Private Tales The Lost Princess and The Exiled Prince

[Arun]

He blinked. "I know what sex is if that's what you're asking."[/color

Making love was a term that even his people understood, though it was nearly a foreign concept to the Elves.

"My people do not often fall in love. At least not what I have seen described in novels." He frowned for a second. "There is a book, titled 'The Tides of Love', Written by one Sesjy Ihrras. It details two humans passionately in love."

He wasn't sure if Maeve would have read it or not. "This...mostly doesn't exist in my culture. Most marriages are arranged. There is attraction of course, but...love is not entirely a concept that many of us believe in."

 

[Maeve]

Maeve had a million questions starting primarily with; you read romance novels?!

Clearly those hadn't been in Common Tongue.

But she swallowed them and focused instead on trying to answer his question first. How did she even explain love? She ran a hand through her hair, piling it onto her head then letting it go as she clearly mulled it over with great thought.

"Marriages are only really arranged when it comes to royalty amongst my people, and even then sometimes they are lucky and their parents will arrange it with their child's feelings in mind. But most people yeah they just... fall in love. It is passionate but it is also full of anger, hate sometimes, care, a..." she tried to explain the emotions she had seen on the couples she had been surrounded by as a child in her youth. "When it is right it is like two halves of a whole who have found one another. It is beautiful. They would die for one another, do anything."

 

[Arun]

"I see." Arun almost looked forlorn as she explained.

The Elf did not entirely understand, but a part of him tried to. Such a thought was...difficult. Passion, emotion in general was discouraged in them. They were taught to think things through, to allow for time before making a decision.

It was why he had always feared the thing inside of his head. Whatever lurked within him did not consider, it did not wait.

It was pure Impulse.

"A thing that we are perhaps jealous of." Arun said with a smile. "I do not believe I've ever seen two of my kind in love."

Not in the way she'd described.

 

[Maeve]

"Maybe they just do not show it so publicly?" Maeve struggled with the idea that there couldn't be anyone amongst his people who had that kind of feeling. If it was a taught thing then maybe people kept it to themselves and hid it - they had made it taboo. She shook her head and her frown deepened.

"So you've never done something stupid for a girl - or guy-" she held her hands up, things were very open on the Isles after all and she didn't want to presume. "that you like? When I was 16 I once had a boy go on a three day trek across the plains to bring me back flowers that only grew on the West side," her lips curved up at the memory. It had been the sweetest of gestures and she had ended up pressing the flowers and keeping them.

 

[Arun]

"Did it work?" Arun asked her with a curiosity, wondering if flowers were really enough to woo someone like Maeve. Granted she had been younger then, but for some reason he thought it wouldn't have been enough.

When she asked her quesiton he shook his head. "No."

Arun was almost certain that he did not enjoy the company of men. There had been an incident in the Spa's once, but...well experimentation was normal at the age of sixty nine.

"I was promised to Marry someone, but I did not love her." At least he was pretty sure he did not, mostly because he had only met her three times.

 

[Maeve]

"It definitely won him a very long heated kiss in the stables," Maeve laughed. The memory was a cherished one. "We both knew it would never be a thing that lasted - I was a Princess. He got married last year to a very good friend of mine," she smiled fondly at the memory of the wedding. There had been no bitterness in her when she had seen them so happy - they had been perfect for one another. "But knowing there wasn't a future made it almost... more sweet. It was a perfect first love," full of hand holding and stolen kisses through open windows beyond curfew.

She frowned a little when he said he had never experienced it and shook her head.

"Maybe it's because we don't live as long, but there just... it just..." she struggled to find the words once more in Common. "It seems pointless wasting your life on your own, when you have such a short amount of time."

 

[Arun]

He shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps I am just not old enough to have really experienced it."

Who was he to say?

"In my own people I am not even of middle age." Arun was only two centuries old, still a child by some respects. Perhaps love was something more silent, something only shared in the same situations as speaking of sex and other desires. "Passion is an odd subject with me."

He gestured to his eyes. "I have often thought this...thing might effect more than just what happened yesterday."

Perhaps not a subject matter she would want to speak of...but Arun had never been able to speak on his own theories for it before.

 

[Maeve]

It really tickled her to think that he considered himself young and she ran a hand through her hair once more in bewilderment. If someone had told her a year ago she would be sitting in a house that sat in the trees with a person who was over 200 years old she would have laughed them out of the beer hall and informed them they were too drunk to have another.

"Wait," she had been away with the Fae and had only caught half of his sentence. Or at least she thought she had. "You think knowing more of your soul is going to effect your ability to have sex? Form relationships?" Mae looked genuinely befuddled. "Why on Arethil would that matter to anyone?"

