The seven Duchies of Central Rynmere and their respective baronies, cities, towns, villages, and landmarks each overseen by a Duke of one of the seven noble families and ultimately controlled by the King of Rynmere.
It was well past noon when the young Lorena Burhan had meant to come visit, and Vaughn's insides were twisting up into knots. He had an inkling, almost a sense of premonition, as to what this visit was going to be about; the young woman had hinted at it in a couple conversations recently, and he had felt some great something, maybe change, creeping up upon them.
She was going to leave.
He didn't want to think of it, had not allowed himself to imagine it no matter how she had hated her role, and no matter how much the greater world seemed to call to her at times. She was Biqaj so that was only to be expected, but perhaps selfishly, especially in the last arc or so as she had grown and they had become steadily closer, Vaughn had thought that despite her dislike for her family, her parents would be able to tie her down. Or, if not that, then her admiration for a certain someone else would be enough for her.
But it seemed he had been wrong.
There was no use lingering on it and twisting himself up further, especially because he was not yet certain that this dread he felt was well-founded. So instead he went out to tend to the horses even as the dark of evening set in.
He couldn't help but hope, however, that she might not show up at all. That way he would be spared the pain of perhaps having to say goodbye.
Tethered on the brink of frustration Lorena ran as fast as she could, breaking past the dozens of of shouts and starring faces. Her parents were impossible. For all the wisdom her mother held, on what planet did she think it was a good idea to marry her daughter off to Peake Andaris? He was to her, a tyrant in life as he was rumoured to be in the bedroom.
Betrayed by the people she loved, Lorena's heart was falling into a pit of despair. They were so adamant to crush her spirit, so they could cast a better reflection than the one they gave. Sadness plastered onto her heart keeping fear fastened like cheap wall paper and within bits, she stood outside of Vaughn's house terrified and muddied. Weary and shivering from the cold winds sweeping through her dress the young noble felt on the verge of collapse. For trials she had fought so she could remain in the soft, intoxicating fire of the warmth she held with Vaughn. There was so much she wanted to do with him. She'd wanted to be close with him, help on the farm, have children and now thanks to the cowardice of her parents it would never come true. Not as long as she lived.
Cold like the bitter Ashan chill the smith ignored her arrival. Hurt, she wondered if he didn't see her "Vaughn, I" the words caught in her throat "...I need you." Tears fell from her eyes as reality began to sink in, she didn't want to leave everything behind. For the first time she felt alone "Please," she begged, reaching to grab the edge of his shirt "I don't want to be raped."
Scared out of her wits the young woman trembled, tightening her clasp on the fabric between her fingers "I don't want to live a life where I can't love you."
She appeared behind him like a wraith, clutching at his shirt, and he nearly leapt out of his skin, not expecting the sudden contact. The horse he was brushing startled when he did, and he had to be careful to shush the animal so she wouldn't buck or kick.
But he didn't have time to calm the horse properly because something was terribly wrong with Lorena.
I don't want to be raped, she said, and he felt a chill go through him at the state of her.
"What happened?" he asked, in as calm a voice as he could manage despite the way his heart thundered in his chest. She was shuddering and crying and she trembled in his grasp when he put his hands to her shoulders, trying to calm her down.
"What happened?" he asked again, more demanded this time, because what she was saying wasn't making sense. His mind had not yet caught up to her words. He had only seen her, so frightened, her dress muddied and torn at the hem, and what could have done this to her? Had she been attacked?
Caught in the moment he scooped her up into his arms and dashed into the house, before settling her, carefully, on a chair in the kitchen next to the hearth. Quickly he poked at the fire, warming the young woman as well as he could with its meager heat. Needing something else, he went and fetched an extra blanket from the cupboard to wrap around her shoulders.
That finished, he knelt down in front of Lorena on the tiled kitchen floor, one hand on her knee as if to make sure she was still there, as if to make sure she was okay, and he felt his jaw knot.
