Private Tales The Weight of the Past

[Lileas]

When no answer came, Lileas immediately feared the worst, and so when she heard his voice so close by she jolted at the sound and a breath that she'd held tumbled free in relief. She cast a look behind her before going to the window, smiling in at him as he came into view.

"Hah." she smirked and handed him in a small package before climbing in as best she could, though her right side was awkward and weak and so she reached for his hand. The moment her feet touched the floor, her arms were around him and she breathed deeply.

"You might've spruced up a little.." she smiled up at him and cast her eyes over the large space.. "I brought breakfast."

 

[Aleric]

Aleric gently wrapped his arms around Lileas, pulling her into the chapel with a small smile all but stuck to his face. In a way it felt as though six years had never passed. The small jests and banter making him forget the horrors he'd endured in the prisons terrible darkness.

If only for a brief few seconds.

"I am so dearly sorry, my lady." Aleric mocked with a shake of his head. Placing the small package she has given him on a nearby bench.

"I wasn't expecting company of your class." Wondering briefly why she set so much of her weight upon him. Was she alright? Had the Robber hurt her? "I'll try to do better next time."

A frown plucked at his lips. "Are you alright?"

Aleric asked, glancing briefly out the window she had come through. The paranoia of Harrowgate still clinging to him.

 

[Lileas]

"I suppose I can forgive you." she chuckled quietly, stepping back to smooth out her skirts and take down her hood. His question caused her smile to falter but she nodded quickly.

"Fine. Banged up my shoulder a bit a while back, it's on the mend." she assured. "Are you alright?" she asked, following his gaze to the window.

"I made sure I wasn't followed." she assured.

 

[Aleric]

"I know." He said softly, looking back from the window and towards her. "It's just..."

Aleric shook his head. "It's hard to shake the habit."

With a slow step he moved away from her, pushing the cabinet back in place over the window. Lileas had been right when she'd warned him. He wasn't safe here, and the longer he could go without anyone finding him the better it would be.

Trouble was, he couldn't hide away forever.

Stepping back over towards her Aleric scooped up the small package, taking a seat besides her. "Thank you."

He said softly.

"I can't remember..." He trailed off, not finishing and instead just shaking his head. "I missed you."

 

[Lileas]

Lily watched him with a sad smile and an understanding nod. Paranoia ran deep in her veins simply for doing what she did and living where she lived, she could only imagine that his had to be worse.

"It's just some bread and cheese and sliced apple.." she shrugged.

Her head tilted at him as he started speaking and stopped himself, and her hand reached to settle atop his with a gentle squeeze and a sad smile. "I missed you too." It was an understatement, she had grieved for him, she had believed him gone forever. Her throat ached, and she cleared away the urge to cry again with an awkward chuckle..

"Eat.. Then you can tell me how you escaped Harrowgate..." she frowned.

 

[Aleric]

His hand turned, fingers furling over hers for a brief moment. A slow breath filling his lungs as he shook his head. Doing his best to discard the darkness crowding his thoughts.

"Its more than I've had." He told her with a smile and a shake of his head. Despite that though he staved off the temptation to scarf down the meager meal in a matter of seconds, instead slowly taking his time to savor every bite.

For him, it was a feast.

When he was finally done with the last piece of bread, his fingers pinched together over one of the crumbs. Placing it over his lips as he took in another breath. "I think calling it an escape would be kind."

He said softly.

"I tried...more than once." Aleric said with a shake of his head. "It's how I got this.

A finger pointed to his eye. "The last time I tried they caught me before I ever got the chance..."

Aleric trailed off for a second, then continued. "For that try they hanged me. The guard. I felt the noose snap around my neck. Tighten, and then...chaos."

 

[Lileas]

Lileas couldn't help but smile as she watched him eat. They had spent so many days hungry whilst growing up in the Gutters. At least now she managed to eat at least one meal per day, and she tried to make sure the younger ones ate too. He had always looked after her, so feeling like she was doing what little she could to look after him now felt good.

She wished she hadn't asked as he spoke of how he'd been scarred and hanged. Her hand reached to let her fingertips trace the scar on his face with a light frown. It wasn't vulgar at all, but she imagined that it must have been painful when the wound had been inflicted.

"It suits you." she smirked softly as she drew her hand back with a sigh.

