Completed Licking Love Off of Knives

[Erland Karr]

“I’m sorry. Is it hard to think about?” Perhaps she should have asked that first.

"It is," he said plainly. There was no accusation in his tone, no regret. That in itself spoke a great deal.

"You may ask anything."

It had been asked before, but he hadn't thought that anyone was truly interested in his tale. Erland had skimmed around it.

Everleigh had him digging into that string of memories. It felt like yesterday and yet also like a decade ago.

Erland looked down at her hand against his. A gentle curl of his fingers and they were locked together. He didn't deserve her gentle touch and affection.

She was not here for his benefit. The only thing he was supposed to take from these encounters was the coin they deigned to let him keep.

"It is okay to talk of it," he said. "I like you touching me like this. Ask what you want if Erland."

Any other day and the permission granted would have been for anything she could have imagine upon these furs. Today it was permission to satisfy any curiosity, as long as she let him lean into her touch.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

Unlike last time now it was Everleigh comforting Erland. Instead of a hug, she held his hand and soothingly ran her thumb over the shape of his cheek and jaw. Instead of letting her sleep on him, it was her anchoring him to this bed and the furs and herself.

“Maybe you should be laying your head in my lap. I could play with your hair, maybe even braid it?” She said with a teasing grin, still not relinquishing her touch from his own skin. If he enjoyed it, who was she to take this small pleasure away from him? Besides, she wanted to know more about him. She wanted to know the things that lay beneath the flesh, the things she would never be able to touch.

“What was it like, when you were captured? Where did they take you? Why did they bring you here?” He did say she could ask whatever she wanted, why not give him three questions to answer.

Erland Karr

 

[Erland Karr]

"You smile, but any man should go into fight with hair that is good," Erland replied.

"Our leader...ah... If any man did not have clean armour and weapons, nest beard and good hair..."

Erland shook his head. He wanted his warriors to look fierce, but the nordenfiir also had high standards of personal hygiene. The group bordered on the vain, but they were proud of themselves.

Erland shuffled across the cot, and rested his head against her lap. Whether she actually went through with her threat was up to her.

"Lithund, our leader, he was one of the first to fall. They were hiding over a hill. We were...alone and then they were there. Coming down at us.

"Lithund formed a line and we met them. But they had more. Many more. They did not break. We did."

"Then it was a run. Some made the woods. We did not. I was svalen, I was bleeding. I woke in chains.

"I do not know why I is here. Am here. They talk of killing me where all could see. The...showed me to people on streets. They mark me."

He toughed his thigh. The magic block.

"Then not dead. Taken here. Still in chains. Women come. Some men come. Erland understands what they want of him."

"But now is...not so bad. They forget. I can walk outside."

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

With his head in her lap, Everleigh remembered how it had felt when Zael had done the same so long ago. Erland’s voice brought her back to the present and with cold fingertips she made sure Erland’s brow was free of his blonde hair. She didn’t have much snark left in her heart to begin playing with his hair as he told her his story.

Once again she was struck by the thought how she’d rather die than do something like this. She’d bite off her tongue and bleed to death. It was some dormant fear, she was intelligent, powerful, charming, capable and tenacious— wouldn’t it be such a waste for her to just wither away as some whore locked away in a brothel in Vel Luin?

Wasn’t it such a waste for Erland?

“How can you say that? That it’s not so bad? It’s awful. It’s cruel. You’re not a animal to be chained and used for other’s pleasure.” Even if she herself had first come here because of the pleasure offered. “Don’t you miss your freedom?”

Erland Karr

 

[Erland Karr]

"Of course I do," Erland said quietly.

These were things he was not meant to say. He trusted Everleigh enough that he could be honest without her relaying his feelings. That would have led to a punishment.

"I..."

He respected her ferocity. He imagined she would have been a demon in battle, which only added to his own enjoyment when he had her beneath his grip.

"I suppose...I just kept living."

It hadn't even been a real conscious choice. They had taken him, hurt him and used him. And Erland had just kept going.

"You think less of Erland for saying 'not so bad'?" he asked her.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

There was a pause as Everleigh looked down at Erland— which was strangely annoying to do now with his head on her lap as she had to lean her neck out to look over her chest for their eyes to meet.

“No, I don’t.” She said finally. Her fingers were caressing his forehead before a single finger to follow the straight line of his eyebrow and smooth the hair out there as well. “It’s just… sometimes it hurts looking at you and hearing your words because all I see and hear is myself.”