 

[Arun]

"Yes." Arun answered simply, as if he didn't really understand why such an idea would make her so incredulous.

He frowned for a moment.

"It matters to me." The Elf was not entirely sure that she understood the predicament that he was actually in. "Right now it feels as though I am...partitioned."

Lips thinned to a tight line. "You feel emotions, yes? Anger. Fear. Hatred. Love. Arousal."

He shrugged.

"I do not." At least not usually. "But I believe that this...piece of me does."

Arun frowned deeply.

 

[Maeve]

Maeve frowned as she studied his face. What was that even like? Emotions were at the heart of what it was to be human, at least in her eyes. It was what dictated all of their actions. Greed fuelled the desire for more land, hatred, love, anger, pain... all of those could start a war. They could also all start the greatest of love stories.

"But... that's a good thing," her head canted to once side. "You're only feeling the strongest emotions because that's when you can't get a handle on it. If you let yourself... embrace it you would feel the smaller emotions too." It seemed painfully obvious to her. He was, ironically, having to just learn what it was to be a human. Mingled in with magic and all sorts of odd elvish things too probably. But emotions? That was definitely human.

 

[Arun]

He frowned for a moment. "I am not entirely sure I want to."

It wasn't like Arun was an emotionless husk. He had a way of looking at the world and doing things that had been instilled in him since childhood. Breaking away was terrifying, especially considering what that...breaking had done.

"It may very well be too much." The effects were odd. "A small emotion leads to a bigger one which leads to..."

Frenzy. "I slaughtered the tribals out of anger, but also..."

He frowned.

"I was upset that they had hurt you." At first it had only been an affront to his people, but as he'd gotten to know Maeve that feeling had grown. "Pity is not the right word...care?"

He'd cared about her well being.

 

[Maeve]

Maeve looked dumbstruck at his confession. She hadn't thought he had felt anything towards her other than curiosity and the chance to talk to someone other than a tree. For a moment she was quiet, her green eyes sliding from his to look at the table thoughtfully. Eventually she found the words she was looking for and her gaze sought his again so he might see the depth of her meaning if her words didn't reach him.

"That is what we call being human," her smile was a crooked, shy thing that hugged the side of her face. "My grandfather would have done the same if you hadn't," Liath would have barely given her the time to get the words out her mouth. "Maybe your people deem this bad traits but for me, for my people, they are just things you have to learn with time to control. Sometimes you can't - when the emotion is too high - but you do manage to at least... temper it. Ignoring them, however, is the worst way to do that."

 

[Arun]

"Perhaps." He considered, though in truth he had already come to that conclusion on his own.

His exile had been a mistake. Instead of trying to control what was in his head, he'd let it run rampant and nearly burn him to the ground. His fingers tightened for a moment, weight sagging against the sofa.

"I have decided to leave my exile." She already knew that he intended on going with her. "If my father finds out I'll be a criminal, but I believe you're right. If I stay here and continue to isolate myself and my...emotions."

It felt weird even saying the words. "It will only grow worse over the years."

 

[Maeve]

She hadn't realised that his father would care whereabouts he was. As long as it wasn't within the city he commanded why should he? Her lips pressed into a thin line as she watched the tension roll through him, as he fought with those inner demons and then finally, relented. Maeve's hand crept to his with the slow shyness of a mouse and then slowly, her fingers wound about his hand to give it a squeeze. She even managed to not snatch her hand back straight away but rather let it rest there. If he had been without contact all this time, she realised with a start, that also meant he hadn't had physical contact with anyone.

In her experience that was a vital part of dealing with emotions.

"Why should it matter if you leave the forest? You're not going to try and reclaim your title..."

 

[Arun]

He smiled slightly. "No I will not."

Arun had no interest in leading, ruling, or any of that nonsense. His father knew it as well as anyone else, but that wouldn't really matter all that much.

"But I could." He stated plainly. "My brother will take the Throne soon, my father is nearly a thousand years old, and even as I left he was beginning to tire of ruling."

It was not uncommon for Elven rulers to live out their lives in quiet obscurity, retiring to the sea in order to enjoy some of their own pursuits in the last year's of their lives. Arun knew his father would want to do so.

"In exile, here. I am contained. Traveling?" He made a tsk noise and then shook his head.

Of course the politics didn't matter to him, he'd already made his decision.

 

[Maeve]

He sounded content with his decision and the unease frown was gone from his face so Maeve removed her hand and placed it back on her lap. Her other hand rubbed over it almost like she was wiping off the feeling. She pushed the memories aside it brought up and instead tucked the blanket around her a little tighter.