"I don't understand," he finally said, looking up into her face. After how much she had scared him before his own face was flushed pink. His eyes were infinitely worried. "Tell me again from the start?" He brushed one hand at a strand of hair that stuck to her cheek, smoothing it away from her face.
Alarmed by Vaughn's sudden movements Lorena's body resigned as he swept her into his arms and carried her into the kitchens. Everything happened so quickly and before she knew it she was huddled back against the sofa with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. "Vaughn I-" the fearful words were interrupted by comfort of his calloused hands against her cheek. Her heart was racing as his fingers touched her skin. Wanton, Lorena let the blanket fall from her shoulders as she pushed herself forward and seized his lips against her.
"I don't want anything but this," she whispered, hovering over his lips before she pulled back to meet the warmth of his deep emerald eyes "and they want to take it away from us." Lorena's eyes fell to the floor, she had tried so hard to mend the pieces back together. Faldrun's shaven face she even confronted Veljorn about the threat he'd given to his father should he not marry, 'If you do not comply Lorena, worse will happen to you than the death of your father. I'll make sure of it.' A cool shiver ran down Lorena's spine, the fear returning to her eyes. Veljorn would stop at nothing for power.
Still shaking the young noble clutched her lover's shirt "They are forcing to marry me to Peake Andaris, Veljorn wants ties with the family to help raise our status as a house," tears of unkempt anger entered her eyes "He will rape me, belittle me, chain me to his household." It had all been too much. Clinging to what little she thought remained of her relationship with Vaughn, the girl could feel her heart crumbling in her chest. She had tried every angle to get around the arrangement and the conclusion was the hardest of all "The only way I can think of ever getting the chance at this with you is to leave for a while and pretend to be dead until Peake marries someone else."
Last edited by Lorena on Wed May 03, 2017 10:04 am, edited 2 times in total. word count: 338
Not expecting the kiss as much as he hadn't been expecting her sudden appearance outside, he let himself fold into her touch, kissing her softly back, one hand still on her cheek. He was just so relieved. Surely she must be okay if she was kissing him; surely nothing so terrible as the things he had imagined had happened to her. Not yet.
When she pulled back to speak he knew she would see the emotion in his eyes. He was worried, yes, worried, relieved, and there was something heartrending in the way she spoke. Despite his relief that for now, at least, she was okay, he still felt his guts twisting again, the same way they had earlier.
He had known already about her coming marriage to Peake Andaris, though what he hadn't known was of Peake's rumored savagery within the bedroom and without. So he felt again that chill when she spoke of what the other man would do to her. Unconsciously his hand, which had settled on her wrist after tucking her hair away, tightened. As if to keep her in place.
And then she went and said it. The words he had been dreading, that she was leaving him, and of course he had seen the signs so why had he allowed himself to disbelieve what he'd known was true? Selfishness, he thought, drawing his gaze down and away from Lorena, the green of his eyes quickly turning towards sorrow with flecks of shining silver. Selfishness and cowardice. He had not wanted to face the truth.
He found he still didn't, though he could feel that truth inside his heart like a stone, weighing him down.
For a moment he was petty enough, desperate enough to wonder if this was one of Lorena's little games which she liked so dearly to play with him. Pretend to love another to make him jealous, pretend to leave him to be sure he would follow. He had played those games as well and suddenly they didn't seem nearly as fun.
"Is this real?" he finally asked her. His voice was rather more rough than its usual smooth tone. He brought his eyes up so she would be able to see the pain in them, in him. So she would know that in this moment he was not playing. He was being truthful. "Do you expect me to follow you?" He hated himself for saying it, and he dearly wanted to kiss her again, to figure out some other way, but with a sick feeling he pulled away.
Leave and pretend to be dead? It sounded so like a game to him. Sail away and never come back, and Vaughn would be left here like he was always left here. Left on his own again, but this time more alone than ever.
