Lani never came back. The evening in Freya's house had been terse and mostly wordless. There were few people in the world Steiner understood better than Freya but he had gotten the sinking feeling he had revealed some secrets that the family was not ready to face. On several occasions, Bors had opened his mouth as if to ask something of their knightly guest only to be glared into silence by his oldest brother. There was a family dynamic in play here he didn't understand. And Freya had no control over. She was a very good mother but she was raising some very feisty kids.
And when he did finally arrive at the hotel, he had been unable to confirm Lani had ever returned. But simply the fact that he had a room waiting said that she was around somewhere. That was enough to give him hope. He did not want to think about what was going through her mind, the kind of hurt and betrayal she was working through. Now he was bookended by women with guilty consciouses and seemingly no end in sight.
But now, as he neatly hung his armor in the closet, he found himself at a crossroads; should he stay and assist his comrade and help clean up the mess he created or continue the search for his beloved, with or without Lani's assistance? On that note, he did not have the knowledge or the resources to find his wife let alone the slippery bounty hunter, especially if she did not wish to be found. He could not in good conscious leave without a few final words with her.
Suddenly his thoughts were brought to a halt by a soft rapping on the door. He turned toward the door, slightly perplexed. But he quickly regained his wits, there was only one person it could be. He took a moment to hastily stuff all the outlying pieces of his armor into the closet and shut it. He then stepped to the door and threw it open.
Lani stood in the hallway, smiling sweetly at him. She must have just taken a bath because the hair she had clipped against the back of her head was damp. Rather than wearing her adventurer's outfit, she was swathed in a white silk robe that, despite the fact it hung a little above her knees, looked very conservative. Well, conservative for her anyway. She just stood there regarding him silently with her arms tucked behind her back.
"Hello, Lani." He said after a moment. "I was not expecting you to come by." He stepped aside, allowing her into the room.
"What? Did you think I was just going to ditch you?" Lani asked.
"I was hoping not but was preparing for the worst." She looked away, her smile fading noticeably. He cleared his throat, that came out wrong. "So," He continued, "What brings you here?"
"I have something for you." She said, her smile returning.
"For me?" She finally pulled one arm from behind her back, holding out a small white vial. A smile spread across his face as he read the label. "Lightly lavender scented hypoallergenic lotion."
"I thought you would appreciate it."
He rolled his eyes but took the bottle. "I must be honest, I am not in fact allergic to lavender. I simply scrubbed too hard."
"Well, either way, you need it."
He touched his neck, it was still a little red. But he quickly recovered and turned away, placing the bottle on the vanity. "Did you honestly just come here to bring me lotion?"
"Actually..." She trailed off. He turned back to see her pull a hair brush from behind her back. "Please? Just this once?" He sighed. "Oh, come one! I washed my hands four times!" She offered her hands which were indeed very clean.
He glanced at her hands and sighed. "How can I deny you?"
She squealed happily. He rolled his eyes, somehow feeling he was going to regret this. "Here, have a seat." She ushered him to the chair facing the vanity. As he took a seat, she slipped the ribbon from his hair and simply ran her fingers through his cinnamon locks. "Your hair is so thick. I'm jealous!"
"I thought you wanted to brush my hair, not molest it."
"I'm getting there, don't rush me."
He sighed and looked up at her in the mirror. As she massaged his hair, she looked almost giddy. She certainly had bizarre ways of dealing with emotional turmoil. Finally her brush met his hair, drawing an almost ecstatic sigh from her. "You are enjoying yourself a bit more than I would like."
"Hey! I have very thin hair that likes to fall out a lot so I don't really like to style it. So just shut up and enjoy it!" She smiled wickedly, "Besides, some people pay a lot of money for service like this."
"I am not that kind of person."
"Then I guess I'll just have to take it out of the money you already gave me."
"You mean you stole. Besides, you and I both know that money was gone a long time ago."
"Well, good thing I do pro-boner work." He looked at her confused in the mirror. "You heard me." She said with a smile.
