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Post subject: Posted: February 28th, 2007, 9:30 pm |
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Joined: 01 June 2006 Posts: 8449 Location: Adragonback
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"Wake me when you're tired," called Merrin softly through the wood, barely able to make out his silhouette among the dark shapes of trees. Wyvern already snored softly behind her, having decapitated an entire mountain goat in the time it took for them to build a fire. She poked the fire and pulled her cloak closer around her shoulders before lapsing into silence.
And silence it was. No chirp of a cricket or rustle in the brush broke the uncanny silence and Merrin reflected, snuggling closer to Wyvern's warm form, that it was almost eerier that way.
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Post subject: Posted: February 28th, 2007, 9:41 pm |
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Joined: 03 July 2005 Posts: 9846 Location: city that never sleeps
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Silence.
Kendath watched his two companions snuggle by the fire and found his thoughts wandering... only to be jerked back by the ominous sound... or lack of it. Instantly on edge, he rose to his feet and swept out his falchion in one fluid motion. He stood there listening for a long while.
Gradually, as if a mantle was being lifted from the world, the night seemed to come alive yet again. Crickets resumed their chirping song. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled and another answered.
Elves, came Gyre's smug inference. They have us marked. Best to tread carefully.
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Post subject: Posted: February 28th, 2007, 9:45 pm |
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Joined: 01 June 2006 Posts: 8449 Location: Adragonback
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Merrin raised herself on one elbow as she heard the telltale hiss of Kendath's falchion sliding from its sheath. She cast a glance at the dying fire and the forest beyond, and in a moment had noiselessly gotten to her feet to pad out to where she knew him to be keeping watch.
"What is it?" Her voice was barely a murmur on the air. "Is something near?"
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Post subject: Posted: February 28th, 2007, 9:48 pm |
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Joined: 03 July 2005 Posts: 9846 Location: city that never sleeps
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A credit to his jumpiness, Kendath nearly set his falchion upon the new arrival before realizing her identify. He forced himself to calm down. If the legends could be believed, elves were not an especially belligerent race. They tended to observe more than act, and if they deemed the threat trivial, they would simply leave them alone.
"Elves," he replied, reassuming his customary stance against the tree.
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Post subject: Posted: February 28th, 2007, 9:56 pm |
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Joined: 01 June 2006 Posts: 8449 Location: Adragonback
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"Elves!" Merrin's incredulity, mixed with a little gasp of surprise, was evident. "How do you know?"
Her question was answered upon remembering the uncanny stillness of the forest just a moment before, and Merrin subsided into silence, now wide awake. The moon seemed about to illuminate tracks of elvish feet wherever she looked and she smiled inwardly at her childish wonder upon discovering the stuff of legends.
For a fleeting moment she considered offering to watch, then contemplated returning to try and sleep, and eventually in a compromise leaned silently against a tree near him. Now seemed as good a time as any. "Kendath...I meant what I said when I told you a Meiltha insginia didn't make you one of them."
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Post subject: Posted: February 28th, 2007, 10:04 pm |
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Joined: 03 July 2005 Posts: 9846 Location: city that never sleeps
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Kendath glanced at her obliquely in the darkness. In the inadequate light he couldn't make out her facial expression, but a stray shaft of moonlight struck her blue eyes. He wondered at the point she was trying to make. "Why do you care?" he asked bluntly.
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Post subject: Posted: February 28th, 2007, 10:09 pm |
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Joined: 01 June 2006 Posts: 8449 Location: Adragonback
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Merrin couldn't help but cast him a puzzled glance. What could she say? Because I love you? Unthinkable. "Because," she answered carefully, "I would be heartless if after...after you..." Words wouldn't come. Merrin swallowed. "I wouldn't have made it this far without you, I suppose."
That made him sound like a tool, an ally she cared nothing for. Hesitantly, in almost a whisper Merrin added, "I don't think anyone else could have helped me this far."
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Post subject: Posted: February 28th, 2007, 10:15 pm |
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Joined: 03 July 2005 Posts: 9846 Location: city that never sleeps
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Kendath studied her face out of the corner of his eye, again as though he was trying to piece together a broken puzzle. A part of him was at extreme unease with this conversation, with the presence of Merrin in general, but another part he couldn't deny wanted very much to -
He cleared his throat. "You are blessed by the gods," he responded tonelessly, his voice admitting more bitterness than he would have liked. "And I...? Everything the contrary. You never needed me."
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Post subject: Posted: February 28th, 2007, 10:20 pm |
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Joined: 01 June 2006 Posts: 8449 Location: Adragonback
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"Didn't I?" retorted Merrin, slightly incensed. "I never wanted any of those riders at Vryngard. None of them care a whit whether the world ends as long as they don't miss their next precious party." She took a breath. "Might I remind you there's every possibility I might be dead now if it weren't for you."
Does he think that if I have my gods I need nobody else? she wondered in bemusement. "Every rider has a dragon, I suppose...but contrary to what you might think human companionship is still a necessary even...even when the gods are very near as well." It felt inexcusably boastful to say 'blessed'. "I could have had any rider I wanted. I wanted you."
