Plot and Week#9: Underdog smoke, tender, ring
Couple: Jason and Carly

Rated: R

Disclaimer: I don't own them, I just like writing about them

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The Valkyrie

"In the Heroic lays, however, the valkyries are described as bands of warrior-women only the leader of whom is ever named. She is invariably a human woman, the beautiful daughter of a great king, though she shares some of the supernatural abilities of her anonymous companions."
-Valkyrie, Winikepedia

"It is the end of an era. The end of the Spencers."

Caroline Spencer in the entrance of her lodge overlooking the remaining warriors under her command. Wisps of smoke still rose from dying cook fires, while the muted sounds of laughter from children as they were called in for bed. Next to her was her youngest cousin, Leslie Lu, second in command as well as her confidant. As commander of of the Spencer army, she didn't know if she should be proud of the women who fought and died for her or ashamed at how much she had failed them.

Over the years she had perfected the art of combat after the death of her mother and at the age of sixteen she was forced into leadership and a clan war that had existed for decades.

"Those barbarians don't know the meaning of peace and they will continue to rape and ravage these lands until every last one of us has been slaughtered."

Cold truth, yet she hated hearing those bitter words coming from her Lulu. A mere eighteen summers had passed since she had helped her mother during her aunt Laura's birthing and all the little one had known was war and death. She had taken Lulu to her side as more of a sister than cousin and would forever recall the head of flaxen hair blowing in a warm breeze as the precocious child trailed after her. She placed a bow in Lulu's hand first, guided her in the ways of a warrior. Now Lulu was as fierce as any Spencer woman and just as feared by their enemy.

If only the child's life could have been different. All of their lives different, she sighed with regret.

"This war has been waging for so many years and yet I fear it will soon end," she murmured. A gust of wind brushed against her face and on it's wing she could smell death, it's ominous claws extending across the Spencer lands even now as they fought so stridently against the inevitable.

"We still have a chance," Lulu insisted and she couldn't help the wry grin. A fighter till the very end, it was all they could ever do.

They were warriors. The strength of their blade, the accuracy of their arrows, the sweat of their brow and the very determination buring in their hearts would stand them in good stead. Yet the sheer number of their enemy would be their downfall. She would not be a good leader if she hid behind optimism and naivety when leading her warriors out onto the battle field.

If the Spencers would die, then they would fall with such a noise that their enemy would respect their name.

"Come dawn, we shall see if the gods will grant us that chance." A low clearing of throat before opening the flap at the entrance of her lodge halted Lulu's reponse. "You may enter."

And there were the eyes she needed to see most of all. They burned a savage cereulean fire, so rare in the men among her people. Yet, weren't there so many things about Jason that isolated him from the rest. In his stilted posture and tension running along his jaw, she could see he was furious about something. His gaze flickered away from Lulu, to the chakrams that were always looped at her waist, then searched her face as if reaching into her very thoughts to probe the depths of her soul. What he found tightened a line of his generous mouth.

"How long were you standing outside?"

"Long enough," the edge to his voice unmistakeable. Only Jason would dare show his displeasure in her presence. "If I might have a word alone, my lady?"

Lulu's afronted gaze snapped in her direction but Caroline inclined her head, waving her away. Jason would have his moment regardless of Lulu's presence. Her cousin looked to argue but it took a mere lift of brow for her to reconsider. By tacit conset, she stormed away, the swish of leather breeches and slap of her bow against her back proof of her anger. She paused to sneer at Jason then rolled her eyes and stormed out.

"Forgive Lulu," Caroline began with a heavy sigh, "She was more angry with the interruption than with you. Or rather with me, I should say."

Now that they were alone, she could look at him to her hearts content. In her many winters of life, no man had ever caught her attention much to her people's dismay. As heir, she was required to marry and produce offspring. Many of the council claimed she was too proud, too head strong and that's why she still remained unmatched.

Yet the men paraded before her had only turned her stomach. Weak. Complacent. How could she be expected to wed, let alone bed any of them. Their matriachal rule hadn't made their men subservient but so many feared her they seemed mere children and stirred no challenge nor longing.

Until Jason.

Jason with a warrior's build and a healer's heart. A shaman. Even now after years in her village, he wore the heavy garb of his station, opened to reveal the powerful chest taut with muscle and long sinwey legs covered in buckskin. He was not born among their people but captured from a neighboring tribe and kept slave until his abilities were discovered. He had saved their Queen then earned his freedom. And her respect.

