Private Tales There Will Come A Reckoning

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen looked to the plates—the biscuits, the sliced fruits and vegetables—after Valdr's gentle prompting. "I shall...make a modest effort," she said. The words felt a touch limp coming off of her tongue, and likely sounded so to Valdr's ears. Yet he was right, whether or not her mood agreed.

And so in that companionable silence she ate and drank. Little nibbling bites, little dainty sips. All the while she worried helplessly, almost as if her worry was the necessary fuel the elven healer needed to treat Drastus's injury and make him well again.

A bit disorienting, then, when said healer came back to them and announced that, yes, the healing was done and Drastus would come around to the waking world soon enough. Oh, superstition! 'Twas merely that the healer did her job well, no metaphysical assistance from Kristen's emotions required.

She beamed to Valdr. "My gratitude!"

With that, she stood and took the tray of snacks into the adjacent room. There on the cot lay Drastus, resting soundly. Intrusive memories of her horrid time in Salesia reminded her vividly of how devastating a crossbow bolt could be—she ought to have known.

Still, it was done.

Beside Drastus's cot she sat, the tray set neatly in her lap. And in anticipatory silence she waited, a pre-emptive smile already prominent.

Drastus Tal'deneshaar

 

[Drastus Tal'deneshaar]

And so, Drastus would re-awaken to just that: Kristen and that smile. So confused was he, he had thought it were a waking dream. The hand of his uninjured arm reached out to rest upon her thigh as he shifted, slowly and his eyes closed again.

Was it bad? That his dream consisted of her and food? Surely he didn't think of her as some housewife. What sort of dream was this? No. He was also willing to do the very same for her, so maybe this was just a pleasant dream.

For a dream, she felt awfully real. A gentle caress of her thigh before his hand hit the cool of the steel tray. That also felt real. One eye popped open and he felt the tinge of pain.

Fuck. He thought to himself, his hand immediately withdrawing from her. "Kris?" He tried to sit up, but couldn't, at least not without some more effort. "Where a-" he caught himself as the fog continued to lift. "We made it. Did we get the note translated yet?"

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

He was well. The brief touch of his hand upon her leg—his hand, moving under his own power—had an invigorating quality to it, a flame of excitement dancing along the trail of his fingers.

An eye opened and she met it with her awaiting gaze.

"No, not yet. I insisted that the translation wait until you were conscious again, such that the moment of its revealing would be shared by us both. We're in this together."

She reached out with her left hand—specifically her left—and touched his arm, the tips of her flesh and blood fingers gracing his skin.

And with a modest smile, sweet with well-wishing, she said, "It is good to see you persevere, Drastus."

Drastus Tal'deneshaar

 

[Drastus Tal'deneshaar]

Despite the inner Academy telling him she should have proceeded without him, he knew that neither of them would actually do that without the other. This was their quest. So, he could only smile.

The hand of his injured arm would come to rest upon hers, some pain evident across his face, though the smile remained. "Yeah, I guess you are kinda stuck with me." He teased. "Besides, this isn't the worst I've been."

That grin would return and he would take some of the bread from the tray. "I must say, here you are taking your divine powers to the next level by being an angel with food."

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

"You flatterer!" Kristen said with a gasp and a mock accusatory tone. Her smile lifted her cheeks high enough to render her ruse revealed for the jest it was.

After their primary duty was done (and if the matter was not solved in the course thereof), certainly would they need to see to the matter of those thugs, and who had sent them, resolved. Had just a bit more of devilish fortune been with them, they could have killed Drastus right there on the descending path from the Jades. Whomever meant them such malice deserved to face their due justice.

But all was well, for now. Kristen's stomach even started to unknot itself, and she took a biscuit from the tray and ate as Drastus did.

"Mayhap we'll overnight here," she said. "Even if the return trip proves bereft of harriers along the road, it would be best if you were at your full strength."

Drastus Tal'deneshaar

 

[Drastus Tal'deneshaar]

"I've been called many things, flatterer is perhaps one of the least offensive." He would add with a playful smirk. Not seeming to notice her thoughts elsewhere, he would dink his biscuit off of hers, as if they were toasting. "To Kristen, Angel of Biscuits." He teased before shifting on the cot until his boots were planted on the stone.

