Her hands were flat on the surface of the worktop, her weight resting forward on her palms. The young woman studied the long elegant fingers that she had inherited from her mother, and the short nearly clipped nails that were a result of her time as a skyrider, and now as a mother to two young children. She had been considering cutting her hair, the long strands made an easy target for tiny hands, and it hurt when Luke, or Elsie gripped and would not let go. Yet she had resisted the urge to cut it, so far.
"You ignored her actions, and you ignored me when I told you," Elyna struggled to keep her voice even and diplomatic. She was furious that he had so little respect for her opinion, that he hadn't paid it any attention. "I will talk to Katheryn..." the Skyrider drew a breath and forced herself to look up at the man she loved.
"What did she do, Malcolm?" Her nails scraped across the chopping block, "I swear by the immortals, you tell me the whole story, from the beginning - I can't be your partner if you keep me shut out!"
“Elyna don't speak to me like I'm a child. I welcome your advice, but that is all it can be. If you want to start setting rules and conditions, you will open yourself up to the same,” he warned, and sighed; Malcolm didn't like the look she was giving him. “Luke is too young to travel, but I haven't forbid you from it. If he gets sick, and I say I told you so, it doesn't help the matter, it just makes you feel worse.”
He turned away from, arms folded and brow heavy, she infuriated him sometimes. Malcolm walked back towards the living room and folded Vara’s blanket over the top of the sleeping dog. She would probably stay there until morning, when they often heard her scratching at Elsie’s door in an attempt to wake the toddler.
“Violet isn't the problem. She's just a silly, infatuated girl who made a mistake.”
He felt a strange sense loyalty to Violet regarding her actions. As far as he knew she had not tarnished his name by relinquishing the details of what he had done as a result of finding out the truth, and a small part of him wanted to return the favour by keeping her actions to himself. Elyna was right though, if they were going to be a good partnership, they needed to be able to share things, but did that mean everything, always?
“I don't really remember a lot of it,” he admitted, “but I know it was a failed attempt to seduce me.” Malcolm turned around to look at Elyna. “She put something in a bottle of wine that Benjamin got his hands on, and I shared it with him.”
Last edited by Malcolm on Tue Oct 08, 2019 8:13 pm, edited 1 time in total. word count: 294
The young woman almost laughed. How could she ever speak to Malcolm like a child, he was four centuries her senior. Though it rarely felt like it. Rules and conditions? She’d banned Violet Warrick from her home, and Malcolm had forbidden Vakhanor in turn. She folded her arms on the work surface and bowed over them, staring at the grain of wood that ran through the chopping block. She didn’t want to take Luke, yet how could she refuse the summons? Well, she had tried and failed. It raised her hackles for Malcolm to speak about the journey to Burhan, as though it was her first choice. If Luke was unwell…her heart pinched. She didn’t want to think a theoretical risk to her newborn son. She would do everything in her power to make the journey go smoothly and keep him safe.
Violet isn’t a problem. The hairs lifted all along her exposed skin, her top lip drew back in a snarl as she watched her lover. No? She felt cold, ice sinking through her veins at his next words and the more complete explanation of what had happened. A failed attempt at seduction, and a laced bottle of wine.
How could Malcolm feel responsible for laying hands on her the next day? If it ever came out, what the noblewoman had done, then surely, she would be hung for court martial? She had spiked the drink of a commander, out of the city on a campaign. The attempt to drug Malcolm, was enough to make Elyna feel sick and violently so. How would he feel if the roles were reversed? Say Sinith, or Vakhanor had attempted to drug her, to seduce her? It didn’t matter that the attempt had failed, how dare Violet Warrick play such a dangerous game with their lives, and the lives of all others who served under the Warden of the North.
The ice kept the young woman immobile. How old was Violet Warrick anyway? A silly, infatuated girl. Elyna shook her head. Was that how Malcolm would have seen her as well? Or was she considered older, haggard in comparison to the blonde beauty who was determined to have him.
“She disgusts me,” Elyna spoke eventually, “and still you defend her. She could have killed you, could have been responsible for the death of all you command, and you write her off as a silly girl who made a mistake. She should be hung. She should be pissing herself with fear, that her actions are never discovered.” Elyna moved around the counter but made no attempt to close the distance between herself and the Mortalborn, “you excuse her actions as petty, but they are dangerous. If you refuse to see them for that, then you are a fool…worse then that – you like her attentions. You have the ability to change a memory or remove it. If you were so concerned– you could have cleaned up this mess. Yet you haven’t…” Elyna studied him, cold. “What will Kathryn tell me, that you have not?”
Nothing if she wants to keep her rank within my army, he thought to himself, but that was the test, wasn't it? Would Kathryn be loyal to her commander, a man she had worked with for years, or was her sisterhood more important? Afterall, if she told Elyna, who else would she tell, how dangerous was she?
