Love's Complexities

Author's Note: I only just started reading Isobelle Carmody's Obernewtyn on Boxing Day of 2009. I really liked the first book and immediately looked up the internet to see if there were any good fanfics. Nonetheless, after reading some fantastic stories I was completely inspired to write about Dameon and Elspeth. And as a result I'm so for Dameon and Elspeth - no matter how tragic and unrequited their love turns out to be...

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I lifted my face to the wind, as I made my way up the Path of the Ancients, a curious sort of foreboding nestling in my stomach as I saw glimpses, relics of the Old World, half-buried mechanisms and broken-down buildings, all corroding slowly, their secrets forgotten, buried under the sands of time. Wrapped up in my own thoughts, I sighed as Rushton's face came into my mind, along with the excited, yet harried faces of those preparing our bonding ceremony. Little did he know the turmoil that spun through my mind, darkening all happiness in doubt and fear. No amount of spring flowers or sweet words could change my fate. The black road awaited me like a ribbon of darkness uncoiling in my dreams. But apart from its darkness, the trivialities of life kept on creeping in; Rushton's recent moody behaviour, Dameon's quiet withdrawal and his strange refusal to bond us at the ceremony tomorrow. He was as caring and sweet as always but there was something hidden there beneath the calm surface that I had barely glimpsed. The thought unnerved me, as Dameon was my closest friend and also close to Rushton. But I did not know how to even approach him about it.

I walked up to the top of the bluff, buffeted about by the strong wind, which whipped my cape off my shoulders and my hair out, like a flag on its pinnacle. I shivered, pulling my cloak more firmly around me, and retreating into the more protected clove of trees, breathing deeply under the leafy foliage. I had yet to be given some sign, some clue as to when I should leave. In my mind it had always been an obscure dark blot in the waiting future. But slowly and surely, it was creeping up on me.

"Elspeth…"

I startled, turning suddenly as I heard the much beloved voice of the Empath Guildmaster. I looked up and saw him under the leafy bough, his face half in shadow and felt more than a little guilty about my previous thoughts of him hiding something behind the shield that he so precariously placed between the two of us. He smiled, holding out his hands as always, and I stepped forward at once into his embrace, feeling with sudden sadness, that he seemed more distant than usual, stiff even. I tried to ignore it as he looked at me questioningly, but it niggled in the back of my mind.

"I thought I'd find you up here," he smiled, his face lighting up in a characteristic glow.

"Yes," I said dryly. "After I finally managed to escape."

Dameon laughed. "So many people have been calling you, including Katlyn, carrying these ridiculous, perfumed things. I can only assume they're some sort of garland she wants you to try on."

I grimaced, looking up into his laughing face and asked, "Tell me, has Rushton managed to ask Dardelan yet?"

I saw the Empath Guildmaster stiffen slightly as he caght the drift of my thought and then he said rather carefully, and I thought guardedly.

"No, but Rushton asked me to find you and bring you down… so I'm sure he wants you there when he presents your request."

The way he said Rushton's name froze my insides. It was bitter and cold and so uncharacteristic of the gentle Guildmaster that I flinched. I couldn't ignore it any longer.

"Dameon…?" I questioned, holding his hand between both of mine. "Is something wrong? You've been acting… strange and I've been worried..."

Dameon turned his face to me as I mumbled incoherently to a stop, and I was struck by the pain in his face. "You think I am hiding something from you?"

"Dameon, I know there is something on your mind. "

"Elspeth…" he said so softly, I barely heard him. He felt his way to a nearby log and sat down, placing his head in his hands. "I ...It has long been my burden to bear. I cannot... "

"Perhaps, I can help you." I spoke softly, sitting beside him. "

He turned his face to me, as ever unerring in his precision and spoke somewhat bitterly. "You of all people Elspeth cannot know..."

Stung, I blinked in surprise and hurt, not able to understand his rejection or his bitterness. I got up, trembling, to walk away but turned around on sudden impulse, biting my lip. "Tell me Dameon, if this has anything to do with Rushton and my bonding ceremony tomorrow…"

I heard his instilled breath of air, but carried on blindly. "You are both Rushton's friend and mine… our dearest friend…we would -"

His voice was firm, if not slightly trembling from some hidden emotion. "You must understand that it would be beyond my endurance to bond you, Elspeth, I have already told you this. Rushton underst-…"

"Beyond your – but Dameon what do you mean…? "

I was struck with the depth of passion and intensity that seemed to emanate off him in waves. I stood there, the silence between us deafening. Finally, I managed to mumble something, the words getting stuck in my throat. "What have I done wrong Dameon? What have I..." But I couldn't continue for the tears that obscured my vision. I stood there, blinking furiously, a burning in my throat and an ache in my chest.

