It was just the barest, most fleeting of touches, whispering across my back like a feather brushed against my skin. I felt it once, twice, and then finally woke, shivering slightly at the small chills that it sent up my spine. I waited, to see if it would happen again, but after about five minutes gave that up as hopeless and finally turned over to see if the cause of that touch was still there.
I couldn't feel Rhua in his normal position in bed, curled around me protectively, as if he would be the one keeping me safe rather than the other way around. And a small, tentative probe with my mind confirmed that fact. He wasn't in the bed...but someone else, someone who I didn't recognize was. My first reaction was one of anger, rage at the idiot who dared to sneak into my bed while I was asleep, but I tried to quell that reaction right away, since there was always the chance that whoever it was wasn't a danger...not that I really believed that.
Imagine my surprise when I turned over, to face an all too familiar face staring back at me. But not only an all too familiar face, but one that should not have been attached to the body (also familiar) laying there in that bed with me, no matter what might have happened. My first thought was that maybe I hadn't woken up...and that I was still dreaming, since that was the only way I could think of that would make it possible for that body and that face to be residing in my bed right across from me.
After all, it was my body laying there; my face staring back at me, like I was looking in some sort of full body mirror placed down the middle of the bed. That creature was even laying in the same position as I was, propped slightly up on one arm and staring at the person across from him. But, I knew it wasn't a mirror, simply by the fact that the look on his face did not match my emotions in the slightest. Had it been a mirror, his look would have been one of surprise, with a good dose of angry rage right underneath. Instead, this creature with my face was smiling, almost smirking, a look of pure mischief plastered across the face he had stolen.
"Do you like it?" he asked, and even his voice was mine...though I could have sworn that I didn't quite sound that much like the young girl some people sometimes mistook me for. "I did it..." With one fluid motion, he sat up on the bed and leaned forward, again proving that he couldn't just be some sort of magical reflection of myself.
"just..." He reached out a single hand and laid it against my face the same way Rhua always did.
"for..." A slight twitch of his muscles and flow of power so subtle that I could barely even feel it drew me forward as he pulled his hand back toward his body.
"you." His final word was barely a sound, more like a breath with a hint of the word "you" in it, though I understood him as clearly as if he had shouted it.
And then, before I could pull back, or even react, his lips were pressed against mine. They were soft, softer than any other lips that I had kissed before, and I felt the thought work its way through my mind that that was what others felt from me when I kissed them. And then, just as I was about to decide that maybe I should not be doing this...that maybe this strange reflection of myself was a malicious thing and was kissing me for some reason that I would not care for in the future, he sent a wave of the same power that I always used between us, up from him and through our joined lips to flow into my body.
Before I knew it, I was falling back into the deep sleep I had just woken from. And the last thing I saw before the darkness claimed me was my own face leaning over me, still smirking.