His eyes were like daggers that hemmed themselves into the scars of her heart "It's real," she muttered quietly, unable to face the pain in his eyes. Vaughn left her side and for the first time in her life Lorena felt powerless against his wrath, she trembled, trying to regain what little of herself she had left to count on as the river of agony running through her heart flowed down her cheeks "That or I stay here, with you and enjoy these brief trials of love and happiness and get shipped away to Andaris where I will have to suffer Peake Andaris putting his arrogant cock inside of me so I can give him children. All the while being trapped in the four walls of my house, expected never to come find you again. Where I will be forced to watch you move on and find another woman, and love her the way I always wanted to be in love with you." Bitterness stole her mind away and she shook her head, rising from the sofa to grab Vaughn by the arm "Is that what you want?"
Gold with the colour of frustration, Lorena's gaze was transfixed upon Vaughn. She wasn't an angry person by nature and had never stood against him before, not like this "You would rather leave me to rot in the arms of that man than sail away with me so we can have the chance of being free or happy?" This wasn't a game to her. Betrayed again, the fire in her eyes was quenched by the realisation the Vaughn like her parents wouldn't give up anything for her. Not a single shred of love that didn't come with some kind of twisted condition.
"Why would you want that for me?" the heavy question released from her lips like an anchor dropping down, pulling her toward the ocean floor "for either of us."
Last edited by Lorena on Wed May 03, 2017 10:21 am, edited 1 time in total. word count: 325
He had stood and put distance between them and despite that her words made the small, warm kitchen feel somehow closer. Closer and darker, and the happy memories they had together suddenly felt lost.
She rose to meet him and grabbed at his arm and he yanked away from her. In that moment he thought he must hate her as much as he loved her. Nothing was making sense. It all went by too fast. He just wanted to think a moment but with Lorena it was always reactive. There were no alternatives and no waiting. That was well and good; it could be exciting, it could be thrilling. But it was also exhausting. In a way it mystified him. How had they gotten to this point?
With Lorena there was only the here and now, and the future was as blurred as the past.
"I don't want that for you," he said in a tight voice to her accusations. Facing away from her. "I won't let you live a life confined by the people around you."
He needed his back to her. He could do this as long as he need not look at her. To look at her was to destroy sense. His voice grew softer. "Take a ship and leave if you must, and I say you must. I won't have it any other way." He stuck out his jaw at this, an expression of stubbornness inherited from his mother.
Lorena would not marry Peake Andaris, and not only because she thought he was revolting. Not only because, if what she said was true, he was a rapist and a cruel tyrant of a man and unbefitting of any woman. But also because she would not be tied down, he saw that now. And still, even as he thought it, he knew that was not quite right. No matter what, she should not allow herself to be tied down, not by anyone. It was wrong of her parents to control her, it was wrong of any suitor to try to tame her, and here Vaughn was doing it himself. Telling her she had to go away like he had command of her. What the hell was this? Who was he to do this sort of thing to her? To anyone? He was a fucking hypocrite.
"Why do you bother?" he asked her. "Why? Do you really think so little of me that I would tell you who to fuck and how to live?" Here he was denying it, and with the next breath telling her what to do. "Get on your fucking boat and leave." Was it true anger or false? Was it directed at her or at himself? Anger in any form felt easier than vulnerability. All he had to say was Please stay or I'll go with you. It was as simple as that. But he couldn't. He was trying to see past her to the future but it was impossible. All he could see was this argument, right now.
Vaughn was too mixed up by all of it to be of any use. He had said what he had said and now he fell back on old habits: he would stick to his words. He didn't know what to do so he would tell her to go. Even if that wasn't what he really wanted. Why should they be together if hurting her was so fucking easy? Why should anyone ever be together in a relationship like that?
His power over her meant that he couldn't have her. It meant that he shouldn't. That was what it came down to.
In an instant her greatest fear was confirmed, she was alone in the world with nobody left to turn to. Stepping away from him Lorena gripped her arm with one hand. "Why do I bother?" she repeated, a lump in her throat formed. Each word shred at the breaking pieces of her heart "I bother," she took a deep breath "...because with trills my world has been turned upside down and I wanted to know that one person in this world loved me enough to stay by my side would and cared about what happened to me."