"A Thousand years..." it made her bones physically ache at the very idea of someone living that long. "My father is fed up of ruling and he's only been doing it for 30 years," her lips twitched somewhat. "I have no idea what they were planning to do when they thought I was going to be shipped off to the Fae-Isles," she was their only child, it had been the reason they had been so desperate to ensure she survived. Her mother would not have survived another pregnancy and they had stopped trying once they were sure Maeve was indeed going to live.

 

[Arun]

Arun felt a hint of sorrow as she withdrew her touch, though didn't allow it to show on his face.

Her touch had been surprising enough, the fact that it had remained for more than a few seconds utterly shocking. He had been tempted to point it out, but he'd come to realize that would have been...awkward.

"Perhaps they planned to have another child?" Arun asked, figuring it was really the only logical explanation.

Well, besides one other option. "Or they intended to kill the Fae before it took you."

 

[Maeve]

Maeve shook her head.

"My mother nearly died giving birth to me, they would not have risked another pregnancy unless I had died," her lips pressed into a thin line as she thought about his second choice. She hadn't stuck around to hear what her father or mother had to say on the matter. She had been enraged they had even done this to her, had bargained her heart and soul away.

"I guess... maybe that is what the intended but I don't know how they could have. Iron doesn't exist on our Isle and it is the only thing that can hurt them that I know of," Mae frowned a little, worrying at her bottom lip.

 

[Arun]

"There is always a way." Arun said with a smile.

He was trying to be encouraging, but it was also the truth. The law of nature itself was that nothing was eternal. It was one of the things his own people had to wrestle with for most of their lives. They were long lived, and many thought themselves invincible.

The Wars had proven that wrong.

"Perhaps we should get you some Iron." He said with a slight frown. "It's common enough here."

Though he had no idea if that would hurt her too.

 

[Maeve]

Maeve nodded.

"That was the mission, to see if we would be able to wield it too," she was Fae-Blessed not Fae. Liath wasn't sure either whether it would burn them to use it or merely be uncomfortable. "To see if there were other ways of beating them..." she rubbed the back of her neck and then after a moment she stood up and moved over to the stove where he always seemed to have tea on the boil. She poured them both a cup and then sat back down, passing one mug over to him and blowing on her own.

"At least one of us can definitely touch it now," her lips twitched as she looked at him over the rim of her cup. "Maybe you will get to be my Prince Charming after all."

 

[Arun]

Arun accepted the tea gratefully, smiling for a second over the small cup. "I have rescued a fair few damsels in my day."

Really only one, and that had been during a siege. He'd not been the only one to help break it, but being the Prince had received most of the credit. It was something of a story in it of itself, though most of it not really pleasant.

"Oh." A thought occurred to him for a second. He placed the tea down onto the table, walking over to the same cabinet with the Oosqua.

He opened a drawer, rummaging for only a brief second before he pulled free what appeared to be a large key.

Slowly Arun brought it over to Maeve. "Here, though I'd be careful."

The key was made of iron of course.

 

[Maeve]

Maeve couldn't help but laugh at his admission and then took a sip of her tea once she was sure it was cool enough to drink. She had been about to ask what other damsels he had saved in his long life when he suddenly stood up. Both eyebrows rose as she watched him move across the room to fish something out. There was a glint of metal in the sun but she couldn't make it out until he came back to her and held it out.

"A key to....?" she hesitated to reach out. There was... an odd sense that covered it. Like she knew it was a different metal to one she had ever seen before. Tentatively she reached out her fingers and let them brush over the key. When nothing burnt she closed her hand around it and took it from his possession, twisting it this way and that to inspect it further. "Well, doesn't seem to cause any burns like it does on Fae."

 

[Arun]

"I suppose that's one question answered." Interesting.

In truth he had expected it to hurt her, but it seemed that there was no pain. A good thing he supposed, especially given that it meant she'd likely be able to defend herself.

"We'll have to find you an iron sword." Arun said considerately. "Though I'm afraid we'll have to venture out of the Falwood for that."

Elven smiths did not use Iron. "But it should not be too difficult."

 

[Maeve]

"That's what Liath thinks too," Mae passed the key back to him. "I think your knowledge would be helpful to him, I don't know enough about this world to be of much assistance i'm afraid," she grimaced. It sat uncomfortably within her that she was the problem and yet could do none of the real work in helping to find a way to combat the problem. She was completely reliant on Liath and now Arun to know where best to go.

"Maybe some arrows too, I am a much better archer," not that she was bad with a blade but she felt far more comfortable with a bow and arrows in her hand.

 

[Arun]

He frowned a moment, glancing up at his book shelf. "The only works on the world I have are in Elvish I'm afraid."

Not much help to her.

"I will help where I can as best I can." That was at least an assurance he could make without much of a problem. "Archer, huh?"

He smiled, glancing towards his room. "Well, a bow I can get you."