She continued her work uninterrupted for several minutes, her skillful fingers working through several snarls even his rough combing had left behind. Perhaps since she was here and already working on his hair he should ask her to use some of her hair products. He always wore his helmet before so the appearance of his hair was always pretty far from his mind but with the head covering discarded, he was becoming more concerned with his appearance. No! Business was more important right now!
"So..." He began slowly, "Did you enjoy your walk this evening?"
"I did indeed." She answered.
"Where did your travels take you?"
She shrugged. "Here and there. I've never spent much time in Burmecia so it was nice to finally be able to see the sights."
"You should have come back for dinner, I am sure Bors had may questions to ask you."
"I have nothing to say to him." She said simply, her good natured humor beginning to slip.
"How can you say such a thing?" He asked, an edge to his voice. But he caught himself and backed down. "You said yourself he is faultless."
"Faultless or not, you need to understand something; I've committed a lot of my adult life to Amarant and finding out he had a child with another woman..." She trailed off, pulling her hair brush particularly aggressively. When he winced in pain, she continued. "It's just such a slap in the face."
"I am sure no one meant you any offense."
"Meant or not, offense was achieved." She sighed, resuming her slow, gentle strokes. "Let me put it to you this way: imagine that once you finally find Beatrix, she tells you Alexander isn't your son."
"But he is my son."
"I know he is, but just use your imagination. I know it's in there somewhere!" She said, tapping him on the top of his head with her finger. "How do you think you would feel?"
How would I feel? Steiner thought to himself, letting his eyes drift down to his own in the mirror. There had never been a doubt in his mind that Alexander was his son for he was the only man in his wife's life. He was effectively the only man in the entire Alexandria Palace. Besides perhaps his soldiers and the Queen's Consort. And all of them had either the sense or the self-preservation to stay away from her. But she had left him without warning. Was it out of guilt or the desire to keep a secret? No! She loved him and whatever the reason for her sudden exodus had nothing to do with the identity of Alexander's father. But he couldn't help as the image of Beatrix holding hands with a youngster only four years old and already nearly as tall as her, with pale blue skin and sporting a shock of bright red hair rose up in his mind. With a violent shake of his head, he banished those thoughts and turned his attention back to Lani. "I thought you said you didn't want kids."
Lani shrugged. "I don't now, I did maybe five years ago." She sighed. "I wouldn't even be so upset if he hadn't have lied to me."
"Lied about what?"
She deflated slightly, her hands falling limply on his shoulders. Clearly this was something she did not want to talk about. But the question had been asked and he was not backing off. "I told him I wanted kids, that I was ready to have a family, back when you guys returned from Memoria." She began, returning to her slow steady pulls through his hair. "He said 'Nothing like a brush with death to make you see your mortality'. But he was very insistent that he didn't want kids. He kept saying 'Look what I came from'." She stopped for a moment, suddenly looking very distant. "I never understood what that meant... Well, anyway," She continued, her brush returning to his head. "I wanted him to be the father; if he didn't want to be daddy, he didn't have to be. And I told him this. But he kept hesitating, kept fighting me, kept putting it off. Until finally I told him that I was going to have my runes removed and let fate take it's course."
"Wait, runes?"
"Yeah, it's a contraceptive seal, tactfully titled my 'Baby-no-more Runes'." She traced her finger over he lower abdomen. "It's a little circle right below my belly-button. I would offer to show you but I'm pretty sure you'd scold me for being obscene."
He pursed his lips distastefully, which drew a short giggle out of her.
"But anyway!" She continued, "I told him I was going to release the seal and let the chips fall where they may. He told me not to bother because he can't have kids." She let out a mirthless chuckle. "That's why I'm so sore; it's not that he can't have kids, he just didn't want to with me."
"Maybe he didn't know." He ventured.
"No," She looked away, "He knew. He said it with such conviction." She leaned forward, reaching to set the brush on the vanity, her chest brushing his neck. "I remember that day even, he sighed... And sounded so sad." She took his ribbon and slowly stood back up, holding her hands on his shoulders. "Maybe I shouldn't be surprised; he wasn't sad that he couldn't have a family, he was sad that he had to bring himself to that level with me."
