News on the grapevine was that Lorena Burhan was back in Rynmere, and Vaughn had just spent a day trying to track her down.
He felt like he had searched forever that trial, back and forth through the city, considering even making the long trip out to the docks. Now he stood outside the inn she was staying at and he couldn't force his feet a single inch further.
It had been so long.
His mind was telling him he shouldn't see her. The mark of Chrien made him angry, and that, coupled with their propensity for arguing about the littlest things, would be a poor combination. He reminded himself how he had wanted to hurt Elyna just a couple trials prior when she had made him exceedingly mad. But knowing that he shouldn't do something had never stopped him before.
Doesn't she have a right to know that I wasn't killed in the war? he wondered. That was hardly an excuse and he knew it; sooner or later she would find out. From his father, or Damon, or from someone else.
Then what's the point in waiting? he asked. If she knew he lived she would find him. And here he was. He had already found her.
They had a lot to catch up on.
Nervous for no reason he fidgeted in place, running a hand through his hair. He reminded himself for the hundredth time that no matter what he would not get angry at her. Even if she slapped him in the face upon first sight. Even if she spat at him. Even if she tried to bring up old arguments or called him a coward like she had before. He would keep his cool and if he couldn't he would leave. He would leave.
Like he had told her to leave before.
There was nothing for it but to do. He wished he had something to give her, something to distract her with, but he had nothing but a couple coins in his pocket and that would not change until after he completed the mission with his father.
The mission. He was leaving in three trials for who knew how long, and he was certain Lorena would not be happy to be left behind.
But maybe things have changed, he thought. Maybe she's different now.
She is, he told himself, she has to be. And he walked into the inn.
The barkeep refused to give her room number when Vaughn gave a description at the front desk. Vaughn was, for all the other man knew, just a random who had walked in off the street looking for a girl. Struck again by indecision the noble sat at the bar though he did not yet order a drink. The same barkeep gave him an evil look for taking up space, but Vaughn ignored him and turned to watch both the door and the entryway that led to the rooms.
Eventually Lorena would be here, he decided. Until then, he would wait.
...
He had waited about five bits before he gave up, to hell with it. He dodged the barkeep's now threatening stare and made his way towards the rooms, preparing to knock on doors if he had to. Before he could reach the first room there was the tinkle of the bell at the inn's front door and he turned to look. Knowing before he even saw her.
There she was.
His eyes lit up to look at her, the strangest combination of silver and gold, the molten colors mixing together as if he was hypnotized. He took one step forward, sure she had seen him, she must have, and then dashed and swept her up into his arms. Twirling the petite Biqaj around in a circle as easily as he would a child. He set her back on her feet, his heart thumping so hard he was almost dizzy, and kept his arms wrapped around her for a long time, holding her close.
"Lorena," he finally murmured, pulling back to look her over. "You're back."
Adorned a long red dress and lavish brown boots with dark laces Lorena had left her hair down that morning to block the bitter cold of the Ashan breeze from freezing her neck. She'd spent the day looking for a new pair of heels to wear for the upcoming Saun and came back empty handed. Most of the pairs she found were far to naff for her liking or she didn't have a dress to match the colour.
Upon the the first hour of the afternoon Lorena eventually decided she'd had enough and wandered back toward the Inn Damon had kindly recommended to her. Carefully lifting her dress up the small slope of steps Lorena opened the latch and let herself in. Her heart skipped a beat. Vaughn was there.
Seized by the hips she laughed. He was her very own prince, just like out of a fairy-tale. "Vaughn," a mixture of longing and joy played in her voice "you're alive." Her longing overcame her grief and without so much as a second thought Lorena flung her arms around his neck and pulled her weight against him.
"Anything you want. Until midnight," she whispered the familiar words into his ear and pressed a delicate, sensual kiss to the edge of his jaw.
In the backdrop of the Inn a loud cheer sounded at the union and Lorena pulled back, flushed from the embarrassment of peering eyes. Her heart raced, none of them mattered. After all this time they were finally together and she wasn't going to let anyone spoil it. Enraptured Lorena looked back into his eyes and smiled "It's my gift."
She pressed a kiss to his jaw and he couldn't help the way his heart fluttered. Was it anxiety or happiness? He was so mixed up. He was always mixed up when he was around her.
A cheer ran through the patrons, no doubt most of whom were drunk, and because of that even the angry barkeep had given up on chasing him. Vaughn barely even noticed. His face felt hot and he was all too aware of her body close to his... but aware, too, of the mark of Chrien emblazened on his chest and everything else that had happened that Lorena didn't know about.
She deserved to know. Before anything else, she deserved that. He wouldn't spring it on her after, that wasn't right.
"We have some time then," he told her and took her hand, an easy gesture even after all these arcs. What was he doing?
He didn't know.
