The Rightness of Wrong
A/N: I came across this the other day and have decided to publish it as a oneshot. It was supposed to be part of a future chapter of 'There is always another perspective', but, for reasons I won't bore you with now, I've become disheartened with that fic, although I haven't entirely given up on it and have lots of rough notes ( like the ones below) for future chapters and I hope that I will finish it eventually. So, this little drabble was going to be the love scene in 'Perspectives'; I didn't want to do the waterfall scene as it's been done to death, and Sonea and Akkarin did have other opportunities to get to know each other, I'm sure!
This chapter IS NOT for anyone who does not like the AxS pairing. It is also not explicit, though it is very suggestive! To give it some context, I tried to echo Sonea's feelings about being intimate with any man( let alone Akkarin) from an earlier chapter of 'Perspectives', and how she is repelled by the idea of being that close to someone (). What follows here hopefully shows how far her feelings for Akkarin have come. I also wanted to depict the tenderness of their intimacy so as to contrast with the horror of what Sonea endures at the hands of Kariko later on, if I had used my alternative ending ('No easy endings') in 'Perspectives' - which is pretty academic now since I can't seem to get going again on that!
I am rambling now, and all of the above is an irrelevance anyway! Read on if you like Akkarin x Sonea, don't if you don't! Oh yeah - angsty as ever!
Finally satisfied that Parika had not followed them through the pass, Akkarin slowed his pace, laughing softly as Sonea sighed her relief and approval. He turned to her and draped his arm across her shoulders, drawing her near as they walked and he winced inwardly at how easily they could have been caught by Parika. But, for now, they were safe - she was safe, and for a few hours more they could be together. That was how Akkarin measured his life now, in hours and minutes, although he baulked at thinking of Sonea' s in terms of such brevity, though, in truth, she was just as likely to die in this unrelenting and macabre game of cat-and-mouse as he was.
The landscape changed as they slowly passed further into Kyralia. Instead of the austere landscape of Sachaka, painted in the unrelenting colour of dust, the trees now loomed tall and grey in the moonlight above them.
For a while they walked on in silence, taking in the midnight tapestry that was illuminated by a myriad of stars, and the soft sound of their breath and their light footfall were the only noise that pierced their awareness.
They were in Kyralia. They were home. They were breaking their exile – and yet, as Akkarin glanced down at Sonea's dark head, his heart was inexplicably light. They entered a secluded spot, dense with trees, and the moss felt mercifully soft and springy under their sore and weary feet. Akkarin released Sonea and he strode up to the nearest tree, sliding down its trunk to rest on the ground beneath.
Sonea blinked for a moment in the darkness, the space at her side feeling suddenly empty and cold, before she joined Akkarin and sank down gratefully next to him.
"What now?" She asked as her eyes, luminous in the moonlight, flickered appraisingly around at their surroundings. Akkarin pulled her closer, his arm encircling her small frame easily.
"Sleep Sonea," he whispered. "I will watch. We'll decide what to do tomorrow."
Akkarin felt her fold against him and a faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth for the speed of ease with which former guardian and novice alike – former enemies even – had found with each other. He brought his hand to the silk of her head, losing his long fingers in the dark river of her hair as he absently smoothed it; losing himself in the fragrance and softness of her, the unreality of touching her still filling him with wonder.
Akkarin's black eyes narrowed. All that he didn't deserve, and all that he thought he would never have, was in that moment and nothing more. No black magic and no Ichani. No Guild, no parents, no responsibility. Just Sonea, in his arms, the perfect silken-smoothness of her hair against the coarseness of his unshaven throat, and everything else fell away. Even before he had been aware of it, he had wanted this, and now to know that his heart, numb for so long, was still vital and beating, just so it could be ripped out again after all these years... Was there any fate more bitter than to get what you long for most, when it may be too late? But they still had here and they had still had now and Akkarin's arms unconsciously tightened their embrace.
Akkarin sent out a tentative thread of magic towards her mind and he knew that she did not sleep. They sat like that for a while, like two matches struck against each other to flare starlight in the darkness, and they were quiet, but their blood and nerves and hearts were not .
"You could almost pick them like fruit." Sonea murmured suddenly, breaking the reverie, and she reached up her arm and spread her fingers towards the glimmer of a star that shone down on them through a chink in the canopy of leaves above. "They don't look so many as in Sachaka, but they are brighter, I think," she continued in a low voice before blushing faintly at such a childlike observation. She let her arm fall into her lap and fell awkwardly silent.
Akkarin smiled, not seeing the flush of her cheek, and was struck again by the endearingly simple way this former dwell at his side perceived things - from the beauty of starlight, to her fierce loyalty to those she viewed as being wronged.
"Sonea..." His resonant voice was whisper-soft and she felt his head dip towards hers.
"Sonea." He tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear and she tilted her head so that her face was upturned to his.
She, too, sought with her mind ,and she found Akkarin's yearning, meeting her own in a deep place, and his eyes were like fire.
"Akkarin." Her voice was low, ardent, sweet, as she spoke the name that had become so familiar on her tongue these last few days. He was no longer the High Lord; he was no longer her guardian.
"I can't sleep," she added and he sensed her smile as she twisted in his arms and he loosened his hold to allow her movement. Her hand climbed him, over the firmness of arms and chest to his throat, his rough-smooth jaw, and then her fingertips were on his lips, so soft by comparison. Sonea felt them tremble and curl upwards under her skin and she caught the glint in his eyes as he watched her with a hopeful, piercing scrutiny that made her shiver, she felt so...seen.