“But she didn't try to kill me, did she? Let's not be dramatic, I'm the one who attempted murder,” Malcolm said, he had managed to keep his tone even and voice lowered. “Her actions were not right, not in the slightest, but mine cast a shadow far darker.”
He gave no mind to her comment regarding his secret pleasure for such affections or what he might have achieved with the use of his mortalborn abilities, but met her with a stern look, the same look of disgust she had earned once before. Malcolm didn't use that ability for a reason, it had the power to ruin lives.
“Yes Elyna, there are a great many things in my life that could have been made easier with the use of that ability, including this argument.” Was that really the kind of thing she wanted to encourage? “Fortunately for you, and the rest of the world, I'm not that kind of mortalborn.”
He drank a glass of water then, and made his way to the stairs, ready to call it a night.
Last edited by Malcolm on Tue Oct 08, 2019 8:14 pm, edited 2 times in total. word count: 242
“I don’t care for her intentions Malcolm. If you’d drunk a little more, if it had been a little more potent – how expert is she in the field of poisons and potions that she dare take your life into her hands?” Still seething, the young woman moved from foot to foot as she studied him. Still making no attempt to close the distance, worried that she might do or say something that she would soon regret; as she often did as they fought. Her fingers were balled into fists, though they didn’t hold the same strength as before Luke’s birth. “What if your camp had been attacked?” The words stuck in her throat, and some of the anger slipped. Elyna was afraid of that might have happened, what if Violet had poisoned him? Her intention to seduce him was bad enough, but she had drugged him. Hot tears stung the back of her eyes as she studied him, refusing to cry, “what if the VII had circled you in the night? Could you have fought back? Malcolm…how would you feel if Vakhanor did such a thing to me?” She pressed a hand across her chest, heart pumping too hard and too furiously. It hurt.
“I can’t find any fault in you trying to kill her,” Elyna admitted and met his gaze. He studied her with disgust at the mention of his abilities. Yet she held the look without flinching. Two sides of an argument, he refused to see her perspective, and she was too angry to back down. He knew that using the ability on her, would be the end. She trusted that he never would, if there was no such trust, then what was there between them? Did she believe he had feelings to Violet Warrick? She’d been jealous of the way he watched the young woman, she’d watched him through the window, exchanging looks with Benjamin as the soldier walked past – in that dress. There was attraction, and in many ways it was only natural. Yet it was hard not to begrudge that instinctive response. Now…now he felt guilty – she realised in a flash. Her own guilt towards Vakhanor had prompted so much between herself and the Smith. Guilt was just as dangerous as desire; if not more so.
What could she say in the face of such guilt? Malcolm wasn’t listening to her protestation that it wasn’t his fault. Perhaps he never would; not now that he thought she was irrational and over-dramatic He moved towards the stairs and she sank down, sitting on the lower steps and out of his way. Her gaze fixed on the door, and small puddle of water seeping through. This had been badly handled and she felt as though all the air was knocked from her lungs. How…how could she fight against guilt?
“Malcolm…” Elyna studied her hands, “…if you...guilt has the power to control you…I know I’m one to talk but…” She closed her eyes and waited for him to pass on the steps, “I’d forgive you,” she added softly, “if you needed…I’d find a way to forgive you.”
Malcolm stopped at the top of the stairs and sighed, was she really doing this to him right before bed? “Elyna it was sleep powder, not poison, and clearly as her intention was not to put me to sleep but to see me a relax a little, I’m sure she had absolutely no idea how to use such things, because I was out cold all night and I don’t really remember drinking anything, but Violet assured me I had.”
He turned around and paced back down the stairs, trying to keep quiet so that neither of children were awakened by the commotion. “Would you please get off your backside and come to bed with me? I’m tired, I’m alive. I would trust my men and guards to have acted swiftly if we were attacked. I hear you, I don’t agree with her actions, but that doesn’t excuse mine.”
Malcolm held his hand out to her. “Please, just come to bed. I don’t know what you're insinuating, or what you think you need to forgive. Just come to bed.”
Last edited by Malcolm on Tue Oct 08, 2019 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total. word count: 186
It was clear that they weren’t going to see eye to eye on this matter. As far as Elyna was concerned, Malcolm’s actions were more than excused. There was nothing for her to forgive, in his response to Violets attempt to ‘relax’ him. Yet would he ever agree and forgive himself? He returned down the stairs and offered here a hand. Disappointed, she wanted to say no. The young woman wanted to venture out into the frozen air of the city-streets on a rainy night. She wanted to run, free, till her lungs were burning and her mind was clear.