"I hope you know, Amarant is still my friend." He said, looking up at her in the mirror as she began pulling his hair into a French braid. "Perhaps I don't know him as well as you do but he and I have been through a lot together. So why are you telling me this?"
"I'm telling you this because..." She sighed, "Because I won't be continuing this journey with you."
"WHAT?" He boomed, spinning halfway around in his chair to look at her.
Slowly she braided down to the end of his cinnabar pony tail, which was thankfully long enough to stay in her hands even when he whipped around. "... I loved him..." She said slowly, tying his finely braided hair tightly. "This is just too big for me."
"But, my lady," He pleaded, reaching up and taking her hand. "I cannot do this without you."
She quickly extracted her hand from his. "In case you hadn't noticed, you're barely doing this with me." She took a step back, a veil of solemness falling over her. "I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm just following vague signs and dead trails. You'd probably have better luck just pinning a map of the world to a board and throwing a dart at it."
He stood and turned to her. Although she continued backing away, he pursed her and placed his hands on her shoulders. "Come now, my lady," He said resolutely, "I have seen your battle prowess, come to know your confidence in the face of adversity. You can overcome, you are bigger than this!" As he spoke he gave her a few gently, reassuring shakes.
His attempt at comfort however shook her hair clip loose. So she reached up, shrugging his hands from her shoulders, and released her tresses in a cascade of semi-formed chestnut curls. "No, Adelbert, I'm really not." She deflated noticeably. "I'm very good at putting on a brave face. But you put on a mask for so long and you forget just how fragile you are behind it. So I'm sorry, I apologize to the very bottom of my heart, but I need to find a hidey hole and-" She suddenly laughed quietly. But as he watched her look away, he could tell it was just a vein attempt to beat back tears. "And cry in it for a while."
He sighed deeply. This was really not going well. Not only because he really did not want to lose his traveling companion but because the tears that ran down this beautiful woman's face were there because of a man he held in very high respect. And she had clearly sacrificed a lot more for said man than he could ever imagine. For what? For him to run off and abandon her? To lie to her and find himself in the arms of another woman? No. She deserved better. Lucky for her, a woman's tears were not something he accepted laying down. "Listen," He began, "I have known Freya for a long time, she and I have shared many things." Lani roughly pulled her hand across her cheeks to clear away the tears and finally looked up at him. "I am familiar with her merits as well as her flaws. She is one of the kindest, bravest, strongest women I know. But what I cannot wrap my mind around is why Amarant would throw you aside for her. Or for anyone." He looked away, not quite sure what he was saying. But it seemed to be working because she fidgeted tensely with her hair clip. "He had something beautiful and wonderful, smart, resourceful and talented right in front of him. He cast aside a gem, perhaps a hot-headed and rough hewn gem, but a gem none-the-less. And you deserve better than to hide in a hole, wallowing in humiliation and guilt. To that end, I shall offer you a deal: Once you have completed the task of assisting me in finding my family, I will help you locate Amarant and allow you to carve ever inch of whatever retribution you feel you deserve out of him."
She smiled weakly. "I don't know, I can imagine some pretty twisted stuff."
"I may come to regret this, but those are my terms."
She wiped her face one more time. "Tempting as it may be, can I have a night to sleep on it?"
"Take all the time you need, my lady, you will find no pressure from me."
"Well..." She paused, puffing up her chest, allowing her self-confident mask to slip into place. "Well, I figure if I need more than one night then your offer must not be that tempting after all."
"For good or ill, will I at least see you in the morning?"
She nodded. "I won't leave without saying good bye."
An awkward silence suddenly enveloped the room. Somehow it seemed that more needed to be said, just neither of them knew what else to say. The fact that Steiner was standing between her and the door certainly didn't help either. "So..." Steiner finally broke the ice after a good minute of tense fidgeting. "Do you know where Amarant is?"
"Dead as far as I care." She answered, raising her hands to collect her hair in a loose bun again.