She was a hypocrite after all, wasn’t she? Telling Caeso Diemut to forgive himself when she had to punish herself for these feelings of guilt and shame to pretend that she was actually doing something. She had taken a step forward to only take many, many steps back and yet here she was, correcting Erland’s thoughts and feelings as if she weren’t also in between a rock and a hard spot.

“Never being true to ourselves is such a waste of life. We both don’t want to live like this, do we?”

Erland Karr

 

[Erland Karr]

Erland twisted around so that he could look up at Everleigh. Every conversation had gone a little deeper into their lives. Into where they had come from and how they lived now.

Everyone opened up to him eventually, but usually he was just a patient set of ears. No one expected a serious discussion.

"I do not think...think I would have thought of that. Thought of the same."

In hindsight, it was quite obvious. Not every cage was obvious. He boasted of freedom to explore the walled district, but he knew he was stuck here. Maybe there was a chance, but some of the fire he needed had been extinguished.

" What would you be? Where would you be? If you could."

Erland reached up, two fingers gently coming to rest against her temple, his walm palm to her cheek.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

Everleigh would have never once thought about comparing herself to a whore, but he was much more than that, wasn’t he? Erland was a warrior, but not just any warrior: Nordenfiir. He was caged but they couldn’t quite strip him of the knowledge of what he was.

Maybe he had come across some shitty dreadlords or normal guardsmen. Everleigh had fought tooth and nail to keep some semblance of humanity hidden inside her, even if back then she hadn’t realized what she was doing. Or maybe there was this idea of self that could not be dismantled no matter how hard someone tried.

Everleigh was only barely dipping into the indomitable ocean that was Erland; so deep and great that even things would remain a mystery to Erland. Even if she devoted every second from now to the end of his life (perhaps foolishly, she very much believed she’d outlive him) there was no way for Everleigh to know Erland so wholly and completely. It was a strange thought that made her consider herself, the seen and unseen.

“What I would be?” What could she be? She was a magical child born to a foreigner and a traveling butcher in Vel Anir. Dreadlord. That word had formerly seemed to be glorious and powerful, just like the word hero; now she could no longer see it as such. A Dreadlord was not, as Everleigh had assumed, simply what she was but it was what she had to become. Even the title given to her, Third-Level Dreadlord, was something she was becoming.

It was too late to stop the metamorphosis, it had taken place and now all she could was look back on the last vestiges of girlish innocence. She was a butterfly already beginning the achingly slow and dangerously daunting task of shedding the cocoon that the Academy had wrapped her in.

“A freed Dreadlord.” And where would she be? Where else but—“By his side.” There was no other place she’d rather be. Give her any battlefield, any foe, or any journey, if he was by her side then there would be no force great and mighty enough to stop them. Thoughts of him always brought a smile to her face.

The feelings she had felt with Caeso resurfaced.

“Maybe I’ll just take back my freedom.” She whispered.

Erland Karr

 

[Erland Karr]

He cared about what she had to say. Erland had become fond - in different ways - of several clients. For someone who had just been told that he was difficult to look at, he was hanging on her words.

A reflection of herself. It was not as easy for Erland to see it, he did not think, but he was coming around to her perspective.

His thumb idly stroked back and forth across her cheek as she formed her answer. Erland waited patiently.

"That sounds like a good place for you to be," Erland replied. "You should take that future. For you."

He enjoyed watching that smile. It was not for him, but he could still be witness to it and catch the surprising warmth it brought to her. Perhaps tonight if they did more than talk she would spent more time with eyes closed in fantasy than usual.

"You are strong, but walk careful."

A lesson of his own discovery.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

“I’m always careful.” Everleigh said, feeling silly for admitting such truth to Erland but if she couldn’t tell him the truth, then who? With Zael gone, there was no one else she could trust.

“But if you’re worried about me being careful, then come with. One last big fuck you to Vel Anir.” And there seemed to be some sort of poetic justice to that idea.

Erland Karr

 

[Erland Karr]

"With you?" Erland asked, the question rhetorical.

He was shocked by the question. His thoughts and feelings pulled in several directions at once.

It was an exciting thought. To be beside her and leaving this place, these people behind. They had destroyed his future, killed his friends.

