An Ebony's Weavings (Splinter) Story
Prologue
Ebony stared silently at the desert-born elf. From her vantage point in one of the "balconies" within the Palace, she could see the pain and anguish in his golden eyes. The dark huntress knew what had happened, knew that Winnowill was finally healed, and that she had chosen to leave Rayek.
Sucking in a deep breath of shared pain, she flicked her dark eyes over to her chief. Cutter's eyes were wide, his expression one of solemn compassion. As she glanced to each elf gathered in the room below, she noticed that each face matched Cutter's.
She looked back at the dark-skinned hunter with sadness, only to see him crumple, sobbing, to the floor. Shocked that the once proud and arrogant Rayek would act so, Ebony realized something. Whatever his difference with the Wolfriders, he was an elf; he was one of her people.
And she would give half her soul to take the pain from him.
She saw him lash out at everyone, pushing them away, and it saddened her further. He would never heal if he constantly pushed everyone away. As she watched, everyone reluctantly left. Ebony remained, though, esconced on the balcony, in a way hidden. She stared down in helpless sorrow at Rayek's dark form below.
At length, he stood. Though the tears had left their tracks along his cheeks, and their evidence in the redness of his eyes, those eyes were dry now, a clear and pain-filled amber. And as he looked up, they met Ebony's dark ones for a long moment before she turned and fled, a little afraid of the pain she saw....
As time passed, Rayek continued to keep everyone at arm's length, truly speaking with only Ekuar, Venka, Leetah or Savah. Yet after so much time of constant company, even if it had been Winnowill, he found himself unused to being alone. He forced himself to confront it.
Alone he had always been, and alone it seemed he was destined to remain.
At times, he thought he heard Winnowill's scathing remarks. Always it turned out to simply be his imagination, calling her up out of habit; so used to hearing her that he had to remind himself that she was gone. Not his. Free. Whole. But not his.
ELFQUEST:
THE TINIEST SPLINTER OF LOVE
(a Splinter story based on
The Lost One: What
Price Freedom, by manga and
Ebony's Weavings
by A. Matthews)
"Rayek?" Her words were soft, yet still carried through the hall to him, just one of the wonders of the Palace walls. "Like some company?"
"No." His voice was calm. Flat. Supremely detached.
Just as she had expected. "Tough. You're going to get it anyway." She grinned gently to take the sting out of her words.
His eyes had flicked in her direction once; now they settled on her with evident irritation. "I want no company." He scowled.
"Well, I do. And I want your company." For once, perhaps because she was on a mission of mercy, her temper did not take hold and ruin the plan. She curled up on the floor beside his chair, not quite close enough to touch it.
He stood, and the chair melted back into the wall.
Her eyes rolled, both at the show of magic and at his evident attempt to be away from her, and she rose as well. "Where are we going?"
"-I- am returning to my chamber. I suggest you find some one else to 'keep you company'." With those words dropped over his shoulder, he strode off.
"Why?" Her confusion was sincere, her gaze open and unwavering as it regarded him. Though she was facing his back, she did not change her mind. She was going to find a way to get him to open up to her. And then she was going to find a way to heal his shattered heart. That's all there was to it.
"Because I said so," he said grimly.
At last, Rayek thought. Finally I am free of her. Why does the Wolfrider persist in following me? He looked around the abandoned corner of the Palace and nodded to himself with satisfaction. It was the perfect place to be alone.
//I thought you hated to be alone, lovemate. Certainly you insisted on keeping me with you for company.
"Shut up," he hissed. "You are not here anymore! I am not hearing you!" I AM not hearing her and I never WILL be hearing her again, he reminded himself vehemently. Briefly, the pain swelled again. He thought his heart would implode, in contracted so hard. He wished it -would- already.
Yet it kept beating as strongly as ever. Why? Didn't it know that there was nothing for him?
Ebony sighed inwardly. This plan was proving much more difficult than she had originally expected. Hearing his voice coming from the abandoned corner she had followed him to, her brows furrowed sadly. "Rayek?" She approached slowly, not so much afraid of him as unsure of how to reach out to him. "Rayek, let me help." She could see it in his eyes . . . It was the same look that Cutter had borne when Leetah had been whisked away to the future. But that was then. And this time, it was Rayek that needed her help. Even if he wouldn't admit it.
"I do not need help," he gritted, one hand still held over his heart.