She was done fighting the mortalborn. The young woman didn’t want to leave his side and preferred the closeness they shared instead. It was time to let the argument go and put it to bed. She stood, accepting his hand and followed him. Please, he’d said and Elyna didn’t want to live in discord. Too weary to resent him, and frustrated with her own responses. She pulled in her distress and buried it. All her restless energy subdued as they climbed the stairs.
The young woman released his hand as they entered the room. The children were fast asleep and she crossed to the window and pulled the curtains closed against the endless rain. Silhouetted against a sliver of light she pulled off her breaches and folded them neatly, throwing them over the chair before she slipped into the bed. She pulled the blanket up and over her shoulder, rolling onto her side. She’d need to work wash the children’s clothes and ensure they were packed and ready.
“Good night, Malcolm…” She hesitated a moment before rolling to face the man and edging closer. She pressed her face against his arm.
Malcolm hated the strange unease that existed between them, ready to pop up at a moment's notice. It wasn't right, he thought, to go from being on the defence all the time to snuggling in bed. Elyna wanted so much to be angry at him, at least that was his feeling on the matter, but they had to exist under the same roof, share the same bed, and eat at the same table. They couldn't live like this, not if they wanted to go the distance. Malcolm knew that an argument wasn't the end of the world, however, they had more than their fair share.
The longer he lay there, thinking about the last words she had said down stairs, the more distressed the whole situation made him. A pass, that's what she had tried to give him, but he didn't want to hear it, because somehow it meant more, it meant she didn't trust him or his loyalty. It was easier to give up, or give in, to dismiss rather than fix.
“I'm not happy,” he told her. “Because I know you're not happy.
He put an arm around her. “I love you, but you don't believe that do you, you don't feel it?” Malcolm rolled over and abandoned the warmth of his lover in favour of sleeping on his other side. “Maybe we have some thinking to do,” he said. “Maybe it's just the stress, work, the new baby?” he was just thinking out loud now.
“I'm tired,” he said, but knew he wouldn't sleep, this wasn't the kind of exhaustion sleep would cure.
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His words stretched across the distance between them and sat heavy, like a gremlin on her chest. Elyna rolled onto her back with a rustle of sheets and stared, blank at the ceiling. He insisted that she was not happy. Was that the truth? She was restless she knew, uncertain of her place in the world. This was not the path she had expected but she wouldn't give up her children for anything. Was there a way to reconcile the world? Her career and her family or did she need to choose between them? Why did Malcolm always fall beyond that choice, in a category of his own. The young woman new, as certain as the sun would rise the next morning, that her life was bound to his. Yet what were the terms of that destiny? Had they fallen on the wrong path.
The skyrider let out a slow sigh, "did I seem so unhappy to return to you this evening?" She turned her head towards him on the pillow. Dark eyes searching the night. It had been simple, happy and comfortable to curl up with him. "Perhaps, the world is in our way..."
He professed his love. Did she believe it? It was the truth, simple and pure. He loved her...or something like that. Her heart squeezed. He loved and adored his children. He'd do anything for them, for her but was that love or sheer devotion? A facet of his being - unbreakable as his immortal given gifts. She loved him, with every aching breath till the point of pain and beyond. Love was sweet torture - should it be?
"What do you want from me?" It was a whisper in the dark.
Yes, it was true, she had been content to sit in his arms upon her arrival, until Vakhanor had come up and the the events that had taken place over the course of his mission. It was then she had crossed the room to stand alone, not knowing his heart or mind, and things had turned tense, cold even. If he did not agree with her, could not find a way to appeasethe woman, the two of them would fall back into old habits, where the aching silence ate at him, and the distance, even in each other's arms, could be felt.
In the silence that followed, Elyna asked the man what it was he wanted, and he almost laughed, though it felt more appropriate to cry with disbelief. How could it be they had gotten to this point and she still didn't know? Peace, he thought, all I want is peace. The war was outside, beyond the front door, why did it have to exist within their home too? Every day he had to get up, pull on a second skin, and face the horrors of this world so few were brave, or stupid enough to endure, and instead of returning to the comforts of a happy home, Malcolm and Elyna were on edge constantly, just waiting for the next eruption.
“Perhaps that is a question I should be asking you,” came his reply. “Maybe that is what we both need to think about.”
It wouldn't be a life, he knew, just to stay together for the children, even if they may be comfortable and even content at times, Elyna had better chances at finding what she really wanted while she was young, and so beautiful. Even with children, she was a desirable match for any would-be noble.
“I’ll be in Warrick at the beginning of Ymiden before returning for a short time. Will you be okay alone with the children until I get back?"
Last edited by Malcolm on Tue Oct 08, 2019 8:15 pm, edited 1 time in total. word count: 331