But this was clearly a social tactic so she wouldn't have to look at him. So he reached out a gentle hand and captured her wrist, forcing her to drop her hair bundle. "Miss Lani, why must you-..." Whatever personal slight he had prepared slid off his tongue when she looked into his eyes with her still misty chocolate colored orbs. He only sighed. Why must you hold so much sway over me? His mind continued though his lips stilled. She gently disengaged her wrist from his tender grip but still regarded him as if waiting for him to finish the question. So he just spouted the first thing that came to his mind. "Why do you never come to Alexandria though it is your hometown?"
"I feel I should remind you, you accused me of lying about that."
"I never doubted you, my lady, my men did. I simply noted your tendencies toward untruths, I never called you a liar."
"Even so," She said, waving her hands dismissively. "I'd really rather not go down that road."
He couldn't argue with that, it was getting pretty late and she had already had an emotionally draining day. But he had already gotten her to divulge so much. So he decided to push his luck. "But, my lady, I simply inquire for a little more information on where you came from. I have never been anything but open and honest with you. Our professional relationship, and I would like to think our friendship, is very important to me. Please do not shut me out."
"Oh, you crafty bastard!" She cursed.
Suddenly a wave of smug satisfaction washed over him. He had rather artfully caught her using her own line. She must be a better influence than he originally thought. Or a worse one.
"You really want to hear it?" She demanded. When he nodded happily, she huffed impatiently and shoved him aside so she could take a seat on the floor facing the bed. She sat down on her heels on the floor, perfect posture, hands demurely folded on her lap. She looked like a servant waiting for an order from her master. Her patience with his confusion only lasted a handful of seconds before she motioned to the bed. "Well? Are you going to join me?"
He deftly stepped around her and took a seat on the edge of the bed. She seemed so out of character, gently regarding him from her position on the floor. Simply putting herself in a place below him seemed uncharacteristic. Then why did the way she move seem so practiced?
"Yes, I was born in Alexandria." She began as if telling a story to a rambunctious child in an attempt to get him to go to bed, "But it is not a period I look back on fondly. You see, because of my family, and I use that term loosely, it was never a place I enjoyed being. I should start by saying then name I was born with is Magdalena Xoana."
"Xoana. So that was your house!" He interrupted as if making a sudden breakthrough. "And Magdalena is a lovely name, why would you want to change it?"
She waved her hand as if asking him to hold his questions. "That story begins and ends with my father. He really didn't like women. At least that's what I tell myself to I don't have to believe he just hated me. Well, me and my mother. They never wed so he had somehow convinced her to, not only live with him, but also bear his child. I have the feeling money exchanged hands."
He looked away. Indentured servitude, even slavery, forcing women to have children was not unheard of. Even in Alexandria. And that broke his heart.
"Whenever we were in his presence, we were to sit quietly on the floor." She motioned to her current position. "We were never to make eye contact and speak only when spoken to."
"I can understand someone tiring of that sort of lifestyle." Steiner commented quietly.
"My mother did just that, and bailed when I was six." She laughed lightly. "Just long enough for me to remember her. And how much it hurt that she left me behind." She looked away, falling into an icy silence.
"What was her name?" He asked helpfully.
"It really doesn't matter, I never want to see her again." Lani continued, keeping her eyes downcast. "She left me in this position alone for eight years." She looked up at him. "What a drag."
"I would say that assessment is appropriate." He agreed. She brought herself to her feet and he found himself trying really hard not to stare as she stretched her tanned, muscular legs.
"Well, I was only under his thumb until I was fourteen. That's how old I was when he finally realized I was not shaping up into the kind of woman he could sell into marriage."
"That is all he wanted from you?"
"Yeah. I think he just saw me as his ticket out of the slums. If he could get me to pass for high society, then he could dupe some kind of dowry out of a stupid or desperate nobleman and live out his pathetic life like a king." She plopped down on the bed next to him. "On my fourteenth birthday he confronted me; said either shape up or get out. So I left. Heh! Joke's on him!"
"You should not disassemble your family simply because you feel like being spiteful."
"That wasn't a family. And I wasn't even his daughter, I was his meal ticket. Leaving him was one of the easiest decisions I've ever made."
Steiner looked over at her. She stared intently at her feet as they played with the dust ruffle on the bed. That was a lie and she knew it. Leaving home is never easy, even when you are unhappy there. "So where did you go?" He continued anyway.
