Private Tales The Last Resort

[Draedamyr]

"I suspect it will be one of the races with short lives who adapts quickly. The orcs would, but they are too slow to change. Still, they once controlled almost all of Arethil when they worked together. And the humans and dwarves almost wiped themselves out drawing on some kind of magic they could not control."

Draedamyr was obviously less certain it would be the humans. However, he was in full agreement that it would not be his own kind. They looked backwards, not forwards.

"I've been living in human cities for most of my life," he admitted quietly. It sent him into a moment of self reflection. Much of who he was must have been shaped by that. He didn't dwell on it for long. Most of his thoughts were taken up considering her small form bumping back against him as they followed the simple dirt track. The top of her head was just beneath his chin.

"I think its one or two nights to the next town. Can't remember it that well."

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She did not reply to his comment about living among the humans. She had already made it clear that she herself had drifted through the world like a spirit, an ephemeral soul pushed along by the winds of time. Her touch on the ages had been light enough that the mark she left was to faint to trace.

She thought on the magicks he had spoken of. All the more...sophisticated races seemed to skirt the edge of disaster by magic, elves included. Maybe not on this world, though. "Matters little to me," she said, somewhat sadly. "I will be there to watch them rise to their glorious heights...and be there when they fall." On the final day, when Azriel the Great closes the curtains...myself and those those few who remain shall be here to put everything up...

She rose in silence, for a time, the gentle motion of the great beast beneath her lulling her into a seni-torpid daze. The countryside drifted by like a dream, barely seen broadleaf blanketing hillsides.

"What was she like?" The question, sudden and unexpected, was like lightning out of a clear sky. "The woman you married, before. What kind of woman catches the interest of a warrior's stripe?"

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr had just about settled into the ride when the question cut through the silence. It didn't so much cut the silence nearly, but smash through it with the weight of a warhammer. He was glad Seska wasn't able to see the way his eyes widened.

"Well there's a question," he sighed, not shying away from quite how significant it was. "I was with Sialla for a long time. I should stick with how I saw her at first I suppose.

"She was curious. It was an insatiable curiosity. We crossed paths due to mistaken identity. She was stealing artefacts of our people that were being kept in private collections. She had lived with elves for even less time than me and wanted to find out more about our kind."

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

"Surely there were better ways to learn than through thievery," she mused aloud. It was an observation made without condemnation, though, and with more than a little understanding. Their searches might have been after different things, but the Sidhe could understand the desire to learn more. She said as much.

"Once, I spent centuries in the study of magic," she said. There was no joy in that admission, nor pride. "That is how I came to be here. The pursuit of knowledge in the arcane arts led me to be able to pierce the veil between worlds." It had allowed her to do so much more than that, though; the unbelievable power that had once been at her disposal had lengthened her life greatly. That raw, terrifying puissance still resided in her veins, close enough to touch but far too dangerous to draw upon. "Perhaps thievery is no different. Likely less destructive," she said, a nervous laugh appended a few moments after. She stared at the road in silence for a minute or two, watching the land rock by.

"Mistaken identy, you say?" She fiddled with the reins, but Respite ignored it. The beast couldn't possibly understand even a tenth of what flowed through her mind, not yet...but the tension on his strong back did not come out of physical threat. He plodded along the dusty road without any urgency at all. "Were you hunting something or someone else? If you were, sounds like you caught more than you meant to."

 

[Draedamyr]

"It required thievery or finding old ruins left behind by our people. She practised both," he mused. "It actually took some time to establish that Sialla was not the elf who had stabbed someone in a back alley. Once that had been established we had learned a little of each other and decided to learn more."

His eyes traced the horizon. There was a patch of woods ahead a distance from the road. It might make a good place to sleep for the night. These were mostly farm lands, not that he could see anyone at work. There were not so many predators around. He was more concerned by who else might be travelling the road at night.

"I don't regret that time at all. We spent centuries growing together and just as long growing apart. You can see pieces of each of us in our children, pieces given away freely."

His voice was soft and even, the melody of his past almost matching the cadence of their mount. He wished that he could see her expression to read some of how Seska reacted to his words.

A few strands of gossamer broke free and threatened to tickled his cheek. Draedamyr reached up to catch the errant threads and smoothed them back down against her hair without even thinking about it.

