I don't know why I wrote this or when I actually had time, because I've been incredibly busy. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it if you're reading!
It was only meant to be a flying visit while Darren was engaged with Vanez. The two of them were old friends, after all – he would never have dreamed of neglecting to pay Seba or Gavner a visit at Council, and in the same way it would have been rude to ignore her. He had a feeling that she wasn't likely to seek him out of her own accord, and felt his stomach twist at the thought. They had parted ways sixty years ago now, but he guiltily remembered that he had been too occupied to notice much, or care.
Arra was on the bars, and he waited patiently to watch her finish her opponent before he interrupted. She had been a force to be reckoned with even all those years ago when he'd first known her, but she was pure warrior now, maybe shaping up to be one of the best. The eerie sense of balance he'd once observed in her was more developed these nights, and she walked along them as comfortably as she might have done on flat, solid ground. Larten held out little hope for her opponent.
"Are you finally here for your turn?" she asked, turning her head slightly to look at him. Her lips hinted at a smile, but in the end they didn't move. "I've been waiting almost a century, you know."
She was anticipating the end of her current match already. The bulky man she faced growled at that. He looked furious at the way she was already dismissing him, and hurled himself forwards with difficulty along the narrow bar to swipe at her while her head was turned. Larten wasn't sure whether she had noticed the movement, and decided to keep his eyes away from either of them for the next few moments – if he had alerted her to the oncoming challenge, she would undoubtedly have resented him for it, but if he had distracted her with a response she would have blamed him for that, too. Women were complicated and Arra was no exception.
As soon as he could hear the sound of their weapons colliding, he felt safe to look up again. At some point in the last second Arra had found her way onto another bar and struck down at her opponent, looking displeased that he had been planning to sneak up on her. It was only a matter of moments before his staff clattered away, and only a second or two after that a well-placed kick sent him hurtling after it.
Arra and her opponent didn't bother exchanging any pleasantries. She was an arrogant fighter and never had seen much point in congratulating or placating someone after a loss, perhaps because she always won. In the moments where others might have helped their opponents back onto their feet, shook their hands and assured them it was a close match, Arra had already walked away, leaving her casualty to pick himself and drag himself out of the Hall in his own time.
Larten looked up to see that she was holding a staff out towards him, with hers tucked under her arm.
"Not tonight," he decided, for the sixth or seventh time since they'd known one another. "My assistant was returned to me with enough bruises for the both of us."
It was clear that Arra wasn't sure whether it was appropriate to laugh or to apologize. Torn between them, unable to fight a smirk, she simply shrugged.
"That wasn't my idea," she said haughtily. "I've better things to do than play fight with children."
Larten, too, was unable to fight a smirk. It had been so long since they'd last spoken that he wasn't sure how to speak to her at all. He could see that she was different than she had been years ago – she was lean and muscular all over, in the kind of physical condition that she had once aspired to, with a generous number of new scars along her exposed arms and chest. He still remembered her as a young girl, like she had been when he'd chased her around for a few years trying to win her approval, or even the young woman she'd been when they'd travelled together. There was no shred of youth present now. She was a fully-fledged warrior, a soldier, and Larten paused when considering his response. She was several ranks his senior now, too, and suddenly he wondered whether she might not appreciate his humour anymore. He convinced himself that she still had the same glint of mischief somewhere in her eye, though, and continued.
"He told me he almost had the beating of you," he teased, quietly confident that she wouldn't physically assault him for saying that.
Arra scowled.
"Fetch him, then," she growled, taking a seat against the railing in order to stretch out her legs. "Tell him his rematch is tonight. This time, I'll fight him like a real enemy."
Though it didn't much sound like it, Larten was sure she was joking. Kurda had carted Darren back to his cell unconscious, and when questioned had raved about Vanez being stark raving mad and Arra a complete sadist. For a moment Larten had wondered whether she'd intended to injure the boy as a manifestation of some resentment toward him, but he was certain that wasn't the case now. He didn't doubt that Arra had fought him fairly and had not given him any special chances or favours, but he also didn't doubt that with the appropriate determination she could just as easily have killed him.
"It must have been the concussion talking," he assured her, with a wink. She looked surprised, as if it had been a long time since anyone had spoken to her so casually.
"He is nothing like you at all," she commented suddenly, seemingly put at ease by his gentle teasing. "Knowing how vain you are, I expected you might have blooded any young man and forced him to dress in red and dye his hair."
Larten snorted at the slight insult. He had been so eager to become like Seba, the mentor-father he adored and admired, just like Arra had been desperate to replicate Mika's image and success. Unlike the two of them, Darren seemed determined to carve his own path.
"He does not listen to me," he told her honestly, leaning back against the railings as she was, a significant distance between them. "I idolised Seba, but I do not think Darren will ever respect me."
"Probably not," she agreed, and Larten couldn't help letting out a huff in response.