They went to Lorena's room and he leaned forward to kiss her once the door was closed, but chastely, and only on the cheek. "Please," he said, "Sit." He motioned to the bed. He himself took a place on a chair nearby the desk. Separating them completely now, though he missed the warmth of her hand.
"Lorena," he said. Gathering his thoughts. "A lot has happened and I..." He looked down, brow creasing. "I don't know how to explain it all. But I thought you should know." He shrugged out of his jacket, then peeled off his shirt. Not to offer himself to her, not in this moment, but to show her the image of the hurricane that spun and raged upon his chest like a living tattoo.
"I uh, I've had some problems recently, with the war and with other things. I'm..." He let out a breath. "Angrier than I used to be. If you can believe it. And I think this mark has something to do with it." He looked down at himself. Besides the mark she would notice other differences... scars that weren't there before on his forearms and hands, and he was thinner than she would remember, a consequence of his captivity. He didn't even know if she knew about that.
"I have to go away in a couple days," he said, looking up at her. His cheeks were still flushed, but he was trying to be good. For her sake. No matter how stupid he had been in the past he had always tried to do what he thought was right for her. Whether she liked it or not. "I'm going to have to join the Iron Hand. I've talked about it with my father and I think it will help me control this," he said, indicating the mark once more.
"It's from Chrien." His expression was grim. "You're Biqaj so you know what that means, don't you?" Chrien was a monster, he had seen it himself, and Vaughn had an inkling that the immortal would like to make a monster of him too. If she could.
He would try very hard not to let her.
His face softened once more and he said with gold-tinted eyes, "I'm just glad to see you again. To see you're alright." Even that was enough. Just to know she was happy and healthy. To know she was whole.
Yielded against the guidance of his hand the woman breathed a shallow sigh. She longed for the rough touch of his calloused fingers against her delicate skin. Wordless and without protest Lorena pointed Vaughn to her room.
“Please,” he said “sit.”
Their hands parted and for a second her eyes met his. Once where Lorena would have fought his reluctance, a new maturity had grown. Instead, she did as he asked and poised herself, crossing one leg over the the other as she waited for him to speak.
Very little had changed with him. Even now he was still the same worry wart he had always been, thoughts racing around his head like a running track of ponies in a never ending circuit. He was in pain and enough was enough. At first Lorena didn't reply. Easing from the comfort of the bed she stood and wandered over to him, simply just to touch him. Soft like the delicate press of a flower her fingers smoothed loftily over his skin, underling the symbol engraved into his flesh, then downward toward the scars.
“Its okay Vaughn,” she said finally, slowly lowering herself onto his lap with a sad smile. In the end he never really understood that she never cared about the anger and if he were to become a monster then she would look after him or die trying. Over time she came to understand that maybe that was something Vaughn would never understand. She knew he didn't believe they were right together, she knew he wanted to push her away to confirm the one thing her thought constant in the world; people casting him aside. There was nothing she wanted to change in Vaughn, whatever the challenge she was in love with him for the man he was.
“I won't try stop you from going. Enjoy yourself,” she comforted, lifting her fingers through his short locks of brown hair “just, come back to me.” A delicate despair entered her eyes, she had been so afraid he was hurt or worse that she had returned to Rynmere as quickly as fate allowed her too. Afraid to face Vaughn with that fear, that he'd still be angry with her for loving him, Lorena withdrew from him and stepped toward the window.
He squinted his eyes and asked, even as she took a seat on his lap, "Who are you and what have you done with Lorena?" Then he smiled and pressed another kiss to her cheek. Relief swept through him at her words and, like her fingers before, his hands rose to touch softly at her hair, the side of her face, down her arm to the back of her hand. Their fingers intertwined again.
She was the same and she was different. Very different. Before she would have fought him. Maybe even shut him up by stealing his voice with a kiss. He had never known her moods or her mind, not truly, no matter how much time they had spent together. She had always been a woman all her own, and now it seemed that was even more true. So it was he who pressed that kiss softly to her knuckles, looking into her eyes.
Lorena.
"I'll come back," he promised her. Then smiled again. "And not only because we're only going to Endor to mine and make armor."
Yes, she was the same but different and how he had missed her, not only the feel of her but as a friend. "You really don't mind?" he murmured. None of it; not about the mark, or his anger, or how he had joined the military after so many arcs of refusing to follow his father's whims? What about how he had betrayed her so long ago? Was that okay now too? His eyes had turned a complete and lazy golden. And yet, between his eyebrows there was that little crease of discontent. It's okay Vaughn. And in her eyes there was something too.
No matter how well they were getting along, there was ever something unsaid between them and she knew it as well as he. She rose to walk to the window. Facing out towards the city, away from him. He wanted to get up after her but stuttered halfway through the movement. Instead, perhaps forwardly, he flopped onto the empty bed, spreading out his limbs and stretching with all the grace of a cat before relaxing into the sheets. He turned his head to look at her. Simply to look.