But he was also afraid. When Erland looked inside, he realised he was actually frightened of losing the scraps of a life he had regathered.

What kind of coward did that make him? How pathetic had be become?

"You would really do that for me?"

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

Everleigh paused because of his question. Would she really do it for him? She could do it for herself because she wanted to feel like she was doing some good. Doing for something for herself was much different than doing something for someone else.

It was much easier to do it for herself because if she failed, she could pretend she had never really wanted it that bad. But if she did something for someone else, got their hopes up, and failed then? She could lie to herself but she couldn’t expect another to lie for her. She couldn’t expect another lie to themselves.

“I’m very good at being sneaky. Not a brawler like you.” She said with a wry smile to hide the uncertainty in her eyes. Sneaking a whore from a brothel? Someone that had clearly done something to warrant an arrest, she’d choose them over Vel Anir? It nearly made her sick that she could do that for Erland when she didn’t have the grit to do it for Zael.

But now she would because she had changed. She was still changing.

“I pay for you, we sneak out to the garden… you know what, I’ll come up with the plan— you don’t need to worry about the details. Heck, I know a person or two who’s a genius with runes. We get that thing off of you, get you home, easiest thing I’d have done in a long time.” Everleigh shrugged.

Erland Karr

 

[Erland Karr]

"It all sounds so...easy," Erland replied. He smiled at her, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.

Erland placed a warm hand against her cheek. Their relationship was built on small transactions. Coin passed to him and in return he listened to her. Her base needs, that he satisfied so well, had become secondary.

Still, there was real affection in this gentle touch.

"And yer, Everleigh, I am afraid," he admitted. "What have I become? What did they do to me?" he asked.

He should have been tearing down the walls of this building with his bare hands. He should at least have been clinging to this hope and mentally discarding the shameful life they had forced him to live.

When had he mentally settled into this routine and accepted it? Erland couldn't even think of a single point.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

It did sound easy, but Everleigh wasn’t sure if telling Erland what difficulties there were would convince him. He should have learned by now of her contrarian ways and lack of honesty. Feeling his hand against her cheek, she didn’t flinch or jerk away. Being touched was far different than touching, but Erland… she could trust Erland, mostly. At least more than she could throw him, which even if she tried all her might, she wouldn’t have been able to throw him even a centimeter in the first place.

“You’re a survivor.” She said. “You became what you are now to survive. We’re the same.” Both of them had done things to survive. The first time she had even came to the brothel it was to survive, to reduce suspicion, to keep Marianne from possibly doing something to Zael. Everleigh realized now that Marianne never would have done anything to him, that she couldn’t have. And really, Everleigh had just been a coward.

They were both cowards in their own rights. Both were survivors in their own rights. And because of that, both dangerous. No one should ever trust a survivor without first asking what they had done to survive. But perhaps it was why Everleigh could trust Erland with such plans and words that would be enough for a death sentence.

“But you’re not much different from before.” She moved, gesturing to his axe and shield still hanging on the wall. “They’re broken but they can be mended. The same goes for you. Why else would you keep them all this time?”

Erland Karr

 

[Erland Karr]

"Because some women like to pretend that..."

Erland started to say. He drifted off. And looked towards the axe and shield. What he had been about to say was true. That did not rule out any other possibilities.

"They are a piece of me," he said. "You are right. I survive."

That didn't take the shame away. Erland lifted himself up from her lap. Taking a deep breath he stood up before her.

He looked to the wall, looked through the wall. He imagined how great the journey ahead of him was. He started to let go of the comforts he had come to hold on to. The fine furs, the southern wine, the fresh fruits that came through the port town.

They had taken his soul. Or at least, they had bound it.

"It is not going to be easy," he said. He imagined home through that wall. The wind sweeping the silver dust of snow from the mountains on a clear day.

"But we are going to do this thing."

He turned to look at her and ice blue had frozen with clarity.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

She nodded her head, still sitting on the bed. Everleigh watched Erland. She liked him less complacent. She liked that when she saw his blue eyes, they were clear and bright instead of muddied and dull. The Dreadlord grinned.

“Yeah. We are.” There were many things she needed to do. The hardest part was doing something when push came to shove, it was all the planning before it. The double checking, the fretting, the late-night anxiety and mornings full of dread. But she was a dreadlord for a reason. She could handle it.

She needed to handle it.

