A/N (Aroihkin's Notes) 06.04.2006:
This chapter might seem very out of place if you didn't just read the last one. Or at least the last chunk of the last one... yeah. You guys know what I mean. (XD) AWN is down for now, but when it comes back up I'll be doing review responses again... so in the meantime, thank you to all of those who read and leave notes and or feedback. (hands out cookies)
05.02.2010: All scene-dividers have been eaten, again, on all of my stories. I give up. Please just go read this story on arowrites dot net where it hasn't been made incoherent; I am unable to keep up with this site's stupidity.
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Silver Tongue and Golden Wit
( nine )
"Where did you... learn to do that?" Raistlin's voice pulled the blond out of his thoughts several hours later, the mage having managed to sleep for most of the day. It was approaching evening already, and Tannusen had started a blaze in the room's large fireplace to keep the chamber warm. Since then, he'd resumed his seat and had been staring off into space, mind wandering along paths both light and dark.
The assassin smiled a bit at Raistlin, who hadn't moved at all except to open his eyes and to speak just now. He considered his answer carefully for a moment.
"Location is irrelevant." he began, cutting off the mage before he could object to such a poor answer, "That is what they told me. I myself do not know what city it was... I never left the building unless there was a bag over my head, and there were no windows."
"You were a captive?"
"I... don't really know." Tannu shrugged. "I never tried to escape, never thought of it really. But regardless, that building is where I learned... that. The second half of my training."
"You continue to claim you are not a whore, and yet that was in your training?" Raistlin snapped, his tone as sharp as a dagger, "Do all assassins know how to... to..." the mage's voice faded off and the man simply lifted an arm out of the blankets and gestured.
"Seduce? Charm? Flatter?" the blond supplied. Golden eyes blinked at him in surprise, and the faintest of blushes tinged his high cheekbones again, and so Tannu added, "...Suck?"
Raistlin's blush darkened, he seemed to shrink into the pillow and blankets, mortified. The elf's smile turned slightly melancholy as he reached out and captured Raistlin's hand, leaning forward in his chair to do so. He held the fine-boned fingers in one of his hands and stroked the back with his other, openly admiring the metallic coloration in the faint light.
"No, I don't suppose that they do." Tannu continued in a much quieter tone, as though he spoke to the hand itself rather than the one to whom it belonged. "But I am not a mere assassin, mister Majere... I am a Shadow. I was meant to kill others from the moment I was born, and through pure irony alone am I incapable of wielding a proper weapon."
The captured fingers twitched, just ever-so-slightly, as he raised them to his lips, brushed against the back of the golden-skinned hand.
"I see." Raistlin said, understanding the implications easily. It was a sneaky, sly, wholly risky way to go about ones business as a killer. But he understood such measures, if not--in this particular case--the specific method in question. No proper weapon, he said, and at the same time every nuance of Tannusen's behavior seemed crafted to mislead. Seduce, charm, flatter, suck, did it matter how many guards you set if -he- gained access right under one's armor, physically as well as psychologically?
"And so," the mage continued after a moment's thought, staring at his own hand still captured between the elf's, "if you had been here to kill me..."
"I would have done so as you slept. Peaceful, unaware, relaxed... perhaps almost happy...? I cannot say. But if I had been here to kill you, mister Majere, your neck would have been broken in your sleep, and you would have never known." he set Raistlin's hand down again, carefully--almost reverently, and leaned back in the chair to give the archmage his distance.
"You would have carried me up here regardless?" asked Raistlin, "You still would have..." he trailed off again, eyes wider than they ordinarily might have been. He wasn't afraid, Tannusen would have picked up on that easily enough. It was more... surprise? and something between confusion and... wonder? Was the idea of anyone doing such a thing that alien? Apparently so. "But..."
"Yes and yes, mister Majere." Tannu cut in before he could ask why, "I would have done everything exactly as I did, on all points, with the one obvious exception." he sighed, then, rubbing at his eyes with the palms of his hands. "It is sundown outside, I should leave so that you can sleep..." he eased to his feet, putting the chair back where he'd found it. But when the blond turned to leave, and passed near the bed, his hand was caught by the mage's own.
"Stay." Raistlin whispered, so faintly that even the elf's hearing barely caught it.
"I..." Tannusen blinked, staring down at the archmage for a moment. That hadn't sounded like a lofty order, or even an assumed one, and he wondered what had changed so fast that the mage would actually -ask- something of him. But the elf had initially said that he would stay the night if Raistlin ever wanted him to, and so he inclined his head, "...as you wish, mister Majere."
The golden-skinned hand dropped from his, and the assassin walked around to the other side of the bed, hesitating a moment to see if the mage had changed his mind. But Raistlin simply shut his eyes and relaxed, and so Tannu obediently slid under the covers, laying so that he faced the archmage.