"I went to Treno." She laughed. "Now I now what you're going to say: How could you be so naive? You break one collar only to allow another to be put on? And how dare you fall on the wrong side of the law and get involved in gang affairs? Have you no shame?" She looked over at him. "And I think we've proved pretty conclusively that no, I don't have any shame."
"I was not going to say any of that. I am well aware you have no shame so I do not put it past you that you would settle in a place like Treno. But beyond that, I do not know any of what happened to you there. And what was that about gang affairs?"
"Well, I was only a youngun when I first washed up there. I had no skills and a pretty inflated sense of my place in the world. The city as a whole kind of smacked me back to reality. But in conclusion I ended up being taken in by... Well, the easiest thing to say would be a gang. They would call themselves freedom fighters one day, a brotherhood the next and a soldier company a week later. But long story short they were a gang. Most of them grew up as street punks that banded together as they grew up. They called themselves the East Street Family."
He was rather afraid of the answer but he asked anyway. "What did you do with them?"
"What do any street punks do? Petty thieving, drug running, and... other things."
"What other things?"
She suddenly stilled, her eyes getting distant. "Don't make me say it... Just use your imagination."
"Are you saying you were a-"
"Please, don't make me say it," She cut him off. "That's not an era of my life I'm proud of."
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. It was hard to imagine the kind of social (or even physical) pressure it would take to make a powerful and self-reliant woman like Lani to sell her most personal and intimate possession. She had certainly spent a good portion of her life getting kicked around. That explained quite a bit actually.
"Upon reflection, I feel so stupid spending four years with those jerks. Why do I always have to be ashamed of my life choices? Good Lord!" She suddenly stood up and began pacing the small room. "I mean, first my father then the Family then Amarant. Is it just my lot in life to be kicked around? Is it just my lot in life to be under someone's thumb? To sit quietly in a corner, speaking only when spoken to?" She sat back down in front of him in her subservient pose, her hands folded in front of her. "Is this all there is for me? ...This isn't the life I want..."
"Lani..." He began slowly, again not sure what he was saying but absolutely certain he needed to say it. "If there is one thing I've learned, from my travels with Zidane, from my years as a knight, or even from my short time with you, it is that the future is always yours for the taking." He slowly reached down and took her hand, gently rolling it between his. "Are you going to run from it, thinking everything is already decided because you have perhaps taken a few missteps? Or are you going to chase it down kicking and screaming and make it everything you have always wanted? And you have never struck me as the take things as they come sort of woman." He then brought her hand up to his face, rubbing her knuckles across his clean shaven cheek before flattening out her palm across his face. "Things will get better for you, my Lady," He said, nuzzling it slightly, "Never lose sight of that." Finally, he reached over and ever-so-gently kissed her palm.
She slowly withdrew her hand, looking confused for a moment. But as his words turned over in her head a few times, a giant, almost teary grin spread across her face. Those were the sort of words of encouragement she really needed. And when she rose to her knees, he was expecting her to take her leave. But instead she leaned up into him, returning her hand to his cheek. "My Lady?" He whispered as she drew up on him, placing her lips against his as soft as a feather. This was certainly not what he was expecting so he didn't quite know how to react. "M-m-my Lady..." He stuttered quietly against her lips.
The hand that was on his cheek traced slowly around to the back of his neck, holding him in close as she placed one more feather soft kiss on his mouth. He continued to stutter her name as if somehow that would discourage her from bringing her head around to set a series of kisses along his jaw, ending with the gentlest of nibbles on his earlobe. With her other hand she tenderly but assertively rubbed the outside of his thigh, making his knees unconsciously drift apart giving her more room to press her body up against his.
"M-m-m-my... L-la-lady..." He protested weakly, his head twisting of its own volition, giving her better access to his neck. Every fiber of his being was screaming that this was a bad idea but somehow he just couldn't force his body to push her away. In a valiant effort to not begin caressing her back, he buried his hands in the bed sheet, squeezing until his knuckles turned white.
