Her Forbidden Fruit

"Why do I always seem to fall for the wrong man?"

He laughed, causing strands of her hair to gently caress her face. The touch was soft; a reality in what had been a night of utter unreality. A night of a possibility that had never occurred to her, yet she had welcomed it gladly for in the long years she had been a live, it was the only solace she had managed to procure.

"Maybe it is the fact that you always seem to give us a second chance."

She scowled. "You make me sound weak."

Weakness, for one such as her, was a burden too great to bear. One she, in fact, could ill afford. It was difficult for this particular woman to be a female among males. There was too much that went against her; her background, her friends, of whom there were little to none, and her history. She was, in effect, a woman who travelled always in a room with four walls and no windows. Every move she made was met by prohibition, by fear and self doubt. That was why weakness was something that she couldn't allow for if she was weak, she would crumple beneath the well made boots of Kyralian society.

She glanced worriedly at her companion, tense and secretly afraid that he saw her as nothing but a piece of pleasure he had managed to force into his submission. For that was what men like him did, was it not? They manipulated the hearts of women and invited them into a bed of pretence and scandal. And even, in the end, when the scandal was uncovered, for it would undoubtedly be revealed to the light of day by some good for nothing gossip, it was the woman who suffered. Not the man and his ferocious ways, not the man with his slick manner and uncaring attitude. It would be the poor woman who was fool enough to think that there was one person in the entire world who cared enough for her to say 'I love you'. While she would be metaphorically stoned and burned by the penetrating stares of the elite he would be off, seducing another woman and feeding off the male pride and animalistic glee of a catch that has been perfectly caught and killed.

And it wasn't as if she had anything to offer this man, who had chosen her out of the many, to join him in this foolish act. She was by no means young. That she was wise enough to know. Every day in the looking glass she saw the age lines draw a more complicated map on her pale skin, emphasising the darkness of her eyes, and the delicateness of her features. Her hair was still black yet lacked the fullness of youth; instead it hung as she wanted it to; in slight disarray, to show that somewhere in her soul she was alive. Just because everything around her had died didn't mean that she had also lost her will to live. Of wealth and fame, yes she had a little; products of a youth that was long gone, a life that she only remembered with the pain and loss.

However, as she looked at her companion now, that man she still held such doubt in, she found him smiling at her. It was a smile that was tender, something she wasn't used to on his face, yet infused in the gentle happiness was a coyness she definitely was used to, a sort of mocking that only they shared. The smile was a symbol of the countless memories that had together; good yet mostly bad. It held in its usually brooding folds an irony which caused her own lips to curl. They were a unique pair, it reassured her, and were equal. Should they be discovered, she realised belatedly, they would be both be in trouble.

Responding to the smile that had spread over her face, her companion lightly brushed the back of his hand down her cheek and murmured, "If there was ever a woman who epitomised the meaning of strength, it would be you."

She gasped, surprised by his admonishment.

"It's true. I have always thought so...well, nearly always thought so." He corrected one he saw her frown.

"What I meant was that you seem to display a...compassion no other Kyralian woman I have met seems to possess. It doesn't make you weak; it can only ever make you stronger. Even as we lay here in this...err...most compromising of positions I see you still questioning me. My motivations."

The woman's eyes widened slightly, "I didn't realise I was so easy to read."

"No," he laughed, "You are not easy to read, the opposite in fact. I just know you...it has been a long time."

She smiled, "It has, hasn't it. I'm confused though, how does this...compassion of mine make me stronger?"

"You're ability to forgive yet never forget. No matter what the Guild do to you, no matter what fate, time and every worldly being does to you, it seems you just take the burden of hurt and store it away. You just...carry on as if nothing had changed."

His words surprised her a little. The insight he had into her life, when he had only really been a main part of it recently, was shocking. How could he have seen so much when he was only a spectator viewing the show from the farthest seat? She considered her companion once more, really looked at that face she had taken for granted. At the moment he revealed nothing but good humour, evident in the deepened lines around his own mouth and eyes. He's not so young himself.

She, however, looked deeper, past the surface she saw every day. What was it that made him so perceptive of her? How did he know her so well? He tilted his head, curious at her stare and there, briefly she saw a flash of something in his eyes. It had, nevertheless, disappeared as fast as she had seen it. Maybe it was a flicker from the flame of the lamp that glowed softly behind her. She felt his arms tighten about her waist slightly and smiled as he leaned forward, 'what are you looking for now."

She grinned; embarrassed that he had noticed once more, 'Nothing. I was just...looking.'

"If you say so."

'I do.'

She felt the soft tickle of his breath on her ear as he leant forward even more to whisper, "It's what drew me to you, you know."

Her heart suddenly started to race in her chest and she turned her head quickly to catch his eyes.

'What is?"

His lips gently brushed her cheek, 'You're strength.' They moved to her forehead, 'You're compassion.' And finally he moved to hold prisoner her eyes, and without knowing, he heart, 'actually...it is everything about you.'

Then those lips pressed against her own, and that was the last thing the torn and broken Sonea, Black Magician of the Magician's Guild of Kyralia, once exiled novice and now protector of the Allied lands, knew for a long while.