He shut his eyes as well, and had dozed off for several minutes with the ability of one who took sleep wherever they could find it, before Raistlin moved. So very hesitantly... so unsure, his heartbeat loud enough for the elf to hear it... he slid closer to the killer next to him. A fearful pause, and then he moved again, closer yet. Tannusen stirred, causing the mage to freeze in place, his pulse hammering fiercer yet. Frightened in the darkness.
Raistlin was scared, Tannu knew, but not of death. Rejection, weakness, pity, fear itself... those were the things that made the world inside this Tower revolve. It hadn't taken a week to discover this, and the only warnings he'd gathered from them had been the ones he followed anyway; Tread Carefully.
And so the elf simply laid his lower arm out along the pillows and reached with his other to draw the archmage close to him. The opposite of the expected, the positive side of the coin. Raistlin sucked in a sharp breath in obvious surprise, but then relaxed as Tannusen dozed back off again. Or seemed to, at any rate.
"Just don't fall for me, Mister Majere..." Tannu murmured sleepily, placing a chaste kiss on top of Raistlin's head, pillowed on his arm. The rest came as a sigh into the soft white hair, "...I am truly not worth it..."
Raistlin didn't sleep for many hours after, eyes open and staring.
It wasn't much, and it wasn't obvious.
Raistlin reflected that if he wasn't such a light sleeper, and entirely unused to sharing his space, he would never have even been woken. But he was, anyway, in the middle of the night with the very faint feeling that something was -off-. He was spooned back against the elf as though this were another breathing exercise, loosely embraced by the arm under his neck and the other over his waist.
Those limbs wrapped around him twitched, ever-so-slightly, followed by the fingers of the hand Raistlin had captured in his own when asleep. A leg next--tucked behind the mage's own. Nothing jarring, or large, or even particularly alarming... just a small tweak of muscle, a mere twinge. But most telling of all was the heartbeat he could feel against his back, rapid, harsh, and the breathing against his scalp; halting, frightened.
Tannusen was in the depths of a nightmare. Oh, yes, Raistlin knew the signs quite well.
And then, just as the archmage was considering waking the elf out of his dreams, if only for the sake of sleeping in peace, there was a tiny gasp against the back of his head as the assassin woke up all on his own. Raistlin kept his eyes closed and his breathing even, expertly feigning sleep, and the moments went by in silence as Tannusen seemed to freeze entirely. In fact, the archmage had almost dozed back off again despite his curiosity before anything else happened at all.
But suddenly the breathing against the back of his neck stopped entirely, the elf drawing his head back and away without moving the rest of himself. Raistlin remained still, alert but uncertain, and then he could smell the very faint tinge of salt. Tannusen was crying.
"What did you dream?" he was surprised to hear himself ask out loud, voice almost whisper-quiet as he blew his own act. Raistlin shifted, turning onto his back and peering into the darkness towards the faint sound of choked breathing and the smell of salt. The fire had died, leaving him no light to see by, and the only sign that the elf had heard him at all, at first, was that he released the mage.
Or tried to, anyway, the arm belonging to the hand Raistlin had captured remained curled under the mage's neck, held fast.
If anything, his curiosity only grew with the silence. Tannusen did nothing but smile in the daylight--sometimes sadly, to be honest, but a smile nonetheless--but apparently, this was not always the case. When his mind was weak with sleep and his mental defenses lowered, Raistlin wondered what was found underneath the smiles and bows and the charming, carefully-framed words...
"Blood." came the answer, finally, in the blond's ragged, choking, but somehow still-purring voice. It was drenched in pain, "I dreamt of blood..."
Raistlin felt as though he'd found a most interesting crack in the puzzle. Something that he could hardly help poking at, and wouldn't stop himself even if he thought to bother. But right now wasn't really the most opportune moment to pick at the assassin's emotional scabs, and so he was silent, staring up into the dark.
"I am sorry I woke you." Tannusen whispered, "I should go."
Not bothering to think on it, Raistlin released the elf's long-fingered hand. The assassin slipped his arm out from underneath the mage's head, very gently, and then moved off of the bed. He smoothed the blankets out behind him in an automatic sort of manner and then finally--without another word--padded across the stone floor on bare feet, leaving the room.
Raistlin frowned into the darkness, raising a hand to the pillow the elf had used. The cloth cover was warm and soaked with salt water, and the golden fingertips idly traced patterns against it as the mage considered this new development.
/ What sort of an assassin has nightmares about blood? / he wondered, coming back to this thought over and over before he dozed back off again. His hand remained curled against the tears left behind.
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Dragonlance © someone else.
All here that is not found in the books... is mine.
Never steal if you value your spleen.
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