"So..What are you going to do?"

 

[Aleric]

A shiver ran through him as she traced his scar.

Aleric could not remember the last time he had let someone get that close to him. Allowed someone to touch him that way. It made him tense, his muscles seeming to seize up even as he commanded them not to. He forced a smile on his face, his fingers furling and unfurling slowly as he took a breath.

As Lileas hand drew back, he caught her palm. Offering but a light squeeze, just hoping to reassure her.

A second later he let her hand slip free. "I'm going to do what I couldn't do all those years ago."

He told her softly.

"I'm going to take the Gutters." Aleric said the words with such confidence, such strength, that it was hard to doubt he couldn't.

 

[Lileas]

Lileas hadn't been able to focus on a single emotion since he'd found her in that alleyway, and once again his answer crashed into her with waves of pride and fear, excitement and pain. She felt guilty for wishing that he'd leave, because she didn't want him to, not really.. she just wanted him to be safe and to have a life better than this one. And she felt even more guilty for wanting him to stay when it wasn't safe.

"Oh." was her answer, and she fidgeted with her fingers. She had paled just a little as her blood chilled, and she stood up to start a slow pace of the room, back and forth..

"How? If he finds out you're back here, if he even suspects me of helping you, I'm as good as dead and so are you. He has a following, you don't have anyone else, unless you mean to track them down and I don't even know where you'd start.." she rambled, running her hand across her brow.

 

[Aleric]

In all fairness, she made some very good points. Aleric had spent the last six years in prison. What little connection he'd had were either gone or forgotten, the gang he'd put together were scattered as far as he could tell, and the Robber had every advantage to speak of.

Yet none of that deterred him.

He watched as she slowly paced back and forth in front of him, her steps so quick that she threatened to wear down the wooden floors. "I've had six years, Lileas."

Aleric said.

"Six years to think, to plan, to map it all out in my head." He knew that the plan wouldn't go the way he thought, that there would be obstacles and detours, but that was all part of the game. "It starts with a new name."

He told her. "Aleric is dead. To Vel Anir, to the Guard, and to the Gutters."

Slowly he reached up, gently touching the scar around his throat.

 

[Lileas]

'Aleric is dead'

Lileas only stopped pacing when he said those words. She spun on her heels, her snowy hair whipping as she turned to him with a frown. She had heard those words before, and she'd thought them to be true. Even though it was he who said it to her now, the thought still made her feel nauseous.

"Not to me." her arms folded and her gaze narrowed, though she took his meaning, her gaze settling only briefly on the scar he pointed to. Her shoulders shrugged..

"Scar..neck?.. Noose man?... Deaderic?"

 

[Aleric]

"Not to me."​

Three small words, so tiny and insignificant to many others, but for Aleric they meant the world. They represented a hope that he'd had for so many years. That he hadn't been forgotten. That someone still remembered who he was. Had been.

He couldn't help but smile.

The expression only growing wider as Lileas began to throw out suggestions for a new moniker. "I was thinking something that sounded a little more dangerous."

A chuckle escaped his throat.

"The Robbers got his." Aleric wondered if anyone even knew the old bastards actual name anymore. He wondered if the man knew himself. "The Hanged Man."

He said, running his fingers slowly over his throat. "Just a myth, for now. But it'll be something more by the end."

Something so much more.

 

[Lileas]

Lileas' face scrunched as though she'd drank something foul. The last thing she wanted to think about was him being hanged - the scar was enough of a reminder, but making it who he was didn't sit well with her.

"Well.. I don't like it." she frowned, and a quiet huff tumbled out as she shrugged.. "But it certainly works." she murmured, unable to deny the monikers effect.

"Can.. I still call you Aleric, though?.. When it's just us?" she asked, apparently now accepting that he wasn't going anywhere, even though it worried her.

 

[Aleric]

Aleric smiled, looking up at Lileas from his perch on the bench.

He had yearned for this. More than anything in this world. Not just friendship, but someone that he could trust. Someone whom he knew would never betray him, someone who didn't want to just stand by his side for the riches he might bring, but someone who knew him. "Always."

The answer didn't require a thought.

In Harrowgate he'd always needed to watch himself. Peer around every corner, watch every shadow, inspect every grain of food. It would be no different in the Gutters, it had never been, but here and now he felt for the first time in years as if he could relax.

