Private Tales Many Forms of Thirst

[Gerra]

He watched her steel herself, bracing, as if she expected to weather a strong wind. Fear in her amber eyes, yes, but bravery too - for one cannot have courage without terror. She did not let it overwhelm her, but plowed on, like the stern of a ship cutting through the towering waves of the ocean.

"What happened?" he asked, though he thought he might know the answer. Better it come from her. Better she see it as an admission.

 

[Kailyn]

She held his gaze, those molten eyes set within dark skin. Always something so enigmatic behind those eyes. Kailyn cast her eyes downward, no longer a slave but unable to shake a life-hood of being one.

"Something like this happened," she said hesitantly and held up the paper she'd gripped so tightly in one hand. On it, Gerra would see a sketch of a wine glass. The sketch was very good, evident by an artistic hand. But it wasn't the sketch that was so interesting. It was when Kailyn's hand temporarily disappeared into the parchment only to re-emerge holding the real thing.

The paper she held up now was blank - as if nothing was ever drawn on it at all.

Slender-digits delicately gripped the curve of the glass, the sun of the gardens glinting along the very real surface.

"What's wrong with me?" Kailyn whispered to the god-king.

 

[Gerra]

A dark brow arched.

Gently, Gerra took the glass from her and examined it, holding it up so that the sun’s rays glittered through it.

“Fascinating,” he murmured, “What is wrong with you? Well, it would appear that you desire wine and have none. This can be easily remedied.”

Broad lips quirked in a half-smile.

“You have power, Kailyn. We all bear its weight differently. Whether it is gift or curse, that is for you to decide.”

 

[Kailyn]

"Fascinating," she whispered, voice clenched. The blank paper dropped from her hand and settled upon the manicured lawn of the garden. Kailyn let herself drop to an empty bench, fingers cradling her face as her digits dragged across her skin. Ribbons of brown hair flopped across her gaze and she made no move to tuck away errant strands.

And wine. Ha. Something she'd never had with her past as a slave. That was a luxury slaves weren't typically granted. And Kailyn told herself she preferred a clear head.

"I just don't understand," voice was muffled beneath her hands as her shoulder lifted in a long sigh. "Why is this happening now? If I'd known," voice trailed off. Would she have been in slavery so long? Would she have been able to have freedom earlier.

Brow pinched in frustration.

"Maybe things would've been different. And I don't know anything about magic."

 

[Gerra]

The emperor sat beside her on the bench.

“We cannot change the past, Kailyn.”

He still held the glass in his hand. His brow furrowed in concentration. The ashen skin of his hand suddenly came alive, veins glowing red beneath the skin like streams of magma. Steam rose from where he held the glass and it began to melt. Continuing to frown, he manipulated the molten glass between the figures of his hands.

“But we can use what we have discovered...”

His fingers stopped moving. In his palm lay a rose of glass, still glowing cherry red.

“To change the future.”

Smiling, Gerra blew on the rose and the glow faded, leaving only the cool, crystalline flower. He held it out to her.

 

[Kailyn]

Honeyed-eyes peeked between cracked fingers and ribbons of brown hair as Gerra worked his own magic. She felt the same sensation she'd felt when she'd been so close in the tent with him when they'd first met a few short weeks ago. Was it his magic she sensed?

She'd never been around it much and found it to be an odd, tugging sensation.

When like called to like?

Perhaps it was okay to be in awe of magic. She hoped she wouldn't get to a point where she dismissed the beauty behind it. Saw it as part of the ordinary and mundane. Fingers fell from her face, head tilted up. She eyed that cooled crystal, a part of her still hesitant to touch what had just been smoldering and nearly liquefied.

Hesitantly, she reached out and took what Gerra offered with ink and charcoal-smudged fingers.

"It's beautiful," she said quietly, thumb running across the smoothed and shaped glass. She turned to him, eyes having to track upward in order to capture that gaze of his. "Is this what you can do, manipulate heat and fire? How did you learn to use it?"