"I imagine that much of the art of our own magic has been lost now," he said, simply to fill the moment of silence that followed.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

Maybe he wouldn't want to see that expression, though. There were moments of joy, contemplating the closeness of two people moving through a world that was arranged against them, learning all of each others secrets and then learning more, until each was as much a part of the other. It was something that she herself had never experienced. It was seldom that she had even felt the bond of united purpose with anyone, least of all in such an intimate fashion.

The bleakness was about that very thing. Such a precious gift to have, and in the end even that, too, fell into dissolution. Nothing ever lasted forever. There were times that truth hurt very deeply, cutting to the core of what and who she was.

And, in truth, she felt a touch of jealousy. This man had had something more personal, more dear to him, than anything in her entire life. It had faded away as time marched on...but for a time, he'd held something precious. What had she held? A sword, a staff, the reins of kingdoms? How often had she stood on a balcony, overlooking a city and the lands beyond...knowing that they all belonged to her, and yet...and yet it had all proven to be empty. An occasional dalliance here and there, impulsive at best and hedonistic at worst.

But no children, no family, and ultimately no lasting mark upon the world. No piece of her soul wandered this world or another, spreading into the infinity of the future. There was only one spark that bore any semblance of self.

Just her.

She shivered at the forlorn, lonely place she had spied, and envied the elf his life filled with warmth, by comparison. For a time they traveled in silence, but it was not tense. Neither was in any particular hurry, for the one lived outside of time and the other had dwelt within it long enough to know there was no need to rush to an uncertain future.

"Dissolution," she said, and shivered again. "Much of ours is lost now, as well. Carried in a few minds alone." Like mine. The breath of power stirred in her, recalling memories where she stood in the center of a circle, guiding the flows of dozens, the power enough to melt the minds of those without the expertise and the precision to work them. Such grand art, finely woven, to be used only for death. "Some of it is best forgotten."

 

[Draedamyr]

"Perhaps for the best that the knowledge is only with a few now," he replied.

Behind her head he frowned as he realised how that sounded. He decided to do something he did not do as often as he should.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to say it like that. I didn't mean to make it seem I was glad..."

That your people have almost died out. That you are now alone and know you are responsible. He could not say these things, but neither could he let his first comment sit between them.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

"There is no need for apology," she said quickly. Perhaps too quickly, but not for the reasons he likely would think. "We do not think like that. Not as a people, not as a whole."

How could she explain? Humans thought of themselves as a monolithic group at times, and certainly the elves did. The orcs. The dwarves. In fact the majority of the peoples alive now thought in such a manner, to a greater or lesser degree. The Sidhe did not. There was a reason that they were a fading memory, an echo from the past that just refused to fade to silence.

How could she explain to someone who thought so differently? Her peoples thought process was as different to his as his was to the short lived races.

A desire to try was something at least. "Our civilization peaked long, long ago. We wrought terrible destruction, and something within us - my people as a whole - was left irreparably shattered. There has not been a kingdom, a city, even a village of Sidhe make in at least fifty thousand years. There hasn't been one of our number as even a ruler of a diverse realm in twenty or more." She leaned into him, taking strength from his presence and not knowing why. Facing the dissolution of her own kind was...chilling. "We have long since become atomized, cast to the four winds while our works fade."

As yours will, some day. Draedmyr had cast his own seed to the winds, and his own people had not fallen into the same dissolution hers had, yet at least.

 

[Draedamyr]

Without thinking about it, he wrapped an arm around her waist as she leaned back into him. Draedamyr was quite tall for one of his kind, his arm reaching around her body easily. Just as when he had carried her up that ridge the contact made her slight form even more apparent.

Her tone and the change in direction of the conversation moved them easily past his awkward verbal stumble.

"Are there even any of your kind who still use their power to carve out little fifedoms of their own?" he asked. "Sorry," he apologised, but this time in a much more casual manner. "I'm a mage hunter by trade"

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She stiffened for a moment at the more personal contact...and then relaxed. It had been a long time since she had been this close to another, physically anyway. Leaning into someone was one thing, but...