"So, I'm hearing either slumber party in the gardens or a midnight foray into the Roost." His voice lowered and he leaned forward conspiratorially, taking a healthy bite of his biscuit while she mulled it over.

"Or," he started, talking between chews. "We coul- just slee-n nice beds. F- unce." He would swallow, setting his biscuit on his knee before the freshly freed hand grabbed ahold of a tankard and drank some of the water to wash it down.

Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Angel of Biscuits. Kristen tittered, reminded of a thought she'd had in a similar vain on the day before she left home for the Academy: she had fancied, once she learned how to properly bake for herself, preparing batches of snickerdoodle cookies for units of Guardsmen and being proclaimed something akin to what Drastus had said. Now, a year and some fair months into her tenure at the Academy, it seemed an incredibly silly and girlish thought.

When he talked with his mouth full, she frowned a little, and had to keep herself from "mother-henning" him. 'Twas a small thing, even if the urge was there.

"Nice beds are, of course, always welcome." Her curiosity needed to have its say, and with a slight tilt of her head she asked, "What is this Roost you've mentioned?"

Drastus Tal'deneshaar

 

[Drastus Tal'deneshaar]

If he noticed the frown, he didn't put two and two together. "Wha's wong?" He asked powering through another biscuit. He didn't realize how hungry he was. With another pull from his mug, his biscuit was washed down.

"Nice beds are, of course, always welcome. What is this Roost you've mentioned?"

The trap was set and the bait couldn't possibly be ignored at his point. His grin would be perhaps the most devilish or conspiratorial she had ever seen. "The Roost? Only the single greatest place here." He started nonchalantly before leaning in, his voice lowered so her ears would have to strain to hear he next bit.

"It's where the gryphons are.. mainly the babies."


Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

"...Little ones?" Kristen said with no small twinkle of wonder in her eyes. With how large the beast Valdr flew down on happened to be, she was for a slight moment simply incredulous that there could ever be smaller versions of them. It was obvious of course that there had to be, but she was delighted all the same.

"Certainly at least a short visit to this Roost would be a worthy excursion whilst we overnight."

Then she thought of something, the hand holding her own biscuit paused in its rising.

"I suppose Valdr would know most about this, but...might we be able to ride the gryphons back to Vel Numera?"

Drastus Tal'deneshaar

 

[Drastus Tal'deneshaar]

"Yeah, like ya know, hatchlings. Babies. Little puffs of feathers and fluff that are just too cute to not hug." He replied, coaxing further to desire of little cute gryphons. Maybe he was a villain, trying to corrupt her with good times? She didn't need to know the Roost was off limits to all but a few. That was a need to know, and there was no way, if caught, that Valdr would punish them.

"Exactly. So we'll meet in the garden tonight, the field of lavender, and plot our course there. It'll be great." He boldly promised. Granted, caught or not, he had no doubt she would enjoy it.

He had expected the question, it was something he too, had thought. "Uhh.. maybe. Gryphons aren't fond of just anyone riding them. Its not a no, but he might be able to spare Wardens to give us lifts."


Kristen Pirian

 

[Kristen Pirian]

So it was decided, then. Certainly Kristen wasn't going to object to a walk in the garden and a trip, however surreptitious, up to this Roost. 'Twas an exciting expenditure of their time whilst Drastus recovered, if Kristen could say so herself.

A fair point was raised with regards to flying home to Vel Numera. Kristen looked up toward the ceiling, mulling it over. "Hmmm...I hadn't considered that, though I most assuredly should have. Such a formidable beast as the one Valdr swooped down on would not have the temperament of a common, docile horse, ha ha!"

Mayhap, with available Wardens and gryphons amenable to having herself and Drastus, they could fly. But they ought not count on such fortunes.

Kristen finished her biscuit, and then asked, "Shall I call for Valdr? Now that you are lucid, we can at last decipher the message."

Drastus Tal'deneshaar