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Post subject: Posted: February 28th, 2007, 10:32 pm |
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Joined: 03 July 2005 Posts: 9846 Location: city that never sleeps
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Her vehement response managed to rock Kendath back on his heels. She'd chosen him? A number of contending options flashed before his whirling mind in those two seconds. He could thank her. He could tell her everything. He could take her in his arms and -
For the second time in their conversation, his cynicism cut him short. Her choice had been borne of ignorance. She was naive - he saw that now. To choose him over the legendary, fully capable paladins of Vryngard? Was she as blinded by her feelings as he was by his own tumult? Could it be possible that she even had feelings along that direction?
And fear began once again devouring him.
"You don't understand," he said in the same deadpan he'd used the day before in Baste. "I wouldn't recommend placing your life in my hands. After all," and here fine irony dripped from his voice, "honor is hardly my hallmark."
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Post subject: Posted: February 28th, 2007, 10:38 pm |
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Joined: 01 June 2006 Posts: 8449 Location: Adragonback
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"Don't you see?" Merrin clenched her fists. Why was he being so obtuse? "I already have! Because I trusted you! Was I so blind, then? So wrong to think that I should choose someone who cared about the survival of the dragons as much as I do?"
She found she was breathing hard, and not entirely from irritation. Even this proximity to him made her feel short of breath. "I don't understand," she continued, voice low and intense. "So let me understand. Let me in, Kendath - I can't understand if you always push me away!" It did not even occur to Merrin that this was pushing too hard, demanding too much...revealing herself? This struck a chord. What had she said...?
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Post subject: Posted: February 28th, 2007, 10:50 pm |
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Joined: 03 July 2005 Posts: 9846 Location: city that never sleeps
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How could she see through the walls of his being as easily as though she might see through a window? Passion tinted her cheeks a soft pink, and her infinite blue eyes seemed to pierce him right through. Kendath caught himself thinking even as he worked to retain his composure that she was beautiful... like a dove, or perhaps a delicate flower tinged with sunlight.
And he found that despite his fear, despite the outer husk of pride he'd built and barricaded himself in over the years, that he wanted to tell her. Because he knew, even then, that he screamed for salvation behind the bars of his own self-inflicted prison...
He let his head fall back against the tree and closed his eyes, drawing a long ragged breath. "My father was a high priest," he said at length, in a voice so quiet it was difficult to discern.
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Post subject: Posted: February 28th, 2007, 10:54 pm |
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Joined: 01 June 2006 Posts: 8449 Location: Adragonback
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To Merrin it broke through the night like nothing else could. She couldn't have helped hearing him, so tense was her every muscle at...what? She forced herself to pay attention. This was what she wanted. So why was she so terrified to see past the walls now? Or was it even fear?
Merrin couldn't have begun to decipher her emotions at that moment, and stopped trying to figure out why she felt her gaze drawn to him, felt herself longing to tell him she cared, she'd always care -
"Was?" she ventured, voice a whisper. "He's...he's dead, then?"
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Post subject: Posted: February 28th, 2007, 11:13 pm |
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Joined: 03 July 2005 Posts: 9846 Location: city that never sleeps
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Dead? Kendath could almost smirk. Yes, dead. Very much so... and by whose hand? He wanted to scream it at her that moment, or even close up again. But he'd kept it bottled within for too long, and once the wound was open his blood would pour forth until it could bleed no more.
And it was comforting... yes... strangely calming in a way to know that for once someone was listening... without judgement...
And so he kept right on talking. "I never knew her... my mother. She was a peasant, a street magician, before my father met her." And this time he did smirk. "Burned at the stake for witchcraft. Even my father and all his divine power couldn’t save her. My father... he forgave them." His eyes flared open, and for a moment they seemed to burn with frightening intensity. "Forgave them! Forgave them for burning his wife - my mother! His faith consumed him from within. He gave it his all - his will, his time, his very humanity. He was all I had. He advised the innocent. He healed the guilty. Bit by bit I watched as his body grew weaker... but his spirit only seemed to grow stronger."
His smirk widened. "The gods killed him. I watched him die - there in the sacred high temple. A prayer was the last thing upon his lips. A prayer never answered... great pity."
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Post subject: Posted: February 28th, 2007, 11:21 pm |
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Joined: 01 June 2006 Posts: 8449 Location: Adragonback
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A million answers whirled through Merrin's mind. But none of them fit. She knew an answer wasn't what he wanted, and she would not have wanted it either. His loss cut her like it was her own, and she could not say with certainty that under the same circumstances she would not have turned away from the gods.
She took a step forward - and then another - and when quelling her trembling hand she reached to slip it in his, the moonlight illuminated tears starting in her cobalt eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispered. Merrin said nothing else. How well she understood now....how well she could call herself doubly an idiot for ever thinking him obtuse to resist the gods' call.
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Post subject: Posted: February 28th, 2007, 11:29 pm |
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Joined: 03 July 2005 Posts: 9846 Location: city that never sleeps
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Kendath could not begin to describe his sensation of freedom at that moment, how he suddenly felt as though the chains incarnate in his rage and lust for vengeance all these years had suddenly burst open. He looked into her eyes and saw the tears there, and his other fist clenched in shame.
She heard him. She knew. And she still cared.
His carefully retained composure collapsed. Unable to control his shaking, he brought her slender hand up to his lips and kissed it. "No," he whispered. "I am... a fool. Thank you." Swallowing hard, he nodded his head over towards the dying campfire. "Go rest. You're tired."
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