I felt a gentle hand on my arm and when I looked up, I was so startled to see there were tears on his cheeks. He stepped forward and held me closely to him and I felt wrapped in an abundance of love and remorse.

"I am so sorry Elspeth," He murmured. "You have done nothing wrong. It is I who love you more than life and death that must pay the price."

I looked at him stricken. What on earth did he mean? He sounded uncannily like Atthis when the mysterious Agyllian had said that someone would pay the price for my saving Rushton. I shivered involuntary. He smiled sadly and took my hands in his. His fingers trembled around mine. "I will show you …"

And before I could move, before I could even open my mouth to speak, his barrier dissolved and the thousands of emotions that he had kept hidden for so long flowed straight through me. I gasped, struck at the intensity of his hurt, his sorrow, his pain but most of all his love which overrode everything else, the touch of my hand, my hair, the sound of my laughter, love as wide and immense as an ocean, love for me, love that knew no boundaries, and I felt it, it was poweful, beautiful, compelling and somehow all too much...

I couldn't bear it any longer.

"Please," I whispered, feeling extremely vulnerable, whether from his own projected emotion or my own, I did not know. "Please stop…"

Calmly he drew back his barrier and took me in his arms and sighed with such grief it brought me to tears. He rested his cheek on my head and whispered sadly,

"Elspeth...I knew…how this would affect you, which is why I kept it hidden for so long…" I listened to the irreguar pounding of his heartbeat against my ear and was caught up in a wave of his own sadness and thought back to Rushton's cryptic words in Sador, which felt like a lifetime away and understood that he had known for a long time. I stood there unmoving, clutching onto him for supoort, my mind still a whirlwind of emotion, dizzying, intensifing.

How could i have been so blind?

Head still spinning, I withdrew from his touch, suddenly awkward in the presence of the dear Guildmaster in whose company I had always been so at ease. Trembling, I pressed my hands to my burning cheeks. I did not know what to say, or how to say it, how to explain that I loved him, as a brother, as a friend without hurting him, how could I explain the intensity of those feelings? How did one explain the complexities of friendship, of longing, how did one draw boundaries around love?

I evaded his somehow all-seeing gaze, not able to meet his eyes, "I only hope that you can someday forgive me for the pain I have caused you…" My words were stiff, cold as I tried to compose myself, but I knew that Dameon must be reeling from the raw turbulence of my emotions, even with his barrier up. There were tears in his eyes again.

"Elspeth, I am so sorry..."

I rounded on him, almost angry. "It's not your fault!"

Lud. Whose fault is it who we fall in love with? Whose fault is it when we fall in love with someone we can't have? Do we choose these things? Or are they predestined for us before our lives begin?

For once in my life, I was totally lost. It was as if a stable foundation had suddenly slipped from beneath my feet.

"Dearest, I wanted you to know the truth…"

I looked up into his face, into his beloved, honest face and realized that if anyone knew what I was feeling, If anyone understood what I was going through, it was Dameon. The hard, icy barrier I had tried desperately to construct dissolved beneath a river of tears.

I suddenly knew beyond a doubt that I had to leave tomorrow, before the ceremony. Sign, or no sign, I would leave before first light.

"You're leaving..." Dameon whispered, his words ringing strangely in my mind and I looked up in bewilderment. How could he possibly know that? but he gave nothing away. He smiled as if reading my thoughts and I stared up at him, wondering how he knew me so well. He reached to touch my cheek with uncanny precision, tentative fingers memorising the contours of my skin, the bridge of my nose, the dampness on my cheeks, my lips… And I let him, moved by his devotion, his love, in spite of all the odds, in spite of everything.

"Goodbye Elspeth..." And then he leant in close, breathing in my scent, my presence, his warm breath fluttering my hair, and as light as air touched his lips to mine.

And then just like that, he was gone… disappearing into the forest, his cloak whispering over the dead leaves, his retreating footsteps marking a melancholy rhythm on the worn path.

I stood there, left with the echoing sadness of his words and a life time of questions that no one could answer. Tomorrow there would be no ceremony, no Rushton, no… Dameon… nothing… only the dark road that haunted my dreams, stretching out in front of me, sinuous, enchanting and utterly inescapable.

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