Private Tales Kingdom of Mud

[Bebin Theros]

"No?" Bebin asked his voice a rumble and a hiss. His long body whipped and coiled and he wrapped himself up into a loop of bristling scales and sinuous strength. "Lady Viviane," his voice came in ripples and waves, his great basilisk's head flat against hte mound of his serpent's body. "Your eyes, that do burn with the light of the day's star, see Syr Merrycourt?"

Then she lived.

In some form or another, the soul of Merrycourt lived. And Syr Demiex. What would that make him? A failed murderer? A kidnapper? No. They found her body. They found a body.

Lies and treachery. Deceipt.

His eyes had come unclouded.

"Lady Viviane, Seabearer, Can you guide us back to the waking world?" he uncoiled, and slid around Selene. His form changed in a show of light, and he knelt beside his Captain once more, his wild strands of hair tamed against neath the clean folds of his blue turban. "We have much work to do, and little time to do it," he asked, with head bowed to the great Master.

 

[Selene]

"Your eyes, that do burn with the light of the day's star, see Syr Merrycourt?"

As soon as Bebin spoke it, the vision of Merrycourt's body came back to Selene. That blade in her chest, a congealed wound that no longer bled, blood black from rot. Long dead. And yet. She could still be seen. It was useless to ask the how and the where; the Loch did not work like that, even for one such as the Lady Viviane.

Selene felt Bebin coil round her, and she reached out to touch his smooth scales, finding some comfort there in the coolness of them. Until he wasn't a snake anymore, and her hand was resting on his shoulder. Bebin paid his respects to the Seabearer, and stayed bowed. She tilted her head downwards as well, as he made his request.

"Of course." The Seabearer swam forward in gentle loops, and reached out to Bebin. Her thumb pressed to the center of his brow. "Give Guernot my regards," she said to him, her gaze soft as she looked upon the Basilisk.

Raising her head, Selene found that she was standing alone with the Unquenchable Flame. She met those stars with with her own black eyes.

"Selene," the kivren said.

"Yes, my Lady."

"Have you been practicing your meditations?"

A twisted smile flashed across Selene's face. "I think I will start back up again, Lady Viviane."

With a light chuckle, the Seabearer pressed her thumb against the comet upon Selene's brow, as she had done before. The currents swirled. The sky lighted to air above. Sights and sounds came back to her, and Selene felt the cool breeze of an afternoon brush against her cheeks. The the pain in her chest bore down on her, and the sound of her own shallow breath brought her fully back to the physical realm.

She opened her eyes, and saw Leyik sitting upon the back of a chair, preening long black feathers with a big beak. The bird raised its head, and squawked at her, harshly. Selene groaned, and closed her eyes again. She felt the fever there building behind her lids. Home at last.

 

[Bebin Theros]

A gentle hold grasped round Bebin's visage, fingers that seemed to scratch into his skin, just so, with the gentle spines and teeth of fish scale and shark skin. Strange, yet so familiar. As if some ancient part of him remember such a time where such digits belonged to him. Or whatever passed as part of him in the deep he so aimlessly swam through.

Give Guernot my regards...

His eyes came open beneath the gelatinous body of the Nymphaeum's fluid. Green and strange and herbal in its translucent glow. A fluid, near amniotic, produced by the runed and shaped nymphaeus shroom growths, that made the healing chambers. It filled his lungs with a drowned breath. Instinct would have him cough. Spasm and gag. Have him desperately rise for breath. But there beneath that thick mass, viscous and near as solid as honey, he stayed. Calm and wide eyed.

A serpent neath the surface of the waters.

What answers they had found down in those treacherous depths.

Whereupon his mortal mind was set to sail, but the cutting of his sanity's silk. The sheer blade in the hand of the young knight Demiex.

Legault.

Who was like a son to them.

---

A knock came against the door of the Captain of Dusk's private study.

Selene

 

[Selene]

The lochlight of her study was low, and the stonework walls kept the air cool. This was always where Selene retreated when rest came fitfully and recovery slow.

Her starsilk cloak was draped over her, but the folds were only dull blue, whatever magics gave the fabric its sheen depleted now. Selene shifted under it as a knock rapped at her door. A pain echoed in her side, old now, but the memory of it still fresh. She stood, silk falling to the floor, and took the long trip up the stairway to her study entrance. It was probably Parshen, come to check on her again.

"Thank you, but I'm doing jus--" Selene stopped abruptly as she opened the door. The figure who stood in her doorway was not that of the lanky librarian's.

Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. A strange feeling bubbled up in her chest. Not sorrow. Memory, perhaps. She had spent so long dreaming about him. And now, here he was, in front of her after so many weeks. Years, even.

"Bebin." In a rush of fabric, Selene crashed against broad man. Hands found shoulder blades as she squeezed her arms up his back, dug into him. The thick, medicinal scent of the Nymphaeum clung to his skin. But underneath that was warm sun and fertile earth. Oh, why had she ever stopped touching him? Even when he pulled away.

"I'm sorry," Selene said with shaking breath. She pressed her face into him, and her words vibrated against his chest. "I am sorry I sent you to find Legault alone."

 

[Bebin Theros]

His arms wrapped firm around her, bones of his arm pressed against the bones of her body, their muscle and flesh pressed with the pressure of the embrace. The scent of candle smoke clung to her. Clean wax, scented with lavender and sage.

"You did what you thought was best, Selene," he said as he curled about her with what strength his limbs still had, so freshly out of the healing vats. He felt frail. Lacking. As if a strong wind could blow him down. Yet she held on to him. Rooted him to this place.

To the waking world.

"I am sorry I could not bring him back," he confessed, bowed his head to hers, and took in what warmth she gave him. They had seen so much beneath the surface of the Loch. Adrift as they had been.

"How long was I gone?" He asked. His hair tied loosely back, his robes, those that the attendant could offer him. It looked as if he had just crawled out of the Nymphaeum and come straight here. Disheveled and malnourished as he was.

 

[Selene]

They shared the embrace, in the archway of the ruined outbuilding, as twin moons filtered down through the broken roof. She wanted to stay like that longer, take in every sensation. The heat of his breath as he bent his head down low, the brush of cold, wet hair against her knuckles.

But Bebin asked his question, and Selene loosened her grip, sliding half away to look at him. "Nearly two weeks," she said. Longer than he had ever been lost before. "Some things have come to light, in that time. There are more pressing matters to attend to. Wherever Legault is--"

We must trust him. A pained expression crossed Selene's face. She bit down the words, stray as they were.

"We cannot look for him now."

Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

It was a sobering thing to hear.

What felt like but minutes and hours, what spanned decades of memories. “Two weeks,” he repeated.

It was no wonder then, that his limbs felt so weak. That he leaned against her, so wanting for her support, and she gave in kind. Her hands dug into the withered muscles of his back. His own weight felt almost a burden.

We cannot look for him now. She affirmed that which panged at the back of his mind.

“No,” he replied, and snaked his arms about her once more. Held her close, for he had found strength in her body, pressed against his as it had been. “We must look after ourselves now,” he bowed his head, let his forehead rest against her crown. “I only wonder, why,” he began to ask. “Why did I let so much pass between us before I told you how I really felt, Selene,”

Selene

 

[Selene]

As she withdrew, as she became lost in those doubts that threatened to overwhelm her, Selene felt Bebin's arms pull her back in. Together, they held one another up.

Despite everything, Selene smiled, nuzzled into the scruff of his neck as she was. "More still, will pass," she said, turning her head to speak. From there, she could hear Bebin's heart. Beating hard against the weakness of his limbs, yet he held her firm. "So, say it now."

Bebin Theros

 

[Bebin Theros]

He rest his cheek against her, twined in each other's arms as they were. A sound rumbled in his throat. Proud creature that he was. Strange and coiled as he so often felt. To share his affections did not come easy. "I love you, Selene," he confessed. Felt ease spread across his tense shoulders. Felt some of the ache bleed from the pains in his spine.

"I... I let my fear keep me from this truth. I hid it beneath the layers of all I thought proper," he bowed his head to her, let his brow kiss the comet upon hers as he closed his eyes. Remembered those days long past, where both were young and more full of life. Less burdened by the responsibilities of rank and station. He shook his head. "But it is such a simple thing I hid from," his eyes came open, dark as flint as they stared into the black pools of her own. Bottomless. How much they drank in.

 

[Selene]

How hard Selene had tried, to make herself unlovable. How much distance she had put between others, how far she had gone to convince herself that she did not need to burden anyone with her curse.

Yet, Bebin's words reached her. And they did not feel like a burden. Just the opposite.

"You regret those days past," she said, tilting her head up. The scruff of his beard scratched against her, a ticklish thing. "Don't. It has been enough, to have you by my side." She pulled away, only to shift closer to him, raising a hand to rest at the nape of his neck. Looked into his eyes, black in the shade of night, but not like hers. Warm, and changing. "I love you too, Bebin."

Bebin Theros