A/N: I’m working on trying to portray the different heights of my characters. Both Orion and Reck are quite tall (and Macie really short), and it’s been bothering me that I’ve thus far not represented that fact. Just wanted to point that out in case anyone notices some discrepancies. I could tell everyone their heights, but I use feet and inches in my mind since that’s what I’ve used all my life. Dunno if that’s helpful for, well, most of the world. 🙂
Derek
I have a distinctly difficult time hiding my emotions on the what-feels-like-thirty-kilometers to my bedroom. When I finally reach it, everything crashes, and I hold my face in my hands, silently crying in rapid, huffing sobs.
She hates me! She truly and unforgivably hates me! She still refuses to so much as share a meal with me.
I continue to bemoan the memory of the recent scene in Yadira’s chamber. The way her eyes looked at me! Down to the very pit of my stomach, I despise it. She regarded me like I was something evil and foul-smelling like she couldn’t wait for me to leave.
What happened? That night in her room when I’d kissed her wasn’t ideal, but she acted like she enjoyed the kiss before I attempted to take it too far too fast. I love her, but she hates me. What am I going to do?
I take a deep breath, and my shoulders droop. I won’t find answers by having a pity party.
Getting myself under control once again, I move to have a seat on my sofa. My emotional excess spent, I’m better able to think constructively.
First of all, I have to keep from repeatedly doing and acting the way I did earlier—when I demanded that the only way she could get supper was to eat it with me. So, step one will be for her to continue to have her meals served wherever she wishes. Yes, that will make me seem less in charge, but honestly, am I? I’m certainly not in charge of her and never have been. I don’t want to be; that’s not what I’m after.
I erroneously thought that since I’d missed her so much that she might feel the same. That was a mistake. I have given her nothing to bring about missing me. I’ve only ever been an ass.
No. Not true. Not entirely. I have given her some freedoms. She can now control who comes to see her and when. She has free rein of… I pause. No, she’s never been given permission to leave on her own.
Fuck! I can’t let her have that! It isn’t safe, even not taking into account my personal feelings on the matter. No way could the Trags keep her safe from the excitable mob that forms whenever she’s announced. It sucks, but she’s still trapped here.
I need to do something nice for her. What can I do as an act of kindness? Get her a kitten? No, that could be a disaster. And she doesn’t act like she cares about what kind of clothing she wears, so a gift of that nature wouldn’t work either. I have loads of jewelry and things that Lars has procured for me in his treasure hunting, but I doubt that will have any effect. She may even roll her eyes. I can see it.
Maybe we could don disguises, and I could give her a tour of the city. I’ve been wanting to see the progress with my own eyes myself. She might like that, to get out and visit places… only she’ll just see it as spending time with me and will probably reply with a resounding no.
I let out a kind of growling snarl as I stand up and start getting ready for bed. Perhaps something will come to me in my sleep. I just need to relax.
After a few moments, there’s a knock at my door. At this hour? What’s happened? “Enter!” I call out.
The woman of my thoughts storms into the chamber like a vengeful Valkyrie. She turns her head back and forth, and upon finally seeing me standing here, she jumps.
I read her expression. She’s frazzled. Startled. A bit embarrassed. Then her eyes close as if to block out something distressing. I’m shirtless… Is that it?
Her eyes open, and they quickly dart back and forth from my face to my chest quite a number of times. Ah ha! “Is aught amiss?” I ask, my soul beginning a slow smile.
She recovers herself and her apparent mission. “How dare you say that the only way I’ll eat in the evening is to do it with you? You continue to claim that I’m no longer considered a prisoner, but how can you make such a claim and then pronounce despotic edits like that?”
I shrug. “You’re absolutely right. I’m in the wrong.” I watch her and hide my smile at seeing her shocked expression. “Forgive me. That was merely the desperate act of a lonely man.” This is fabulous. If what I’ve discovered is the key, it is something I’m DEFINITELY capable of.
“Tuh. You lonely? That’s a load of shite if there ever was one.” She folds her arms, trying not to look at me and mostly failing.
I slowly take steps in her direction. “Such unbecoming words from such a lovely lady.” My tongue runs back and forth against the backs of my teeth. I feel like I did that day when she’d cured the mad woman in the jail. I’d taken a step back from this tactic, of this particular kind of game, when she’d started unraveling me. Well, I’m unraveled. That part of me never changed.
“I’ll speak how I like. Everyone else talks like that.”
“Just seems out of place coming from those perfect lips.” I haven’t stopped moving closer. I don’t think she’s too aware. She’s doing all she can to ignore my bare chest. So she claims to hate me yet at the same time is attracted to me. Yes, I can definitely work with that.
“Too bad.” She turns her head, and her eyes widen for a fraction of a second. She takes a step back. “Well, I’ve said what I need to say. Good evening.” She turns to leave.
“You’re welcome to stay, if you wish.” I offer a tiny smile, wanting to laugh. I expect the answer no, of course. After being such an ass as I’ve been, I have to take baby steps. I just couldn’t resist the fun of her reaction.
Her eyes fully travel over me in a single second, leaving me with a zinging feeling. “As if.” Then she spins about and exits the room, and I wonder if she even consciously realised that she checked me out like that.
I turn back to my wardrobe with a much brighter smile. Then I quickly rub my hands together in glorious anticipation. I will gain her affection yet.
Orion
Corrine holds up the hand brace for the nth time for me to see. “Vik is a genius. Look at this.”
“Yes. I see,” I answer, my voice not sounding in any way impressed. I can’t help it. It’s now MY turn to have a wandering mind.