She shook her head. "If they have, then they are mad. The worst have been hunted down by others of my kind, and myself, years ago." She shuddered at the memories. Dissolution. It was difficult to see the yawning abyss within each of those tormented souls. It was even more terrifying to face them when their will to live had been broken, and their willingness to do violence exceeded their capacity to withstand it.

"I pray that I never have to still another of my kind again," she whispered. A slight tremor in her voice could have been fear at the prospect, but was certainly not sadness. Atomized, they were, not of a civilization but of a collection of individuals with wildly disparate beliefs. Except two: the ascendancy of the Art and the futility of society.

She stirred. "You say that a lot. You are not lulling me into a false sense of security and...vulnerability, just so you can dispose of me later....are you?" It was delivered playfully, and clearly so.

 

[Draedamyr]

"Oh definitely. You have quite the bounty on your head. Frankly it would have felt terribly unsporting to do anything about it whilst you were bed bound for all those nights," Draedamyr replied.

He had felt her initial reaction to his arm, but with no complaint coming he decided to leave it where it was.

"Those trees should do to make camp," he suggested as they started to approach the point where they would have to turn from the road.

"And now for my next subtle step towards your bounty through discovering your weaknesses. You've started using magic again, but I assume you'll avoid using it too much for another few days whilst you're recovering?"

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She laughed softly, a throaty affair that sounded odd in the harmonics of her voice. She could not imagine any universe where the man she rode with would kill someone defenseless in their sleep. She really did not know him well enough to say that with a certainty, obviously, but everything she had seen along with her own intuition said it was so.

She looked to the location he had indicated. It was off of the road enough that once their fire was out for the evening, it would be unlikely that anyone would bother them unless they called attention to themselves. Not a likely event, that. The copse would offer a modicum of privacy without sacrificing the ability to see threats approaching. She nodded in agreement at the suggestion.

The sun was already slipping to the horizon. It was difficult to imagine where the day had gone off to.

"I won't be doing anything like I did with the demon," she replied lightly. It was a shame that the best he had seen of her was the ham-fisted, over-the-top usage of power used in the red mists. "I prefer more subtle uses anyway. It will be months of recovery before I am back to my full strength in any case."

A measure of trust, to admit so much. But she felt...safe, in his presence.

 

[Draedamyr]

"Excellent, plenty of time to plan my next move then," the elf replied, continuing the game. He immediately wondered if it was one step too far and becoming stale.

At times Draedamyr had thought that he could still see that beam of light when he closed his eyes. Just as a streak of lightning was etched into your vision when you blinked after the flash. Eventually he had decided it was merely his imagination.

"I'm going to admit now that I am not the best at making a fire," he said as they turned from the road. For Respite the terrain was barely more difficult than the dirt track they had been on.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

"Simple fire is no issue for me," she said, and then leaned back into the elf, canting her head back so that she could almost, but not quite, see his face. Those luminous eyes, pale purple, seemed to swim with mirth. "I have an affinity to Fire, and to Lightning as well," she said...and then gasped, and giggled. Actually giggled! Her! "Oh, no! And now you have another chink in my armor!"

The horse picked its own way with no input from her. The ground cover was low, and it was the effort of a moment to draw upon the inner reserves, calling upon the very air itself to bend knee and obey. With a casual gesture, debris on the ground among the copse of trees moved as if brushed aside by an invisible broom, leaving clear and relatively smooth ground behind. "I do not do manual labor, though," she admitted.

 

[Draedamyr]

It was a glorious melody to hear. A genuine stretch of spontaneous laughter after all the darkness they had shared. That she had shared, really. He knew that being in a low spot could not quite compared to the past she had revealed to him. Draedamyr looked back down at her, committing the moment to memory, studying every last fleck of lavender petal in her eyes.

"Well, why would you?" he replied as she swept the path ahead of them clear. The break in eye contact was not enough respite to truly wrangle with his new feelings. As an elf he was acutely aware of his emotions, but they did not normally catch him off guard so suddenly. They hadn't for many years at least.

"I will however offer to fetch some kindling."

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

"See that you do," she replied, a trifle unsteadily. She had seen something reflected in the elf's eyes that she did not recognize, but it stirred something within her all the same. Some things do not require understanding on a conscious level, perhaps.

