Back in the Desert

The shaman’s chant slowed. The taste of haoma lingered—bitter, sweet, then gone. Tarmo sat under the Iranian sky, tears drying on his cheek; he could not remember shedding them.

He understood: the hunger in the warehouse, the ache in the shower, the urgency of seeking Elena was not merely his own, nor for his body alone. It was civilizational, mythic—echoes of ancient rites, needs, and bonds that shaped more than lovers. They shaped gods, societies, the cycles of love and war through all remembered time.

Mikael stood watch. Reza’s face was half-lit by torchlight. The Hilux idled nearby, security only a shadow of reality.

Tarmo breathed—emptied out, refilled with ancient longing. The desert wind carried echoes of Sumerian music, and he knew at last: Elena was not solely his. She was his story, his divinity, in every world where gods walk as people do.

Istanbul – Warehouse, Pre-dawn

The warehouse was still, silence layered as only cities can: a faint hum from distant streets, the occasional groan of timber shifting in the walls.

From his post in the shadows, Asdar had listened to Elena for some time—the shifting of her body under the blanket, the breath breaking into soft, involuntary sounds. At first, he thought it was just dream-talking, but there was something else in the rhythm, something pulled.

Quietly, he moved closer.

Crouched beside her, the pale light from the fractured window caught the tension stamped on her face. He raised a hand to check her temperature, to see if fever had claimed her—when her eyes snapped open. They fixed on him as if waiting for him in the dream.

“Please… ground me,” she whispered, voice frayed but deliberate.

He had heard it before, long ago—in the forests of his youth, in rites where body and soul are anchored through touch and presence. Without hesitation, he began unfastening the layers that separated them.

The clothes fell away in quiet motions—not hurried, not hesitant—until nothing stood between their skin. He slid beneath the blanket, the air warm with her heat, her pulse strong against his chest.

At first, he simply held her. Hands pressed along her spine, smoothing the tremor in each breath. Her head tucked beneath his chin, hair tangled against his throat.

Then, she moved, tilting her head back to meet his gaze. “No—Asdar… enter me.”

Her words carried more than desire; they carried authority, the tone of an oracle summoning gods.

He obeyed. “My goddess,” he rasped.

The moment their bodies joined, her breath caught, her eyes fluttered closed, arms locked around him. Movements were deliberate, not rushed—the old dance known before words.

The priest in him recognised the slow circling of breath, the meeting of flesh as anchoring. Her sounds softened, their rhythm synchronising, until it was impossible to say where one ended, and the other began.

Above them, the first grey light pressed against the warehouse windows.

And somewhere deep in another place—maybe the desert, where Tarmo sat in trance—a thread tying all three of them drew tighter.

Warehouse — Asdar’s Vision

Her body was warm against his, the curl of her leg anchoring him at the hip, her breath settling into something steadier. She drew him closer in that wordless, instinctive way—hips, hands, heartbeat all calling the same message.

Even as his body answered, Asdar’s mind slipped into that other layer of seeing—the vision the elders had taught him, in mountain fire circles and beneath the moon. The warehouse dissolved. The air thickened, took on a sheen as if the dust motes were lit from within. Beneath them, he saw not floorboards but a ring of stone and earth—the sacred enclosure of his ancestors, where unions were made under the eye of the sky spirits.

Her skin became a map—hills and rivers he recognised from dreams of a land neither had walked in this lifetime. Her voice, gasping his name, was layered: Elena here, but also all the priestesses, warriors, and queens who had held his gaze through centuries.

Every movement echoed in that other place—vision-space, their joining luminous, threads of light unspooling between their chests, spiralling upward to touch the night sky.

He understood why she had asked “ground me”—not only to answer the pull of Tarmo’s dream-lust, but because she was drifting between worlds. He was the anchor, the warmth and weight to keep her from being swept away.

He kept his breath low, moving with her in perfect synchrony, until the light-thread between them glowed steady instead of flickering. The priest in him felt quiet satisfaction—the rite had worked.

When her body finally softened, her head settling against his shoulder, the shimmering vision faded back into the dim warehouse. Outside, first gulls cried along the water.

Asdar held her a moment longer, knowing she was here now—fully—and that whatever had ridden her in dreams had finally been met and answered.

Back in the Desert

The shaman’s chant slowed. Haoma lingered—bitter, sweet, gone. Tarmo sat under the Iranian sky, tears drying on his cheek; he couldn’t remember shedding them.

He understood: warehouse hunger, shower ache, Elena-urgency—not his body alone, nor merely his.

Civilizational. Mythic. Ancient rites, needs, bonds shaping gods, societies, love-war cycles through remembered time.

Mikael watched. Reza half-torchlit. Hilux idled—security shadow only.

Tarmo breathed: emptied, refilled ancient longing. Desert wind carried Sumerian echoes. Truth: Elena is not solely his. His story. His divinity. Every world where gods walk as people.

Maranjab Desert – The Shaman’s Circle

The haoma sat warm and bitter in Tarmo’s belly, coating him with its strange duality: grounding weight in his gut, feather-light currents in his mind. The shaman’s chant was steady, tapping into an old pulse that belonged to the desert, not to the clock.

He sat cross-legged on the mat, eyes closed, breathing deep. Then—a flicker. It was as if a taut line inside him had suddenly gone slack. An almost imperceptible click, as though a door in some other world had been pushed shut.

Elena.

Not gone, but elsewhere. No longer adrift, no longer pulled toward him across the dream-bridge. She was anchored, here and now, by another’s touch: another man’s warmth. He didn’t need to see it; he knew.

For a moment, something bitter rose—but the plant’s brew was already carrying him further. It took the edge of that thought and dropped it into the river of vision. Chant thickened, smoke swirled, and the desert night turned otherworldly.

I.Ph.