Private Tales Old Wounds, A Fateful Encounter

[Kailyn]

She nodded and patted the empty spot on the bench next to her as she scooted over. She took a glance around as if she was worried that they'd be ambushed. Or someone was spying on them.

Perhaps it was out of habit from being a household slave for so long.

Reluctantly, she drew her hand away from him. Giving her old friend the space he might need. Her own paint-splotched fingers rested on her thighs, pressing into the fabric of her dress. As if to pinch herself that all this was still real and not a dream.

"The night is yours." A soft smile for Vo. The kind he only used to be able to draw out of her.

 

[Halul]

He quietly obliged her and sat on the bench. Uvogin rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward.

“I guess I should start with the pits...”

The Captain explained to her about the gruesome pit fights, and how he somehow emerged as the sole survivor. The scrawny, seaweed-haired boy that had killed and killed and killed until there were none left to fight. Then he explained how a Kaliti warlord purchased him, and how he was sold to one warmonger after the other and accrued experience on several battlefields.

Eventually he escaped a losing battle and had to forge his own path, which led to several years as a mercenary. That same line of work led him to Gerra, who rewarded his faithful and dutiful service with friendship and his current position.

He sat back now, and sighed. When had he last spoken so much?

“What about you?” He looked at Kailyn. She’d grown so beautiful. He hardly recognized her. “I want to know how you ended up here.”

 

[Kailyn]

Eyes mirrored the sadness she felt at hearing all Vo had been through when she'd been torn from his side. And there was nothing she could do to stop it. Or help him. Or ease some of the things he'd gone through.

And that's what hurt the most.

She knew what they went through was what made them who they were. But that didn't mean she still didn't want to spare someone the pain and trials. She squeezed his hand then reluctantly released it as she began her story.

He'd hear of the slaving ship she'd been aboard for nearly a fortnight, shackled in chains of iron that burned her skin. Kept in the deep, dark, dank hold of a rocking ship, and the story of how she'd drawn an apple in the dirt floor next to an abati and how it had come to be. The first flash of her magic but one she didn't understand and one she thought she'd hallucinated. How she'd been sold to different families in Amol-Kalit. Her stay with the Sparrows for the last five years and how she'd survived each household.

How the men had leered at her and drunkenly grabbed her during their parties. How she'd managed to escape being dragged to their beds. How she'd learned to read and write on her own. Do trade and learn math and how she'd ended up in those escape tunnels right before Uvogin and Gerra's men had found them.

"Makes it more the miracle that you're here now. That I ran into you at all. And that you're free and...happy. Vo, please tell me that you're happy?"

 

[Halul]

Her story saddened him. Angered him. For all of her hardships, Kailyn was here, alive and well. That made him happy.

"Happy?" Images of his... friends, if you could call them that, flashed in his mind. Medja. Nymeasha. Gerra. He Captained the Immortals, Gerra's personal guard, and the Empire's deadliest fighting force. He had wealth, homes in multiple cities. But happiness, freedom even? The more he thought about either, the more he realized he was sorely lacking in both.

"I can't complain," he sighed, "What of you?"

 

[Kailyn]

She shifted uncomfortably on the bench. A shy dip of her head, fingers moving ribbons of hair behind one curved ear. Eyes finally lifted to his own int he moonlight.

She could still read him. She knew he wasn't telling her everything. He wasn't lying but he wasn't being completely open either. She used to cuff him on the arm with her fist when he did that on the island.

"I don't know," she answered slowly. "I'm happy Gerra gave me my freedom. I feel useful running his trade empire. I feel valued. But..," this time her gaze dropped and didn't lift. "I think I might be falling for the Emperor. At the same time...I don't see it ending well."

Ambers finally lifted.

"Am I such a fool Vo? I'm worried in the end he'll destroy me."

She wasn't talking physically. She meant her heart. But perhaps he'd harm more than that as well.