The sweet flow of power remaiend within her, lightly dancing through her veins. It was a welcome distraction from the complex thoughts within, the confusion of impressions and half-glimpsed truths. Absently, she sent threads of wind along, caressing stones in the ground and prying them loose to drift a few inches above the clean-swept dirt. They marched along like ducklings chasing their mother, ringing about to form a fire ring. The effort was surprisingly draining, but it was manageable so long as she didn't get carried away.

The menial chores allowed her moments to think about her feelings. They were still as tangled a knot as before. At least she had finally allowed herself to see what it was that was causing her so much trouble; at the heart of the swirling emotion was one man. Her erstwhile companion conjured in her feelings that she did not necessarily know how to deal with, nor even why they existed in the first place.

Thousands of years spent mostly alone...and then this. Presumably she had to have felt this strange amalgamation of feelings at some point in the past, but she could not recall. It left her feeling strangely vulnerable, but at the same time an undercurrent of excitement existed.

She was unsaddling the horse, their supplies already neatly pulled from the animals back, whom had obligingly got down to make it easier for her. Hands on her hips, she looked at the campsite, feeling that it looked...a fair bit neater than normal. Why the extra effort?

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr found himself a small distance from the clearing they had occupied. He was staring at the woodland floor and a pile of rotting leaves and dry twigs. There were two reasons that he was not moving.

The first and more mundane reason was that he did not enjoy manual labour. Rooting around on the forest floor in the detritus and dung was the kind of job that there would be someone for in the city.

Second and more important was a self-directed question that had finally hit home: what did he want from Seska? He found that he did not know the answers. Experience urged caution against a sudden flurry of feelings. Perhaps it was because he had been faced with the grim, many-headed spectre of his own mortality on that ridge but he was considering doing something rash instead. It made him feel more alive than he had for months.

Draedamyr returned to the neat campsite with a large bundle of kindling and some loose branches he had snapped into pieces.

"Well, this all looks quite cosy I suppose," he said as he arranged the kindling around enough branches to get a small fire going.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

"It isn't like having a roof over your head," she said as he returned with the wood. Sgecwatched as he arranged it with a small smile on her face; with a grace born if years upon years of practice, she wove fire from chaos, pulling upon something within.

The kindling erupted in flame, consumed at a measured pace.

She eyed the elf. She did not understand the tangled web in her mind, and two days did not give her enough time to sirt through them. She did not know what she wanted out of the man before her. She did not need him. She could - and had - taken care of herself quite well over the years. So what was the drive to keep him around? Why had she not slipped away.

An answer occurred to her, and her cheeks reddened at the thought. There had to be more than...than that. Companionship and support? Something beyond debased lust.

She pulled up a log - literally - and took a seat. Weariness lay heavy upon her, and indication that she had not (obviousky) recovered fully yet. She stared onto the flames, casting little looks at the elf occasionally, uncomfortable silence growing between them. She did not know what to say, or how to proceed, for all that they had spoken freely these past two days.

 

[Draedamyr]

Despite the conclusion he had arrived at, Draedamyr did very little but warm his hands over the fire. He had always found his extemeties suffered quickly when a chill crept into the air. He then set about removing his sword, several knives and anything else about his person that would be uncomfortable to sleep on. They were set down within reach of his bedroll.

Cowardice, he decided, had a fairly typical answer. From the bags he fished out the bottle of red. Draedamyr sat down lightly on the stretch of log beside Seska. The cork came free with a soft pop. Lacking glasses he took a swig and passed the bottle to Seska.

"You can always bring some of the comforts of the inside world out here through," he said, finally breaking the silence. The night time noises of the woods would start soon. Already several night birds had started to let out eerie cries.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She sniffed delicately at the comment. "It is not as if the civilized world is so civil," she replied. She hesitated for a moment, regarding the bottle being offered. The sun was still up, although the quality of light had become rather like gold syrup, casting long shadows and giving everything the particular cast of an evening.

For some reason, it was always the end of the day that seemed to bring out the beauty of the world in her eyes. She did not know what that said about her.

Hesitating. Did she take the offered drink, knowing full well she was likely to overindulge again? Knowing that she would bury uncertainty in drink?