If he had not read her mind on that fateful day in Rothen's rooms, Akkarin, knowing her origins and the harshness of her previous life, would have been surprised that Sonea had not lain with another man. As it was, that he was her first, had weighed on him all day and he could not help but feel disconcerted, and all the objections he had placed before her following that first kiss kept on floating into his mind. Yet, at her touch, Akkarin felt a sudden unspooling of resolve and doubt, like the snap of a cable as all restraints gave way.
He took her face in his hands, fingers gently, almost tentatively,skimming her jaw and ear, and she quieted, her body lying motionless and still, belying the rushing within. His eyes were held wide, as if he wanted to take more of her into himself, like light through a window, and he felt her giving way, melting towards him, around him. One of her booted feet slid over his leg so that her knee brushed his and settled against it, closing all space between them. Akkarin's hand slipped down her throat to find hers on his chest and their fingers linked as he brought his other hand up to slid around the nape of her neck, twining through her hair and sending frissons of longing through her body.
He bent his head and set his lips against her brow, soft, tender, and his eyes closed as she leaned into his caress. Akkarin's lips made a trail down her cheek and then he found her mouth and he ached as he tasted her sweet eagerness.
"Sonea." And his voice was warm breath mingling with hers as their lips still touched , and his fingers were fire, licking at her skin, slipping beneath her shirt and kindling a flame in her stomach that spread downwards. Sonea arched towards him, her upturned face, pale in the moonlight, was centred in the unfathomable black of his pupils as he looked at her, and he saw her longing, her vulnerability, her openness, and he thought her beautiful.
"Sonea..." But the inflection of pleading in Akkarin's voice at that moment was not desire and Sonea, in some distant place in her mind, thought it was like a discordant note that marred a harmony.
"Sonea." Akkarin's strong fingers gripped her arms as he leaned abruptly away, as quick as shattering - a lurch that left behind the jagged edges of the moment. Pulling away from Sonea in that instant was one of the hardest things he had ever done, and, as her smooth brow creased and her head tilted, and he saw the confused hurt in her eyes, his heart surged in protest within him.
Sonea pulled herself upright and gazed at him steadily, though an ache suddenly swelled in her throat as Akkarin began to speak haltingly.
"This morning...at the waterfall..." his voice was ragged with recrimination and self-doubt and he stared intently down at her hands that he had taken in his. "We should not... I should not... have taken that from you – it was ...wrong. . I should not have let my feelings overcome me. You are not yourself in this place, here, now, running for your life, and you deserved better from me."
Akkarin lifted his gaze to meet hers and it was implacable and inscrutable, the well-practised High Lord of old, though his voice remained soft. "And...and I walk in shadows, Sonea." He brought his hand up to caress her cheek, though he did not know it. "I would not take you down such sunless path with me."
"I will learn to love the dark," she whispered fiercely, without hesitation, and she wanted him to understand, and he did - she loved him, he knew.
Sonea searched his eyes, strained to see beyond the mask, knowing him as she did now, and it slipped and she caught sight of the helplessness and anguish that had come in only glints and glimmers since that morning when she had first kissed him, two days ago now. It was unbelievable that it had been so short a time; unbelievable that such a vulnerable and emotional soul had proved to lie beneath this man's cool exterior.
Sonea took a shuddering breath. Only one thing mattered, just one thing she needed to know and she could happily live with any other consequences. With a difficulty of courage she would not have had trouble finding were it an Ichani she faced, Sonea formed the words.
"Just tell me," she whispered brokenly as she struggled to hold his gaze. "Just tell me that you mean it; that it is something true, something ...right." Her lip trembled and Akkarin thought his heart would break.
"Oh, I mean it, Sonea," he breathed. "I mean it." And he drew her close once more, crushing her against him, his cheek against the top of her head. "You've been the only thing that's right in all I've done."
His mouth found hers and he kissed her again and she did not doubt his words, and that was enough. She responded to the warmth of him. She let him touch her, and she touched him; she breathed his breath, harsh and rapid, and he drank hers in, soft and hitching in her throat. Sonea sank back under his irresistible weight, feeling the softness of the moss beneath her back as Akkarin lay her down, pushing aside her rough clothing as she fumbled with trembling, eager fingers with his.
She filled his vision, his senses – every time he had ever watched her, unknowingly desired her, crystallised in this one moment. He leaned away from her, bracing his arm, his black hair hung down and his dark eyes burned as he took in her pale, perfect skin dappled by the moonlight.
"You are beautiful," he murmured, smiling softly at the visible flush that rose in her face before she shivered involuntarily as a cool breeze touched the heat of her nakedness. Akkarin's fingers traced gently across her brow before he dropped to his elbow and his hands, strong and gentle, more measured and controlled than earlier, danced patterns of heat down her neck, her breasts, her stomach and lower, until the lancing flames consumed her and she clawed at the muscles in his neck and shoulder, bringing her mouth to his in a desperate hunger that he answered in kind. All doubts forgotten, burnt alongside the prison of his heart, Akkarin covered Sonea with his body like a living blanket, and she opened for him, and it did not feel vulnerable or wrong – it felt right.
Later, all desire sated, Akkarin sat propped up against the tree once more as Sonea, clothed now against the cool night air, lay curled against his chest and his arms encircled her protectively. Her breathing was soft and regular as he methodically smoothed her hair down her neck.
"I love you," he whispered into the darkness and, closing his eyes, he bent and kissed the crown of her head, but she slept and she did not hear him.
Thanks for reading, please review.