As he threaded his hands through the folds of the fabric, Lani could feel his whole body tense. In her best effort to relax him, she lowered her head to dance butterfly soft kisses across his collar bone. With one hand, she caressed the small of his back, making him arch his body toward her. Finally he couldn't resist any more so he unthreaded his hands from the bedding and placed them on her sides. She was so warm and soft but so well toned. And she smelled of lavender and polished steel and woman in such a pleasant way. So when she laid her lips on his again, he didn't fight. But when he felt her hands begin undoing the drawstring on his pants, his heart skipped a beat and in a moment of panic he grabbed her and pulled her body tight against his to keep her wandering hands still. "My Lady," He whispered, his voice quivering. "What are you doing?"
She pulled her head loose of his death grip and looked at him with those intense brown eyes. "If you could pull that stick out of your ass and relax for a minute, I would show you." She purred.
Instinctively his arms loosened, but he squeezed his eyes in protest. "But I'm... I'm married! I have a family!"
"You speak as if I care." She whispered in his ear, laying one last kiss on it before continuing her work on his pants. Behind the thin layer of cotton she found his semi-turgid erection. She wrapped her hand around it, giving it a gentle stroke, enjoying the feeling of it getting harder under her fingers. "Hmm, somehow I expected it to be smaller." She mused as it grew to full length and she realized she could barely get her hand all the way around it. "You are just full of surprises today." She then sensually licked her lips and kissed the tip softly.
He gasped as she enveloped the tip of his penis in her mouth. Nobody had ever done something like that to him before. Even without being told, he knew that such acts were dirty and obscene, something never even to be fantasized about. But maybe that belief was worth reassessing he thought as she rolled her tongue over his length before plunging the entirety into her mouth. Why did something that felt so good have to also feel like such a sin? Had he not chided Freya just this afternoon for committing acts of infidelity against Sir Fratley? Was this even an act of infidelity? Beatrix had left him. There was no two ways about that. Had four years alone, four years without knowing the touch of a woman perhaps earned him some wiggle room? He reached down and pulled her hair to one side, watching her head bobbing up and down over his turgid knighthood.
As she pulled him deeper and deeper into her moist orifice, he felt the tip graze the back of her throat. But instead of backing off, she brought one hand up to tightly wrap around his testicles, holding them close to his shaft as she clamped her lips down and sucked with all her might. His head lolled back, losing himself in her hands and her mouth and unmistakably Lani. She was just too much for him, and if she wasn't careful she was going to make him explode. Feeling that growing heat inside him, she pulled away for a second. But only long enough to glance at him through half-lidded eyes and lick her red hued lips before shifting forward slightly and burying him in her mouth again. With a good suck, she felt a tiny salty-sweet drop pull from the tip of his knighthood and took that as a sign. She wrapped one hand around the base and supported the other on the small of his back, making him again arch toward her as she pressed him as deeply as she could inside her and twisted as she gave him one last suck.
He couldn't hold it in any longer and with a heavy grunt allowed himself to cum. But instead of drawing away as he expected, she held him inside her, undulating her tongue as to draw every drop of liquid out of him. Once there was nothing left, he slumped back, catching himself before he hit the mattress. She sat up, finally withdrawing him from her but bringing up her hand to her lip as support as she forced herself to swallow.
"Y-you know..." He said after a moment, forcing himself to sit up. "You did not have to do that."
She laughed lightly, sitting back down on her heels. "Most men find it arousing when I swallow."
"No, I meant you did not have to do any of that." He gently ran his fingers through her hair. "I am not complaining but quite frankly you did not seem to draw much pleasure from it."
A smile spread across her face before she looked down, hiding her face behind her bangs. When she finally did look back up, she sported a sad, almost tortured smile. "You may not want to say stuff like that, Rusty, or at least one of us will get in trouble." She said as she stood up.
"Whatever do you mean?" She ignored him as she turned and walked out the door. He protested and hastily stood up. But the moment his weight was off the bed, he realized he had no feeling in his lower extremities and went crashing face first to the floor. As she exited the room he tried to force his body to obey him but to no avail, his legs were completely useless. "Wait a moment, Miss Lani!"
"Don't worry, this one's on the house." She said as she shut the door and was gone.