 

[Gerra]

“Yes, in part. My father...”

His brows drew down into a frown. He looked off into the distant blue sky above them.

“He is a fire giant. I inherited many things from him.” There was pain beneath the surface of his voice. Old and lingering wounds, much festered, that rotted at the heart around them. “This is one.”

Reaching out, he rested a hand on Kailyn’s shoulder.

“Do not be afraid of the novelty of your magic. You are safe here.”

 

[Kailyn]

Honeyed-eyes looked up at the sudden warmth and weight on her shoulder. Grass shifted beneath her feet. She saw pain there. Like herself, he was not immune to it. From a hard childhood. Then again? The things they experienced made them who they were.

Didn't it?

"You can't promise that," she said slowly. Not angrily. Just speaking from experience. A heavy reflection. "I've been living in these lands the last seven years. Rulers came and went. Bickered. Thought they were safe and had it all only to fall from another. Power never means safety."

Bending slightly at the waist, she snatched up that paper from the manicured lawn. Brown, sun-lit hair feathered across her face and shoulder and she pressed that glass rose back into the parchment. Elegant fingers withdrew, glowing slightly as they left the parchment, leaving the image of a flat, glass rose behind.

"How would I learn how to control this?" Eyes flickered up between a curtain of brown and mahogany.

 

[Gerra]

“It is a dangerous question,” Gerra said softly. “You are right that power never truly comes with safety. Others will offer to teach you and flatter you with silver tongues, seeking to control you. Perhaps even my own viziers. You must be careful. You are new to this sphere, but most of them have been playing with power since the moment they were born.”

The hand on her shoulder moved, tucking her stray hair back behind one ear.

“And you are right to say that I cannot make such a promise. But I will, even if it is a lie. Because you are precious to me, Kailyn.”

 

[Kailyn]

Kailyn's thoughts drifted to Medja. She'd already had a girl's night with several prominent women. Some in Gerra's retinue. Some not but perhaps planning to be. Or choosing to be. If choice wasn't an illusion.

That warmth of his sparked along her cheek and tip of her ear. Heart quickened in her chest. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't attracted to him. That smoky, dark skin. Eyes that burned but could ease back to something more of a warmer glow.

But she was playing with fire.

Brows scrunched along fair skin as she set that paper down in her lap. But her gaze remained locked with Gerra's. Observant. Hesitant.

"Why? You hardly know me. And you have yet to answer my question about getting help with this. You would not trust your own people?" Hand lifted, charcoal smudged fingers raising between them. Fingertips wriggled in the air. A stubborn tilt of her chin. There was anxiety beneath the surface of stubbornness. It was clear this magic - power, made her uncomfortable.

 

[Gerra]

“Trust?” he smiled, then reached out taking her raised hand in his own.

He examined the ink stains on skin that felt soft beneath his own calloused fingers, inter and unlacing their fingers.

“Few have my trust. Uvogin does. Can I trust you?”

His forehead wrinkled in a frown.

“I would send you to Medja, to learn. But she will want to use you Kailyn. And I am afraid of what she might turn you into. That is why I ask can I trust you. But I think it’s more important to ask... can you trust yourself to find your way through that maze?”

 

[Kailyn]

She blinked and stared.

That name again.

Was he truly here? The Uvogin from her past? The one that had survived with her on the hellhole dump of Cerak At'Thul? Where eating a rate was considered a hearty meal that could last for days.

Lips parted then closed.

Feathered ribbons of mahogany shifted on the back of her shoulders. Funny that his warmth made little shivers go down her skin. Not shivers of fear, something else. That same tattoo she shared with Uvogin showed on her wrist as he moved his fingers through her own. She didn't stop him either. She just hoped he couldn't feel the quickening of her pulse through her fingers.

"I...met Medja recently. She seems very powerful." And intoxicating. Her thumb brushed along his wrist. It still surprised her that he didn't physically burn. Especially with those twin suns in his eyes.