Even if it only lasted for a few short minutes.

"Will you tell me." He said softly, reaching out a hand towards Lileas so that she would sit besides him. "A little of what has happened since I've been gone?"

 

[Lileas]

Lil let out a deep breath as he smiled up at him as though he'd never been away. He carried his scars of the past six years, as did she, but regardless of everything that had changed during that time, he was still her Aleric.

She took his hand and sat beside him, resting her head agains this shoulder. "Hm.. Nothing much changes around here..Nothing was ever as fun without you. Rob's been sending me up town to work, mostly. He's taken over most of the east side now, there aren't many establishments not paying him. He's run most of his old rivals out of town by now, but he still has plenty of enemies.. He's just as much of a bastard as he's always been..."

"I've missed you so much." she sighed.

 

[Aleric]

Aleric frowned for a brief moment, not able to help the slight tension that ran through his when Lileas so casually referred to the Robber.

A pain still lanced through him at the thought of her beneath his wing. Back to the very place they had run away from so many years ago. Fingers tightened for just a brief moment, but he took a breath and did his best to calm himself.

It would change. It had do. "I did always say you had too much class for the Gutters."

Aleric jested quietly, looking at Lileas with a smile.

A part of him had hoped the Robber had stayed to his old tricks. That the bastard had confined himself to the graves and kept that way, yet it seemed he'd taken more than just Lileas in Aleric's absence. Things would be harder, so much harder than he'd thought.

The thought slipped away as Lil sighed. His head turning towards her.

"I've missed you too." He said softly. "It couldn't have been easy. Thinking I was dead."

Aleric reached out, gently grabbing Lileas hand.

 

[Lileas]

Lileas lifted her chin quite proudly, her lips kicking up into a smirk. "You were right.. I've always been a classy bird, haven't I?.." she laughed and snaked her arms around his arm to cuddle into him. Nothing that came from the Gutters was ever 'classy', and Lil might've looked prim and proper because she was supposed to, but she could cuss up a storm when she felt like it, and spit further than most men she set to the challenge.

The grin she wore slipped, and her eyes filled as soon as he uttered the words to her. She squeezed at his hand as she shook her head, words turning to stone in her throat, causing her to swallow hard. The world had felt so dark and empty without him. It'd been bad enough when she knew he'd been taken to Harrogate, but being told that he'd been executed had torn her heart whole from her chest.

"Lets not talk about it..." she hushed, for fear of breaking down. She forced a smile. "I might wake up, and I'm quite happy here right now."

 

[Aleric]

"Lets not talk about it."​

It was something he could not fault her for, words that did not sting or hurt. He knew why she said it, knew why she wanted it. This moment was a dream, distant and pleasant, something the two of them could enjoy before chaos took them again.

Fingers squeezed gently, and he tugged her closer. "Alright."

He said softly.

They had so little pleasant things to speak about. So little happiness to their lives. Six years they had been apart, and before that they had scraped a living in the Gutters. What happy memories could two urchins celebrate?

"Tell me then." He said softly. "Of some of your adventures uptown."

A small smile touched his lips as he looked down at her. "Those noble fools still look at you as the innocent little field mouse?"

 

[Lileas]

Lil flashed a smile up at him and chuckled quietly.. "Well, it sure beats digging up the dead. I've moved on up in the world, I have. Then again, I still have to do the maids' work, but I suppose I get well enough paid for it." she grinned and shook her head with a long huff..

"The stuff they've got. Nobody that's not kings or queens has any right to be that bloody rich, it's disgusting. Crystal chandeliers, copper bath tubs with all those nice smelling salt things." she said as she lifted a tress of her hair to smell it with a light smirk. She was not supposed to be bathing in said bathtubs with said salts.

"And the food? Gods." she groaned, telling him of all of the different dishes she'd tried whilst working in the kitchens and serving up dinners..

"I fell asleep in a linen closet for near enough an entire day before one of the maids screamed at the sight of me. Near wet my knickers.. Damn sheets were so soft though." she laughed, and yawned against the back of her hand.

 

[Aleric]

Aleric let out a laugh, hardly capable of imagining the luxury that Lileas described. "Sounds like just the place for you, Lil."

He mused, unable to keep the smile off his face.