"Yes," she whispered, reaching out and touching the hand over his heart lightly. "You do."
He jerked away. "No. I do not."
"Rayek. . . ." Her words trailed off. She could think of nothing to say that wasn't trite. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she blinked them away in frustration.
"That," he said, pointing to her tears, "is why I told you to seek your company elsewhere."
Her brows furrowed in confusion. "Why?"
"Idiot wolfrider," he growled. Spinning on his heel, he stalked away.
She grasped his arm with a slender hand. "I'm not an idiot . . ." Her words were soft, and without malice. She wasn't angry at the name. She just felt frustrated. "Just a barbarian."
He shook her hand off. "Either way, it's pointless to explain." Why couldn't she understand how he felt? Why couldn't he make her see that he wanted no one?
"Not to me," she said softly.
"It is to me." He clearly intended this to be then end of the discussion.
"Then talk to me about something else."
"How much clearer can I say it?!" he snapped. "I have no wish for conversation!"
"Don't do this to yourself...." "I am doing nothing to myself, Wolfrider." It was so infuriating. She just wouldn't listen to him.
"I have a name, you know!" Though she didn't shout, he could hear the suppressed anger in her voice.
"I have no desire to know it." His voice was low, not intending harm, but definitely angry. "I have told you, I do not desire to speak with anyone. Why then would I need to know names?"
His words hurt, though she knew he didn't mean it that way. Her brow furrowed as she stared at him. "Because maybe, just maybe, someone else wants your company . . . Like me." I'm not cut out for this plan..., Ebony thought with a grimace. I can't be the patient, soft elf he needs.
"Do not be ridiculous," he muttered. "Why in Yurek's name would you want that?"
"Because you're . . . . you!" Eyes darkened with frustrated anger, she looked away from him.
"I would think that that would be the reason to stay away from me." He scowled. Insane little maiden.
"Because you remind me of myself."
"May the High Ones protect you then." His eyes were dark also, with annoyance and bitter self-directed humor. Amid that welter, though, he was intrigued.
"They aren't the only ones who do..."
"Then thank the High Ones." He bit the words out, unreasonably angry. The High Ones protected no one. He knew that, and yet this silly little Wolfrider trusted in them utterly.
"At one time, you helped me..." She looked down, her expression soft and gentle. "You protected me." Her mouth twisted into a grimace of a smile. Of course he wouldn't remember her, wouldn't remember the way he had saved her life.
"That," he said after a moment's search for memories, "was countless years ago, and only one time. Considering what I have done to your tribe since, I would think you'd not count me as a 'protector'."
As angry as she had been about the things he mentioned, she found the truth of it in herself now. "You did nothing to deliberately hurt us. What you did, you did to help."
Inwardly, he was surprised. "Your chief didn't see it that way."
Ebony thought about that for a long moment. "Cutter sees things through the eyes of a chief and a lifemate first. I have the opportunity to take a step back and look again."
"Cutter sees things through the eyes of a wolf, always," Rayek growled. "He chose to be left behind."
"All of the Wolfriders see things through the eyes of our wolf-blood." But me, she added silently. "As we all chose to stay behind. Myself included."
Rayek shrugged, dismissing the subject. His past was not something he cared to discuss.
"I'd like . . ." she trailed off, unsure of herself. Her gaze fell from his. If she didn't ask, she wouldn't have an answer. And if she did ask, and he refused, the going would be so much harder. Taking a deep breath to steel herself against the rejection, she started again. "I'd like to be your friend, Rayek. I see so much of myself in you, so much that you could understand that no one else could . . ." She trailed off before breathing deeply and continuing. "And perhaps, in time, you will find a bit of yourself in me."
"You do not know what you are asking," was his still low-voiced response.
"Yes, Rayek, I do," she frowned.
"The fact that you -are- asking makes it obvious that you do not." He shrugged irritably.
His response angered her. She was trying to be a friend, and he was shoving her away as he shoved everyone else away. She had steeled herself for such a response, but it still hurt. "Get this through your thick skull. . . . I happen to like you. And I'd like to consider you a friend, if you'll let me. Though I will whether you do or not!"
"That is your concern. Not mine," he growled softly. "Goodbye." So saying, he turned and stalked out of the room.
Ebony hung her head. Though she would not admit defeat, this felt very badly like it.