“In two months, it’ll be summer. Perfect time for traveling and blending in.” She nodded her head, a few plans already forming in her mind. She blinked. Something had just occurred to her when she thought of today’s date. “Today’s my birthday.” She realized. Everleigh was twenty-one. She had been so busy she hadn’t noticed that seventeen years at the Academy had passed. That it had been over almost a year since her graduation that she thought about daily.

Erland Karr

 

[Erland Karr]

"Yes," he agreed firmly.

In the tundra is was often the other way around. The summer could melt rivers near the coast, made some of their lands slow to traverse.

“Today’s my birthday.”

When Erland had seen something catch her thoughts, this was not the admission he had expected.

He paused, having prepared to help her think through some obstacle to plan around. Erland's shoulders rose and fell. A sigh turned into a soft smile.

Erland walked to her, he held out a hand for hers. When he took it, he dropped to his knees in front of her rather than pulling her to her feet.

He was close. One hand resting against the outside of her thigh, the other clasping her hand in her lap.

"Congratu-lations then," Erland said. It was one of the longest common words he had learned. His free hand slowly came up to cradle her cheek.

"I understand if you want to be somewhere Everleigh. Or you can stay here with me."

It was an admission that he enjoyed her company in turn, not just the coin.

"Erland is...I am very glad you came to me. You might have woken me up, Everleigh."

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

“I want to be with a friend.” Everleigh said, taking his hand. She looked at him. Then she leaned forward, kissing his forehead, then the tip of his nose and his cheek. “I want to be with you. That’s why I came, I think. Because you’re… the only one I can trust right now.” Her lips kissed his jaw, enjoying the tickle of his facial hair.

“That was a big word, you know. Congratulations.” There was humor in her tone and eyes. She barked out a weak laugh. “I’m getting older and yet I still don’t know what I know what I want in life.”

Erland Karr

 

[Erland Karr]

"Hah. Maybe one day I try and read a book in your awful southern scrawl," he said.

Erland couldn't read a full letter even in his own language, but he could recognise the most important runes.

He was not supposed to allow this to happen. Erland listened to his clients, but he was never to form real bonds with them. Nothing was ever supposed to be reciprocated.

"You are my friend," he admitted without reservation.

In the end, it was a much smaller crime than plotting his escape. He pressed his forehead to hers and dropped his voice. He kept his crystal blue gaze on hers and let them live in this private moment for just a few seconds.

"You will work it out," he said. His thumb brushed up and down her cheek. He gripped her hand gently. "You have chosen a course. For now, just know what the next few hours will be."

They were not in love. Her heart belonged to another. His heart was in a far away land. Still, this time, as he drew her hair back over her shoulder and tilted his head, Erland kissed her with a gentle kind of passion he hadn't shown her before.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

She had thought about arguing with him that knowing the next few hours wouldn’t be enough. From the moment Everleigh took a step outside of this room, and she would have to take that step sooner rather than later, everything she did would have to be calculated.

Two months was cutting it close. She’d have to ask Proctor Salak for help. She’d need to make sure Miklan would be safe. In her mind, she’d free Erland but would come back to Vel Anir to take her punishment. She felt the initiates still needed her. At the very least, Miklan did.

She had also thought about arguing over the benefits of literacy and that her “southern scrawl” was neat and tidy, but the simple confession of friendship was more than enough to put her contrarian side to rest.

Everleigh had been honest when saying she didn’t know what she wanted. Her actions had been beseeching, searching for the easy gratification of being wanted. Loneliness still had her in it’s icy grasp, filling her with nothing but emptiness. She would always hunger for touch so she could pretend it was genuine affection.

Sometimes she asked to be hurt, punished, wanting to remind herself the truth. It was thrilling and pleasurable, but afterwards, it made the guilt and shame a different sort of guilt and shame.

When Erland kissed her, something she had forbade him to ever do at their first meeting, Everleigh didn’t push him away. She felt his lips against hers and all she could think of was her last kiss to Zael.

Everleigh leaned back, all guilt and shame. She took a shaky breath as she looked into Erland’s eyes.

“I’m sorry.” She said softly. “That was my fault.” She shouldn’t have kissed his brow or cheek, to begin the dance of intimacy. “But friends don’t kiss each other, do they?” An apologetic smile as she still held onto his hand, not wanting him to leave. She had pushed Henk away after their sordid tryst which effectively ruined their friendship. She didn’t want to ruin this last beacon of companionship, too.