"He disobeys me constantly," he continued. "And for many months after his blooding he actively despised me – and probably would have killed me, had I ever given him chance."
"That doesn't surprise me, either," she said, brutally honest as always. "I have heard the stories. He might still be planning to kill you, one night when he is strong enough. You'd do well to keep that in mind."
Larten knew that wasn't true. Over the last few years he had built a stable relationship with the boy, even if it wasn't quite the relationship he'd hoped for as a mentor. Arra noticed his frown and laughed.
"It amuses me that you think he ought to adore you," she said. "It makes me wonder what you feel you've done to deserve the boy's undying loyalty. You took his human life away and brought him here against his will, for one thing, and for another you never have been entirely well-liked. Why should Darren like you so much if nobody else does?"
"You liked me well enough, when you were younger," he snapped bitterly. He hated being reminded of the things he'd done that had ruined his assistant's life. He still didn't have an explanation for blooding him, and that made his inner turmoil significantly worse.
Arra laughed. "I like you well enough now, too," she said, almost kindly, and his head spun around to look at her. Hadn't she just been insulting him? "But that's neither here nor there. Nobody likes me much, either, so I suppose it's only right I should approve of you."
Larten huffed again. "You do not give them much reason to," he commented, remembering the way she'd treated her opponent. "I do not think you have had a single nice thing to say to me since I arrived."
"You're no better," she growled. "The way you strut around like some demented circus clown, frowning at everything from the bat broth to Kurda's investiture."
"I am not a clown at the circus!" he bit back, and then added a moment later; "You've always hated Kurda more than I do."
"I hate bat broth, too," she reminded him brusquely. "But that changes nothing. You're still a miserable old bat these nights. Besides, I'd never take an assistant and inflict my misery onto them."
He couldn't help but laugh at that. "Just as well," he said, genuinely glad she didn't intend on taking an assistant of her own. However tough, he couldn't imagine anyone lasting twenty or thirty years in training with Arra. "I cannot imagine you are much of a teacher."
"Now you understand how I felt when I heard you'd taken a child apprentice," she remarked. "I still remember when you tried to teach me to make and apply an emergency tourniquet before you died of blood loss. You were not much of a teacher that night."
Larten could remember that. He remembered barking instructions at her wildly and berating her for doing it wrong until she'd tired of his voice and punched him square in the temple. He'd come around again hours later, the whole thing done her way. Better still, she had demanded an apology for how he had patronized her, but never gave him one for knocking him out.
In hindsight, it was quite amusing.
"It is not my fault you do not take instruction well," he teased softly, jumping away when it looked like she might have been about to punch him again. He settled down a little further from her and watched her smile. Decades had changed nothing – she was a stunning woman in her own distinct way as she always had been. He always had been quite enchanted by her, he supposed, but she was more striking and appealing to him now than she ever had been, even more than when he'd been a youngster. Talking with her brought him back to their years together, the shards of great memories among all the times he'd shunned her. Their time as mates in the past was a significant source of guilt for him these nights, and he couldn't help wondering as he looked at her whether it might not be too late to establish something between them now that finally he could devote his attention to her completely.
"You were awful to me sometimes," he joked, remembering nights he'd come back injured and she would ridicule and insult him rather than assist his recovery.
There was a slight change in her expression that he would have missed had he not already been staring intently at her. She was staring off ahead rather than looking at him, but even at his angle her bright eyes looked suddenly sad.
"You were to me, too, sometimes," she reminded him softly.
It was the first time in their brief conversation that he hadn't known what to say. He knew instantly, instinctively, what she meant, but what could he say to her? She had always been his second choice and he had always treated her as such. It had been obvious that it bothered her, but it had always been easier to ignore it.
Before he had any chance to consider an appropriate response, she was on her feet again.
"If you didn't come for our fight on the bars," she began, peering around him to watch another fight on the bars that had recently started. "Then what was it you wanted?"
In truth, he had only intended an exchange of greetings and a few questions. He hadn't managed to ask her anything he actually wanted to know, about her rise through the ranks and what she'd done with her last six decades, because he'd been too occupied arguing with her. Oddly enough, though, none of her cruel honesty had truly irritated him. She had been prickly and uptight even as an assistant and was worse now, but in a way he recognized that as similar to himself. After all these years, it was nice to talk to someone more on his level, for once.
Stranger still, he was eager to argue with her again. He hauled himself to his feet and held out an arm.
"Come and tell me everything I have missed while I have been away," he suggested, ignoring the way she quirked an eyebrow and glared. When she continued staring at him, he linked their arms by force and laughed when she snarled back at him.
She didn't struggle as he expected she would have had she really wanted to be away from him; he suspected there was at least half a chance that she might have been eager to continue their discussion, too. She had been right all those years ago. There always had been something between them, even if it had never been entirely the right time for it – it was worth one more try at least.
Better that than wonder for the rest of our lives what it might have been like if we'd tried, he remembered, and smiled again.