The mere sight of him inspired a terrible wanting and it had from the very first moment she had watched him growl with fury at one of her warriors, though he was bound and surrounded.

"I didn't think I would see you. I thought you were still angry with me."

XXooXX

Jason looked at the woman he loved. The woman who, had their circumstances been different, would already be his wife and her finger would bear his ring instead of being worn on a chain around her neck. Together they would have sired cherished children. Boys, healers, to take their place and learn at his knee. Girls, warriors, strong and brave like their mother.

Her visage was deceptive. Primrose locks feathered softly around a regal face that could be made haughty from the icy chill in her stare or exquiste by the affection in her smile. She had developed a strength and stamina at odds with the slenderness of her body. A determination he had seen her wield on more than one occasion in both word and sword.

Tonight she was every inch a Spencer warrior. Dun colored leather breeches clung to a glorious length of leg to hang low at her waist. The tunic she wore was cropped giving a glimspe of a toned belly but it would easily be covered by her heavy chest plate, studded with various spikes and stained so that she might blend into her surroundings if needed. Bracers would cover her arms over a pair of fingerless leather gloves and her legs on top of knee high boots.

He preferred her in silken red, flowing across her seductive body and begging for a man to caress.

"I've come to ask you to reconsider." And even now, he could see the denial in her frustrated eyes. Not for the first time she turned from him in anger, her fists clenced tight. Yet each time he would ask, no demand, she listen to reason. "You're being stubborn, Carly."

"Tis not fair," she tossed back over her shoulder. It was long enough for him to see the bleak despair in her eyes. "You cannot call me Carly, as you whisper to me in bed, then ask that I send you to your death."

"We all die, beloved. I only ask to die as a man with a sword in my hand and not as a boy cowering in fear."

Her chuckle was dry and bitter, a cynical sound he despised for he could hear the pain behind it. "You've never cowered a day in your life, even when it would have saved your hide. As a slave you spat at your captures, as a free man you walk as though a king. So do not give me that excuse."

"What would you have me do?"

"What you are supposed to! That which you were born to do!" She whirled around, fury making her luminous. "You heal the ones who are injured, bless the ones who have died and by the gods, Jason Morgan you stay alive!" Tears blurred her gaze, "You stay alive! For I cannot bare it if you were taken from this world."

"And stay here, my soul bleeding, while you take my heart with you in death," he whispered with possesive desperation. He stalked forward, jerking her into his arms with fingers biting painfully and desperation and despair twisting in his gut. "I love you! If I cannot fight by yourside, at least let me die with you and with honor."

"No."

"Carly-"

"NO!" She screamed in a shrill voice. "They have taken everything from me, Jason. My mother. My childhood. My family and my people. And very soon, they will probably take my life. Give me this Jason, please. I have never asked anything from you. You have loved me, despite how very little I have been able to give you."

"You gave me your heart, that was more than enough."

As she closed her eyes, a tear spilled forth onto her cheek, her lip trembled. "Don't follow me in death. If you love me, Jason, then give me this. Save as many of my people as you can and do not follow me in death."

"You ask too much of me," he answered tersely and yet he nodded his silent assent. He was not afraid of death, as a shaman he touched death more intimately than most. He knew there was more beyond. Yet he could not pain the woman he loved and he could deny her nothing. If she asked him to live, he would. To save lives, then he would.

"Beloved," he whispered drawing her closer into his embrace, so that he could touch her for these final hours.

Their lips met, tender, the first brush coaxingly sweet and as always taking his breath away. Making his heart sing with love. He rubbed the backs of his fingers across her cheeks, memorizing the silk of her face. The way her smile teased and drew forth a reluctant smile of his own. The way desire simmered to flame in her eyes as he lay above her, between her legs as she welcomed him into the depths of her wet heat.

The caress quickly grew fierce and passionate, the very qualities that he celebrated within his Carly. And she was just as hungry for him, meeting the devouring thrust of his tongue in a mating dance which stirred the fire building between them to smoldering. When he lifted her into his arms, kneeling to the pile of furs, and her fingers thread into his hair pulling close, all that mattered was this moment.

War could wait. Death could wait. He would take his woman and sear the memory of her taste, her touch, her love onto his soul.

Perhaps one day the gods would be kind and reunite them.

Fin