“And I don’t want you to do things because of my needs, ignoring yours. You’re going to be free. Maybe around me you can start trying it out.”

Erland Karr

 

[Erland Karr]

"It was my fault too," Erland said quietly.

He held her gaze, making no movement that suggested he was going to leave. He still held her small hand in his own.

"You told me not to, the first time. I should not have."

He felt a pang of regret. Not necessarily for kissing her, but for the look on her face. That touch of shame. He had not meant to cross a line.

Erland drew her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. He wanted to see if physical affection - the common language they had found - was still alright.

If she didn't pull away, he would move to sit down beside her again.

"What do you mean? 'Trying out'?" he asked. He didn't entirely follow.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

Their apologies made it awkward for her, both of them apologizing for the same thing. Everleigh couldn’t quite place why exactly kissing was off limits when sharing the same heat wasn’t. Was it because she could fool herself into believing it was only transactional? It clearly wasn’t, now that her and Erland had openly admitted their bond.

She didn’t pull away and instead made room for Erland to sit beside her. She had come to the conclusion that her aversion to their kiss was because of Zael’s words, something we’re not supposed to do, and how it made her heart thud in her chest. Both times she had kissed Zael she had felt such elation she thought she could burst.

Everleigh couldn’t say the same for Erland. What a fickle heart she had.

“I mean,” Everleigh said, ignoring the brief pause of reflection to then grin at Erland, poking his chest. “When I’m being bossy, tell me to shut up. Actually, don’t do that. Now that we’re friends I might punch you if you tell me no. But I think you should be more honest with who you are. How you feel. What you want.” She made a gesture with her hand, wrapping those two things up together. “Start being selfish instead of submissive.”

Erland Karr

 

[Erland Karr]

“When I’m being bossy, tell me to shut up. Actually, don’t do that. Now that we’re friends I might punch you if you tell me no. But I think you should be more honest with who you are. How you feel. What you want.” She made a gesture with her hand, wrapping those two things up together. “Start being selfish instead of submissive.”

It was a sign of how deeply ingrained his behaviours had become that Erland assumed this was instruction. Instruction for her benefit, a list of what she wanted from him.

It would all play out on his expression. A mask of confusion, followed by a cant of his head and an easy smile.

"I do not think you are as bossy as you think you are," Erland said.

He stood up and moved to sit beside her, but instead opted to sit on the bed behind Evie. He placed on leg on either side of her and placed his bearded chin on her shoulder. It had been a great mistake to kiss her, but he did not want her to move away from him.

"I might take time to decide what it is I want," Erland said. "I need to...to wake up."

They had overwritten his life, literally in the case of the run across his soul.

 

[Everleigh Ebersol]

She leaned back into him, getting rather comfortable. Erland was constantly hot and her skin consistently cold. Everleigh couldn’t help but to try to leech every bit of warmth that she could from the Nordenfiir.

“I don’t think I’m bossy. I think I’m right and everyone should know their place when they’re around me.” Therefore, she was not only bossy but arrogant. Even if she said it as a grin like it was a joke. “But that’s why I’m good for you.” Tilting her head towards Erland’s, she placed a cold cheek against his, even if it tickled.

“We’ll get that rune off you. Then you can decide what you want after that. You have time.” At least two months, maybe more. Everleigh had never gone deep into the delicacies and intricacies of runic magic. It hadn’t been exciting enough to catch her attention and the basics were too easy to challenge her when she was younger. Now she regretted that she had thought it beneath her.

“Is there anything you want to do right now? Within reason.”

Erland Karr

 

[Erland Karr]

"So you are bossy and always correct, but I should argue with you," Erland replied. He was clearly not being serious now.

He did not know enough of her to judge her ability to plan his escape. She seemed certain of herself. It was enough for him to latch onto.

Erland rubbed his cheek to hers, the soft bristle of his beard against her cheek.

"Warmer women when I return home," he whispered, holding her against himself.

"You should stay a little."

One hand slid up and down her thigh. A slight change in pressure and it was no longer a gentle, relaxing touch.

"Talk for a while. I will have you, if you want. Not because you paid, but because Erland wants. I know if you do not want," he added with a small shrug. He meant that he understood, rather than knew.

She had drawn the line, but the nordenfiir were more casual about what friends did and did not do.

" The next time I see you, will be when we leave?" he asked.