian king amassed a stoney dam, the ritual of the loopy seasons verged.

And hectic nomads in the blocked plains migrated towards the Babylonian boroughs with water buffaloes as their oblations; representing tribes of the Ahwar. They wrapped the tunics high about their hair and kept close by to tamarisks and stumps when wading 'cross the reedy marshlands, bare of feet, their plodding steps disturbed the reigning clom. For they're compelled to push the quffa prams, round baskets filled with children, lain on straws. Engaging with their oars in the basal depths to row the mire for the boats to straut across the boggy swamp with minor harm done to their vessels huge, which then, they heft to dry land. After which the men break up their form, to sell the straw and the frame of willow balk."

"Be that as it may," Lilithu answered, "They're scarcely the sole danger in these plains, I think of slimy mollusks, lumpy toads, reed warblers, and marbled teal ducks, mallards which from the thickets shame adventurers. I suffer not from phantasmagoria. What may transpire, that mired up to my knees in gurgling mud, a raw and stockish crocodile, loosely adrift hither my submerged thighs would thrust me, stiffly down, with no repugn; sputtering morsels for the pettish fishes. I am pugnacious, but only on terra firma. For I own no parel fit for brackish trenches."

"That if he dareth, I'll skin his scaly dorsal hide and fashion thee a dress with jutting scutes so that its calloused apathy, reptilian armor transmutes thy silken flesh of pinkish hues to antediluvian tones; viridian green. Begrudgingly egress from the levee; the stable ness of mollifying comfort ere the southern wetlands are dried up." She humored him awhile, then interrupted. "Thou dost provoke the prehistoric beasts and cavort 'pon the spines of dormant logs. No man may sink the ever watchful reptile.

Fist but the air when comes the night, and mistful psyche emerges; whose hoots forewarn. Plucking the brazen gleed is much too gutsy; blame not the vigilant orbs when you can't fight a croc per nature's creed. Heed the horned owls' admonition." And he said, "Fie, ye yowl, hollering, but thy florid face is true of sentiments. Thine eyes, flirtatious like the fluttering wings of a Lysandra butterfly, donning blue perdition; their limbal rings, creased dark, to magnify reactions stratified as I caress thy blooming cheeks, soft beauty marked."

"Perhaps the wings chitin on th' hollowed cist are but a tempting bait on the wee snout." Playfully, she thrice denied his tryst to rendezvous in mud, with daffy eyebrows jouncing on her front. Then grabbed onto his hirsute arm with somniferous rubs, tender as she chortled.

Enlivened thus, he dartly spoke, "Lilith, why dost thou mess propounded endeavors and so resist my orchestrated means? When lulled, at rest to bask in the warm sun, thou argue boredom. Yet when I do propose to hitch with me and smirch thy boots in fun thou naggest then but of supposed dangers. Borsippa's heat and the mendacious swamps; much too impure for thy discerning steps both fret thy nervy frame, then what is wanted?

I'll choose for thee myself. Share the stripping fate of sun-burnt vultures. Near the hearth remain, commixing elements for beauty vain such as the scrounger, lanky-necked who scours deep, penetrating guts of sickened mammals to hue his darkened feathers ichorous taste; a sanguine glow, love colored by exploits faced, Knowest thou how birds of prey avoid ov'heating?"

Her eyes grew wide, mien sullied, drenched in dread. "I will not shave my head!" She thus declared. "Cut off my tongue and shred my clothes, reclaiming threads, but leave my curly hair in peace, profusely lush. Prithee, I beg. Just spare them and I'll head with thee, thus sacrificing mine assertive legs. If thou dost spare my brunet locks, I'll shed the scarlet tinsels from my pegged resolve."

He answered by taking her hand. Her arms uplifted high so carelessly, "Lilith, arise from thy glimmering lanthorn," he commanded. "Lavolt with me, as brooding vultures turn in thermal soaring."

Lugalu swung her round in happy heaps, her delicate feet hovered above rough ground. 'Twixt leaps and bounds, she laughed sheepishly, whilst flaunting blithe. Her fingers in a twirl around her glowing cheeks. Hysterical as she reclined her neck backward in open air, whilst gazing dizzyingly beyond the wall. Up to the boundless nature of the skies, with teary eyes discerning clouds and mound, and the sun spherical, with burning brightness, to blind her of the world and its effects. Awake yet dreamy, she leaned towards her man, enraptured by his overwhelming presence. Aground yet floating, her afflictions fanned with vulturous wings, swaying incandescent.