She accepted, and did not know why. She still did not know what it was that she wanted from the elf, what it was that made her so tongue-tied when it came to expressing the swirl within. To him, and to herself, though he had not asked and likely would not. What would she say, if pressed, though? It was a daunting question. His very presence stirred in her a bevy of feelings that lacked s frame of reference, and if not for the underlying current of excitement - also inexplicable- it would have been aggravating.

The sun slipped below the horizon, casting the world in twilight, horizon ablaze in oranges and red. She took a long, deep drink of the wine, pleased to find it mildly sweet. It was not the dryer reds she was more familiar with, but it suited the moment.

She did not know what to say, and felt a thrill of fear, irrational. She did not want to break the silence for fear of ruining the moment. Deeper, hidden even from herself, was the ever-presentvfear of rejection. Rejection from what was a murky thing.

She stared into the fire as the light faded, taking another drink, feeling fire roll down her throat, handed it back.

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr turned his eyes to the fire as well. He did not want to lose the evening to the wine. Having chosen a rash course of action he had not said any of the things that had passed through his mind to say.

He placed the wine against the log, squeezing the cork back in just enough that it wouldn't spill everywhere if it toppled. He had nine centuries behind him and she had millennia.

The fire crackled and spurred him to action. The hand that had held the bottle slowly crossed the space between them, which felt much further than it really was. The elf studied her reaction as he reached for the tip of her chin, planning to tilt her head around the face him. To face up to the moment.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

The sound of a cork being fitted back into the neck it had come from. So wrapped up in her own internal turmoil,her paralyzed indecision, that she did not hear him set the bottle down, did not notice his movement, register the soft sounds of clothing shifting.

The touch on her chin was startling, unexpected, and broke her from her dwelling. She opened her mouth to speak, to question, but the words died before being uttered as he gently swiveled her head round and up. It was difficult to see the green in those hollows only partly illumined by firelight as the twilight continued to dim, stars blinking on one by one. Her own held an inner light, pale luminescence the same color as her pupils.

A moment, breath held as she was caught in his gaze and found herself unable to look away. Or, perhaps, unwilling and not snared at all. Butterflies beat a dread cadence in her middle, and her heart fluttered in time with them.

 

[Draedamyr]

For a moment he wondered if she knew what came next. If there might have been some divide between their worlds that made this simple act lose its true meaning.

The dancing firelight painted the truth in her eyes. Draedamyr could not gauge much from her expression, but there was understanding there. A goddess who had ruled another world, but there was nothing that was not familiar to him to be found in her gaze.

What came next was inevitable. It did not however need to be hurried. The height difference between them ensured Draedamyr had to lean forwards and down to her level, affording Seska plenty of time to turn away before he could gently press his lips to her own.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She didn't resist. Couldn't have resisted had she wanted to, and she had more than a sneaking suspicion that she didn't want to. The taste of wine on his lips was a subtle sweetness that blended with the sudden rush of emotion.

There was no need to rush it. It was a sensual thing, and for her it was something that hinted at a deeper, more primal desire. She had not had any interested in another - not any real interested - in so long as to make the concept meaningless. She might well have been a teenager caught in her first kiss, and for all intents and purposes that was just what this was. Her might have centuries behind him and she millennia, but memory is a fragile thing. Very much vulnerable to the stresses of time.

She breathed out slowly, breathing into him as she let loose a tension she had not been conscious she carried. Tentatively, she clasped the hand that graced her chin in both of hers, and drew him towards her. There was naught but surrender to this new tangle of emotions but, if nothing else, the butterflies had faded. The unease and trembling fear of rejection were gone, replaced with something a fair bit...warmer.

 

[Draedamyr]

On the scale of their lives the time since he had felt this was quite possibly comparable to hers. Draedamyr felt a sudden flash of excitement run through him when their lips met, followed by a crashing wave of relief.

It had become clear that they were both fragile creatures. Wounded. If he had overstepped the mark then the rest of this trip would have been incredibly awkward, if they even continued together at all.

Her warm breath fanned across his lips and he let himself be guided by her gentle pull. His other arm wrapped around her back and he drew himself closer. Her own warmth joined that of the fire in shielding them from the cold. The cold and the entire rest of the world for a little time.