We make our way back and walk into the house. I look at the counter and see the cloth with the bark in it. “Should we’ve asked Sama for more of this? Do ye have enough?”
“What? Oh. Yeah. But I have a better idea.” She grins then starts searching around in the lower cupboards. “Much better pain killer. If we’re lucky, we won’t feel our faces.”
She pulls out an old bottle of tequila. “Do you mind?” She points down to the bottle, asking me to pick it up. “With only the one hand and all, I’d hate to drop it.”
I look out the window. “‘Tis the middle of the day.”
She shrugs. “I don’t think Jose Cuervo would be bothered.”
“Right.” I lean over.
“You pour,” she says.
I reach up into the other cupboards and get down a couple of cups. More the size of coffee mugs, really, only wider. If they were more narrow, they could be steins, having the same amount of volume. They’d make decent soup bowls. I point to them. “This is what we have.”
“They’ll do. Pour.”
I raise my eyebrows and unscrew the top. “I didna think tequila was clear.”
“Well, maybe it’s a different, er, blend.” She points to the bottle. “It says silver.”
I shrug and pour some in our mugs… probably too much. That has to be six shots at least. Maybe if we drink it slowly, it’ll be fine. Corrine takes her mug and exits the kitchen. I screw the cap back on then take the bottle and my cup into the main room. She waits on the sofa, a goofy grin on her face. I sit down and try some.
At first, it goes down like water… until it doesn’t. I haven’t really drank anything alcoholic since before Corin arrived, but even if I had, I still think my throat would’ve reacted the same way. It doesn’t burn quite like whiskey, but water it is not. I cough. Corrine giggles, a very strange thing to hear.
“I’m finished with mine.” She motions with her cup towards me. “More.”
“Whoa there. Tha’ was like six shots, an’ ye’ve naught ta eat today, have ye?”
“Don’t care.” She again pushes her mug to me.
“Na.”
“Then gimme the bottle.” She goes to reach for it, but she misses it by a few inches.
I move it to my other side. “Ye don’ need it. Ye’ve had like six shots already.”
“I’m fine. Gimme the bottle, ya ruddy gargoyle.”
“An’ yer speech slurred. Na.” I move the bottle yet again when she reaches for it. Now it sits on the floor and off to the side.
She stands up, and her mug gets knocked to the floor. She ignores it. “Get bent,” she says then laughs. “Rohan said that to me the other day.”
“Sounds like one of Asa’s.” I watch her walk sideways before she has to reach out and hold onto the arm of the sofa to right herself. “See? Ya canna even walk right. Ye don’ need more, Corin.” I finish off my tequila and wince as it goes down.
She stands straighter. “My name is…” In her attempt to walk straight, she trips over her own feet. On instinct, I reach out and manage to catch her, my mug clattering to the floor.
Since I caught her, she looks up at me. “Is Corrine now.”
I have one of those too-real moments, and two realisations hit me. One: She weighs quite a lot less now. I suppose I noticed that yesterday too, but I especially notice now. Two is by no means the lesser: My best mate is actually quite lovely. I’ve had too much as well.
I blink and immediately move to sit her on the floor next to me. “That’s it. No mas, mi amigo.”
She giggles. “You sound silly trying to speak Spanish.”
“I think tha’ about covers what I know.” I make sure she sits properly.
She grins. “I can count to ten. Ono, dus, threes, quatre… wait, no. Fuck!”
I laugh loudly. This is what I loved about Corin: all the weird, unexpected shit that could happen. I’m glad that’s still there. I have to remind myself this is the same person that’s been by my side all this time. This is the same person who spit in my face after asking for water. It makes me feel better to think like that.
She continues. “Errrrrrr….. cinco! Yes!”
I smile. “Okay, big brain. Wha’s next?”
“Sex.”
My smile falls off my face. “Wrong language.”
She ponders for a moment. “Ah, yer right. That’s Chinese.”
“Try German.” Spelled differently, I think, but…
“All right. All right. Shh! Lemme think…” She stares into space. “Where were we?”
Sex. “Six.”
“Oh right, right.” She pauses, thinking. “September! THAT is six.” She slaps her hand once on her thigh.
I crack up laughing again. “Tha’s got naught at’all ta do wi’ six, mate!” I think for a minute. “I think it’s like… seize.”
“Good good good. Now, seven. SEPTEMBER is seven. There.”
I don’t disagree with her even though I’m sure we both know it isn’t.
She continues, “Now what… the bloody fuck… is eight?” She lays her head back on the sofa, and the two of us sit on the floor with our backs against the sofa like a couple of jaked numpties, which I guess is what we are.
I take a breath. “Octo.” Something tells me we’ve probably gotten none of whatever it is we’re doing correct, but it doesn’t matter. The room is bobbing back and forth like a ship at sea, and I’m utterly relaxed.
“No, no. It’s… something.” She yawns and lays her cheek upon her hand, almost passed out.
I take this moment to look at her. It’s like she’s Corin’s more attractive sister. I still wish I knew why. I lean in and quietly ask, “Why did ya want… ta be… a lass?”
She mumbles, “So you would like me.”
My sloshed mind desperately starts trying to bail out the alcohol. What? So I would like her? Did Corin think I didn’t like him? Why would he think that? “So you would like me.” What did she mean by that? Of course I like her. I look in confusion at my best mate who wanted to become female… so I would like her.
I suddenly sit up, a rush of adrenaline helping to bring about a little more clarity.
After the End 