“Make love to me,” she replied with a steady breath, starring down toward the bustling markets below. The subject of conversation was beginning to bore her and she wasn't interested in the same kind of deep soul searching Vaughn loved to do. Lorena turned to meet his gaze with collected anticipation and settled with her back up against the windowsill, she was serious.
“Convince me that I'm not and was not just a friend or a whore to you,” the dark colour of her eyes faded back into a deep, heartbroken dazzling gold “that you actually loved me.”
Steadying herself Lorena anchored her weight with her hands “Not because I need you too, I could choose anybody. There is a whole sea of men out there and yet you are the only one that thrills me enough to care.” After all these arcs that might have been the closest thing to an explanation that she had given Vaughn. The shy, oppressed girl had gone and was replaced by a woman that burned with conviction.
“If you are afraid then I understand. I know you care,” she spoke with a voice as soft as silk “I am not a helpless little girl anymore V. I've grown and I have learned to make choices then take those consequences. My need for you was taken away, but my love for you and the person I am with you never died. I didn't want to tell you the only thing I'm afraid of is that you will hate me for that love. That you'll get angry at me for it.”
All of these words had been overwhelming to her. Giving herself a moment to breathe she leaned back and returned her attention to the outside world “You have my thoughts. Do they comfort you?”
She had laid a trap and he, stupid, had walked right into it. He had believed she'd changed. But make love to me, she said, to prove she was not a whore. She was trying to trick him again like she had always before.
My need for you was taken away... but my love for you... never died. I didn't want to tell you... you will hate me for that love. You'll get angry at me for it.
There it was. This was more of the same.
"You sure know how to make everything impossible," he told her. "I won't touch you now. I can't." If he did it wouldn't mean anything. Not how she wanted. Not now that she had spoken in such a way. Her words had dared him: make love to me, and so, as when anyone challenged him, he balked.
Didn't she see what she had done? With her talk of whoring and the way she had so casually disvalued their friendship... how she next questioned his feelings and commanded him to prove himself... and all while doubting him. She had succeeded in nothing but undermining them both. Despite her confession of love she'd cheapened whatever there was between them. If they shared a bed now they might as well both be whores.
Didn't she know yet that whatever she asked he couldn't, wouldn't, give?
"I wouldn't hate you for loving me, though I wonder if that's what you want," he said. "I never hated you for that. It confused me, it frustrated me, but it didn't cause me to hate you." Then, standing, "I think I must go." The affection had seemed to go out of him. He was just tired. All at once he remembered that he had not slept well the night before. Nor the night before that.
He needed a drink and honestly a lay and after that a long rest. But he couldn't now, not with Lorena, even though that was what he wanted. He was far too stubborn for that.
He sighed. It was only rarely, like now, that his stubbornness caused him to be unhappy.
Nostalgia was a funny thing and Vaughn had not changed. Everything that he did contradicted what she had even suggested.
Lorena was as pissed of as he was, it was searing in her eyes and she had enough. Anger wouldn't do here though, it was a wasted emotion in the face of what she really was, sad. Instead of speaking immediately the woman shook the boots from her feet and allowed her dress to strip away from her shoulders. “Vaughn,” she whispered in a soft velvet tone “then don't touch me.” Lorena twirled in front of him, the dazzling gold mixed with flecks of bronze “I'm sorry, they were just thoughts V.” Humility entered her, maybe she hadn't changed but she wouldn't cry.
There were no words to tell him that she wanted him so instead she pressed against him and seized a passionate, loving kiss against his lips. The kind of kiss she saved for him, and only for him. Her heart pounded heavy beneath her chest and she wanted to remind him of what she was. Without the facade, the nice clothing or the stupid words. For all the men that she had been with in Ne’haer she’d never fully given herself to them and noe he was here, she could finally let go “I didn't say them because that's not what I wanted to say. but you asked me,” she searched his eyes “Please. Don't go.”
Pain and longing entered her voice and for the first time in her life, Lorena had never been more sincere. More vulnerable in front of him now, naked with nothing but a shred of hope left in her battered heart she looked at him. It hurt. All of it hurt so much.
Knowledge:
Etiquette: In a relationship, honesty is important
Lorena: Back in Rynmere
Lorena: You showed her your mark
Lorena: Says she loves you
Lorena: Hasn't changed
Lorena: Changeable
Psychology: Fear in the face of what you've wanted
Psychology: People are often contrary
Storytelling: Summary of a long story!
Loot: Nope
Fame: Nope
Devotion: Nope
Magic: Nope
Comments ~ a good read! Nice to see Vaughn's confusion in the face of Lorena's changeable moods and his stubborn side coming to the fore. I had a really strong visual of Vaughn standing outside and wanting to go in, not quite being able to etc. Great writing! Lorena ~ If you return to ST at any point in the future, please submit your part of this thread in the review queue with your requested knowledges. Thanks!