"And you know my answer," she whispered and squeezed his hand in return. "Would you use me? Turn me into something else?"

 

[Gerra]

Would she understand? An educated slave, untainted by the politicking of court. Not naive, she had suffered too much for that, but pure in the way a long day of smithing at the forge was pure. All that mattered was the work, the sweat, the satisfaction of a job well done. Never mind that the horse shoes might one day be used to trample men down, or that the sword would hew men apart. None of those mattered in the moment.

Her amber eyes watched him. He looked down at her hand held in his. With his other hand, he traced the tattoo on her wrist.

“No.” He whispered. “Never.”

Then he kissed her.

 

[Kailyn]

Lips found his. Her free hand hesitated before curling into the fabric of his shirt along his side. He had to come down to meet her. Even if she was tall by human standards, which she wasn't. She wasn't short either. But she'd never measure up to a fire-giant.

For a moment, she remembered her fellow slave's voiced concerns about what it would be like kissing him. She found that it didn't burn. His heat was tempered. For now.

Would he feel her warm breath on his lips? The heat he tendered that went beyond the warmth his skin radiated. She felt heady, like she had after those two glasses of wine. The world seemed to tilt. She'd just learned she had magic. She was in the presence of someone with as many stories about his kindness as there were about his wrath. She'd only been free for about a month. And a part of her still questioned how free she was.

She knew she was among strangers, vipers, and lions.

That's how she'd felt in the presence of those other women, at least, at the beginning.

And here was someone who many would call a monster. Perhaps he, himself. But as her lips pressed against his own, fingers digging into his warm side, she knew she'd taken the first sip of a drug that would be hard to walk away from.

 

[Gerra]

They kissed hungrily, her taste sweet, tart. One hand holding hers, the other reached around to the small of her back and pulled her closer into him, tracing the curve of her spine through her red dress.

Her fingers dug into his tunic, a sensation that impossibly both barely seemed to register and that he was acutely aware of beneath the barrage of sensations. He trailed kisses across her cheek, neck, and into her hair, warmed by the sun's touch. She smelled like vanilla, rarest of spices, and something else he could not place.

How long, he wondered, before she turned against him? How long could this moment last? Before she became like Maho. Before Medja bent her to her will. Before she fled like the others before her. How long? How long could this moment last, crystallized, a painting trapped in time? Could she place them in her book too? But then, that would not be true art.

True art was painful. Fleeting. Momentary splashes of color on the canvas of life. Melancholy blues and bursts of joyful green. Agonizing reds and triumphant yellows.

So, for countless beats of their racing hearts, they painted on each other in hues of desire and shades of rapture.

 

[Kailyn]

A soft whimper left parted lips as his mouth trailed along her skin. Throat tilted back, exposed as he enveloped her into his warmth. Heart thud against her ribcage like a trapped bird, beating the bars to get out. Fingers traced the lines of hard muscles beneath his tunic, an artist finding every bump, curve, and imperfection beneath that fabric.

A part of her mind felt as though she were suffering from heat exhaustion.

The other part of her mind heady with the drug that was Gerra - didn't care. She just wanted more. Her legs trembled.

"Wait," she whispered against his mouth after capturing his lips one more time. She pulled back slightly. "I need time," she swayed against him like a flower in the wind. "I just got my freedom. I just found out about my magic. And," eyes like honeyed-mead opened further, settling on his smoldering coals.

"I want to paint you."

 

[Gerra]

She fluttered against him, trembling, utterly under his power. Then she stopped him. He pulled back, reluctant, images of them writhing together on the grass flooding his mind.

“Paint?” he rasped, a little frown appearing on his brow.

He still had his arm around her and enjoyed the feel of her warmth against him. He did not particularly want to let go.

“Uhm, yes. But you won’t... pull a second me off the canvas will you? It would cause... problems.”

Again.

One doppelgänger causing trouble in the empire was enough, thank you very much.