Hardly managing to stand through the dizziness Lorena slipped onto the floor, defeated by his anger. All of those arcs of admiration, adoration, warm hugs, games and fun, yet Vaughn thought nothing of her. Unable to move or put thought into context she sat starring at the door, tears falling down her eyes as her lips trembled and sharp breaths escaped her throat. She felt like she was being strangled by her own tears.
"You know better Vaughn," the words mindlessly escaped her lips, she had gone beyond hope "and now... you are free of me. As you have always been, and I am alone." Cool like the harsh chill of Cylus the truth began to thaw into a bitter resolve "You have never been anything but free," finally the tears had stopped flowing "and I will learn to find my place in a cage."
Inhaling a hard, steady breath the noble slowly stood "where I will watch, wishing and hoping you are that man."
Gods, but she was infuriating. If the anger had been false before it was certainly true now. He wanted to pick her up, this time from where she stood blubbering and foolish, and dump her outside his door. He had thought, for her sake, to be rid of her. He had thought to free her even if she wouldn't free herself, and now what was she doing? She wouldn't fucking leave.
"Get out," he said, perhaps as cold as she had ever heard him. He even went and opened the door, though he knew the gesture was with a touch of the dramatic. It was fucking dark outside compared to the kitchen's hearth, and would he really send her out into the unknown?
Every moment he was more uncertain and so every moment his words needed to be more firm. "Lorena, you say I know better?" He scoffed. "Fine. I'm telling you to get out. Get out of here. Get out of your gods-damned cage, get on a ship, and go live your life however you fucking want to!" Without realizing it his voice had risen in volume until he was shouting at her.
He was silent for a long time after that.
"Look what you do to me," he finally said, in a much gentler voice. "Is this what you want?" His eyes, blazing silver, settled into a soft, resigned blue. "This cannot be what you want. Look what I've done to you. Is that what you want? There will never be anything other than this. Not between us. We're too..." Different. Too much the same. "We're just too much."
"Please."
"I love you, is that what you need to hear? Now leave."
He was done. If she wouldn't leave he would leave the door open for her. She could go when she pleased. He walked past her through the dark of the house, winding through the living areas and up the stair, down the hall and to his bedroom. He shut the door quietly behind him and sat on the edge of the bed, back straight.
For long moments he replayed the argument in his mind. Even now he could barely remember all that had been said. It had been a short, brief firework of words and dashed hope. He had told her he loved her. At least that had been said. And what else could he say? She was right. She needed to be free of Rynmere and her responsibilities here. Far as he was concerned, Vaughn was one of those responsibilities. Wasn't it right to tell her to go? Wasn't it right for him to stay? What did love have to do with anything? Love was just another responsibility.
Perhaps, he thought, as he flopped over in the bed, folding his arms over his face, perhaps love is the worst one of all.
Heart sunken deep in chest, Lorena barely even flinched. The fists of his words had done too much punching and she was spent. Already too far gone into misery the young noble's eyes followed him as he opened the door with his grand speech of what they were. "You misunderstand Vaughn, you are not my cage," she said, placing her hand against his chest to feel his beating heart one last time "You are my heart and you chose not to have anything more than this."
"I love you."
In the heat of a moment, the three words she wanted to hear the most became the most shallow statement she'd heard in her life and she didn't believe him for a trill. There was nothing in what he had just done that spoke anything of love, anything of joy for what they had shared throughout the arcs. In the depths of her heart she knew why he was like this, Lorena had always known the man's pain. In fact, she know more than anyone that he was being earnest when he said they were too much "If we're too much then you're exactly what society wanted you to be. Goodbye, Vaughn." With those last words Lorena broke away and stepped away from each other, she was ready to face the journey ahead of her. She wondered if he'd even miss her.
No, Vaughn wanted to forget. He wanted to pretend that the arcs shared together didn't exist, wanted to avoid the fact they had ever fallen in love. Lorena would never let that happen.
