#layers on layers

Prompt 9: Lush

Who: Mamaati Maati, Amosis (mentioned)

What: The garden, a habit. 

Where: Amosis’ home, the Goblet.

When: Very recently.

Content notes: Implied sleeping together, literally? And perhaps a little too much symbolism....

Maati slipped off her sandals at the edge of the stairs, descending with them in hand. Before she pushed open the door at the bottom, she closed her eyes. She had learned to make her way across the dark room by the feel of the flooring beneath her feet, by the wind currents in the vast chamber, triangulating her path by the quiet hum of machinery. 

The door at the far end opened at her touch, then closed behind her, the scent of greenery and loam rising through the stairwell. She kept her shoes off and, clutching her petticoat, continued down with quickened steps, her gaze trained forward.

Reaching the lowest level, she emerged into the garden. 

A few steps past the threshold, she stilled. Her bare feet sank into the soft, fine-bladed grass, eager steps arrested by the riot of color, of scent -- the pure profusion of life, cultivated with no handbook but its own will. It grew freely here, unstunted by want, by need, by the necessities of survival. In this space, every requirement was provided for, and so variety bloomed: the garden wore its strange costumes, bore its unusual fruit, away from the voracious gaze of those who would have demanded satisfaction and thereby stripped it bare.

The space was perfectly constructed, perfectly contained -- and within that, perfectly wild. 

Maati took a deep breath and moved with sure steps into the garden's heart, sinking to the ground in the middle of the meadow. Overhead, the panels that lined the ceiling were beginning to awaken in a rosy-fingered artificial dawn. 

So she had found herself for the past sennight, maybe more: awakening early in the half-dark of Amosis' quarters to the watchful glow of monitors and slow-blinking lights -- to his arm close about her waist and his nose in her hair. And then, gently extracting herself, padding down through voluntary darkness -- knowing that soon he would follow, would find her here, in the depths of his creation. 

It was a pattern by now. A habit. Irritation flared, then fizzled under the cool breeze from the vents. Maati picked a blade of grass from the sleeve of her chemise and smiled in spite of the answering twinge in her shoulder. She was forever finding them -- plucking bits of shed greenery from her hair, her clothes. They clung to her, rode with her back to her daily mundanities, reminding her of -- of this: the quiet, unfettered space whose fruits had been freely offered to her, and which she now sought without hesitation. 

Her heart sped as she heard a familiar tread on the stairs, and she looked up toward the doorway, knowing who she would find there.

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This one was a stretch for the prompt, in part because the actual answer is not very interesting: for the most part, Maati eschews tradition as a matter of course and dislikes the idea of falling into habitual patterns without a conscious decision to establish them. She finds herself doing so anyway, of course....

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