 

[Kailyn]

That hand that had wrapped around his own fingers, released them and moved upward to cup his warm face. Fingers spread along the contours of his rough and chiseled cheek. Thumb brushed briefly over the corners of his mouth. Pale hues of light over a deep darkness.

She wondered if he felt her warmth or did it seem like a coolness?

"You trust me, don't you?" Voice a throaty whisper as she looked up at him. "Meet me here in one week. Just before sunset. Unless you had another spot in mind?"

The colors would be prime then. The golden hour.

Throat cleared as she tried to steel her resolve to pull away from his embrace.

"And if it makes you feel any better, it would only be a mini you running around."

A brief, devilish smirk and glint in her eyes.

 

[Gerra]

He snorted.

“An imp? How terrifying.”

Her touch was cool and soft on his cheek. He wanted to close his eyes and enjoy the moment, but she pulled away from him.

A week? A week seemed like forever.

“Mmm, very well. In the meantime, I will look for someone suitable to train you.”

***

One week later, Gerra arrived back at the gardens. The sun’s waning rays cast a pink and golden hue across the clouds. He wore only his loose, black thawb and pants. Anything else seemed garish for this and he enjoyed the simplicity of the Abtati garments.

 

[Kailyn]

Kailyn was already set up. There was an easel set-up facing that same bench where Gerra had stolen a kiss. She had a dark, brown smock tied on over a simple white dress. The smock had plenty of pockets and she already had various painting brushes sticking out.

There was a spark of light in her amber eyes as he came into view.

A part of her wondered if he'd actually show. Being emperor and all that. Being a man of many wives and other pursuits.

"I don't know if I've ever seen you so casual," she commented quietly, letting her eyes search his form and up to his face.

 

[Gerra]

A brow rose.

“Am I not always casual?”

It seemed like an age since he had last seen those amber eyes framed by brown, sun-touched tresses. The days had crept along slowly, even with his schedule full to brimming with councils and inspections and throne room hearings. Yet in the spare moments he thought only of...

The emperor smiled slightly.

 

[Kailyn]

She blinked at him. A gaze that was hard to read an expression from held his.

"Perhaps not when you are freeing slaves from sieged cities." Hair was bound back loosely. "Now let's see." She stepped forward almost shyly. Her hands moved forward and cupped his wrist gently. An ex-slave attempted to lead a giant. She went to position him on the bench. If he sat, she'd move around to his shoulders, fingers gently tilting his head and neck so the best light swathed across his face.

"Do you think you can hold this position for awhile?"

 

[Gerra]

“How long is a while?” he said from where he sat, “They might call me a god, but I do still need good and water you know.“

He wondered what she was thinking.

“How is your training going? I hope you don’t mind his environs, but Gaheris comes highly recommended. Not always the most patient of teachers, though.”

 

[Kailyn]

"Until I say you can move." A twitching smirk at the corner of her mouth. "Are you not used to taking orders from someone else, Lord Gerra?" She pressed a quick, small kiss along his cheek and moved moved back before he had a chance to react.

Bare feet took her behind her set-up canvas.

She had a small wooden board, which she held up. A hue of paints were already mixed along the edges. Fingers plucked one of the long brushes from her apron's pocket. Honeyed-eyes ducked downward as she answered the Emperor's question.

"I'm not sure if our desires align," she said quietly. "You didn't tell me I"d be walking into a room full of gore and body parts." Accusatory gaze looked up at him as she mixed a dark red with a deeper brown.

 

[Gerra]

A brow arched, then lowered at the look from her. Composure, right.

"He is a mortician." Gerra frowned. "He oversees the burials and embalming of nobility. I did not think he would show you his work."

In truth, the Emperor had not given it much thought. He had seen the horrors of warfare. Piles of bodies rotting in the sun. Charred corpses that disintegrated at the touch. Perhaps he had become too numb to the sight of blood.

His eyes flicked down to her bare feet. He wondered if she always painted barefoot. He knew some soldiers who preferred to fight that way.