None of them had ever dreamed of such heights as kids, not even when they had been children. Always their imaginations had been for a simple feather mattress, a decent meal, perhaps a woolen blanket they could share.

Copper baths and smelling salts? Such things had never even entered their mind.

Yet now that Lileas described it, Aleric couldn't help but wonder why they had always dreamed so small. His fingers gently squeezed her.

"So what do you want first?" He asked, already setting the promise. "The Sheets, or the copper tub?"

 

[Lileas]

As he laughed and smiled the way he did, Lil smiled so wide that her jaws hurt and she had to bite down on her lower lip. It was as though the old times were just yesterday when in reality, she had been deprived of that smile for six years. Of course, she wasn't a child anymore, she was fourteen when she'd watched him be dragged off by the Guard, but even then she had found it to be the most trustworthy and most beautiful smile she had ever known.

She breathed deeply, and once again the smile she wore faltered at his question. How she wished she could stay with him and let him buy her soft sheets and copper tubs. She couldn't, and things were only going to get worse the moment the Robber knew that Aleric lived and was back in the Gutters..

"This will do just fine." she answered eventually, casting her gaze around the dilapidated husk they hid themselves in. "All I ever asked the Gods for was to bring you back.. And you're back. I won't ever ask another thing so long as I live." she smiled, but there was a sadness behind her gaze, because she had no idea how long that would be.

 

[Aleric]

Aleric looked at Lileas as she slowly peered around the old and broken chapel. The smile on his lips faltered for just a brief moment, his fingers tightening on her palm.

It was almost as though he could sense what she was thinking in that moment. The mixture of joy and apprehension, the fear that still distilled within her heart. Aleric had felt that same terror for so long. It had haunted every dream with nightmares.

But he'd survived hell, and now he was back.

"You're not dreaming big enough, Lil." He rebuked her softly, slowly standing up. His fingers remained intertwined with hers as he sidled in front of her.

Aleric looked down at her, gesturing towards their ruined surroundings.

"Whatever god granted your wish, whatever string of fate let me survive that noose." He squatted in front of her. "They still owe us."

His eyes matched up with hers. "For all the shit we put up with, for all the horrors we endured."

Aleric shook his head. "I aim to collect. For you, for me."

His fingers squeezed hers. "We deserve it."

 

[Lileas]

Her eyes were crushed glass as they followed his movement, her free hand settling over the top of his as it held her other. Her thumb grazed back and forth across his knuckles as she smiled at him in a way that one might when about to break some bad news. And she was..

"We do, Al.. But, when I said I couldn't go with you..." her brow furrowed and her head shook. "I'm sorry.. But I can't leave him.. I'll die if I do, he's the only one keeping me alive." she dropped her gaze and huffed quietly to herself.

"If this was the payment I had to make to bring you back then it's cruel but it's worth it to know that you're alive." she frowned.

 

[Aleric]

Confusion almost immediately flickered over Aleric's face. "What?"

The word sounded harsher than he had meant it to, but he didn't understand. He couldn't understand. His brows furrowed, his fingers tightening ever so slightly.

"What do you mean?" Aleric asked. "If it's money, we can find more Lil..."

There was always more money, there would always be more money. "We'll have food, a home, better than this."

He gestured towards the Chapel around them. "I can keep you safe. It won't be like last time, I won't go anywhere. I promise."

Aleric spoke, not understanding what she meant. The truth behind her words that he couldn't yet know.

 

[Lileas]

She shook her head, hating the way he continued to offer her everything she had wanted when she knew she couldn't have it, hating how he felt the need to make promises like those to her. Her chest ached she reached for his face.

"I don't doubt any of that." she smiled, swallowing the painful lump that had formed in her throat. "But you don't understand..." she sighed, drawing her hand back from him to unhook the cloak she wore. It fell away, and she hooked her thumb under the collar of the dress she wore underneath, and pulled it away. There was a blackened wound under her collar bone with dark, inky tendrils of poison that spread from it like veins under her skin. Every day it spread a little further, and it would do until it filled her lungs and constricted around her heart.

"It's a poison.. I tried to find a healer, but nobody knew how to treat it and the last one I asked ratted me to the Robber and got me a good beating. The only thing that helps is a tea that he gives me.. Without it, I have about two weeks." she frowned, a tear spilling from her eye.