Keitlan had told her she was starting to show. She sat in the brass tub the maids had lugged up the steps to her room, luxuriating in water warmed over the fire and studied the distorted view of her belly through soap clouded water. The swell was there, a pronounced little curve in her stomach. Not a lot, she was slim of frame and Keitlan said she wouldn't become heavy till the later months of the pregnancy, but enough to feel, when she ran her hands over it. Such a two sided blessing, that blossoming thing that grew within her. On the one hand, it reminded her of him and brought on a bone deep hurt that she could not seem to shake. She didn't know if she would ever shake it. On the other, with each passing day, as she spied on the sleeping center of life with her healing magic, she became more and more enamored by it. It became more and more a thing that was an essential part of her.
She climbed out of the tub finally, fingers and toes wrinkled from the long soak, and wrapped in a thick robe while the maids emptied the tub and removed it from the room. She sat by the fire and let her hair dry, warm and comfortable and drowsy. There were still the faint sounds of celebration from the hall below. Captain Kiro and a squadron of men had apprehended a band of marauders who had been plaguing the northernmost villages of Kall's province. They had been feasting since early in the afternoon. In the dead of winter, any reason to celebrate was a good one. Yoko had not joined in. Feeling melancholy and just little off her kilter. Keitlan, who had become very much an ally and friend to her, had suggested it was nothing more than a pregnant woman's hormones acting up, and that she should stay in bed and relax. Yoko had no complaint there. It had been snowing the last few days and the weather was more bitingly cold than usual. Staying abed on the orders of the forceful house keeper was as good an excuse as any to snuggle up under the blankets and wallow in woe.
Keitlan brought her a glass of warmed milk with a dollop of honey and sat to talk for a while, discussing the antics of the jovial soldiers down below.
"What will happen to the bandits?" Yoko asked. ""Will they stand trial?"
The house keeper's face screwed up into prudish lines. "There's no trials out here for the likes of them. Their bodies were buried where they were caught and most likely it was a kinder fate than that they gave to all the poor villagers they raided. You're too soft hearted, Yoko."
"Perhaps." Yoko agreed quietly.
Keitlan patted her hand. "Probably why you're in the state you're in."
Yoko looked away. It had not been a soft heart that had perpetrated that. She had known exactly what she wanted deep down. Stupidity maybe, to think loyalty was a virtue he harbored, but not soft-heartedness.
"Well, its late and I've a hall to see cleaned, if all those boisterous men have stumbled off to pass out in their own bunks. To bed with you."
There was no argument there. Under the covers and into sheets warmed by a bed pan. Quiet, soft luxury. She shut her eyes and tried to think of simple, innocuous things that would not lead her into dreams of him. She thought of the baby, and the things she would teach it. The things they would do together. The companionship of something so closely connected with herself.
She drifted off and dreamed of a shining, beautiful little face with eyes as brilliant as a sky on the clearest of days. An ageless face, not quite a baby, not quite an adult. Something ethereal and in-between. The eyes seemed to bore through her soul. The lips whispered an endearment and the hands reached out -- not quite at her. Mother.
There was a crack. A shattering of glass and wood. Cold air washed over her face. With a startled cry she woke, heart pounding from the sudden wakening. Her window swung open, half off its hinges. Her window seat pillows were on the floor. She sat up, staring at the darkness beyond it, clutching her blankets to her breast, shocked and disoriented. Then the shadows moved towards her and she thought of assassins and marauders and bandits and fanatical priests and screamed. She threw up a frantic shield, and had it banished as if it were smoke. She drew breath to scream again and he brushed past the trailing edges of the bed canopy, moonlight making a silver halo of his hair. He bore he back, with a hand over her mouth and half lay atop her to hiss in her ear.
"Yoko. Its me. Calm down."
She shuddered, breathing in the scent of his palm, face tickled by the soft locks of his falling hair, body pressed by the weight of him, all in soft gray and white leather and suede. Her heart took up a frantic, erratic cadence in her breast. Her vision began to tunnel. He took his hand away and she sucked in air she had been denied and released it in an articulate screech.
"Calm down?" she screamed. "Get off. Get out." She flailed her limbs like a wild woman, dislodging sheets and quilts in efforts to get him off her. "How dare you come here? How dare you tell me to calm down, you unconscionable bastard. Leave me alone."
He rolled off her, but not off the bed, and she scooted back to press against the headboard, glaring at him with hysteria frothing over in her.
"Damnit, Yoko, just calm down. I want to talk to you."
"You want to make me insane." She cried, and put her hands over her ears. He hissed in exasperation and grabbed her wrists, prying them away effortlessly, holding them prisoned between them.
"Why the hell didn't you tell me you were carrying my child?"
"Why didn't you tell me you were an incorrigible whore who had to run and jump into bed with the first woman who made eyes at you? Oh, never mind -- I knew that." The last words ended with another high pitched screech. She felt the subtle magic of a intrinsic probe and knew he sought after the life within her. She wriggled and fought to free herself, sobbing at an intrusion she could not repel.
"Its not yours." She declared the first thing that came to mind. He gave her much the same look he might a lunatic child who claimed to have seen tiny little men dancing at the bottom of his mug.
"Oh, you had an affair with a logger in the forest that I was unaware of?"
"Oh, shut up. Go away. I hate you."
"You should have told me."
"When should I have? One of the few times you were out of Arshes' tent? When she was all over you? Should I have interrupted that to tell you the joyful news, you --- you liar." She was going to loose her mind. She felt the edges of her sanity fraying. Why was he here? What did he want of her? To torment her further. To laugh at her pain. Where was Arshes Nei? Would he go back and tell her how he had tortured Yoko?
"I did not lie to you."
She wanted to hit him so bad her nails bit into her palms.
The door to her room slammed open hard enough for the handle to knock plaster from the wall. The doorway was filled with the large, sword wielding figure of Gara. He had been roused most recently from sleep, from the look of him, tousled and shirtless and wild about the eyes. His gaze took in the room and her tormentor with a single glance and his lips curled in anger.
"Goddamned you. Leave her alone." The sword leveled, humming with threatening magic. Schneider snarled, cried out a word and the air between himself and Gara thrummed to life, shimmering as if from heat distortion. The Ninja Master cried out, struck by some great force that slammed him back into the wall of the hall outside. He hit so hard stone crumbled. The door fell off its hinges and the wood frame that had held it splintered and cracked. Gara slumped bonelessly to the floor, the blade hitting the carpeted hallway with a muffled thump. Yoko cried out in dismay. There were startled cries in the hallway outside, servants awoken by the disturbance and most certainly shocked by the sudden expelling of Gara from her rooms.
"Fuck." Schneider swore, at the sound of people summoned by her screams and his own burst of magic. The servants did not venture past her door though.
Kall-Su did. Just like Gara he had come from his own bed, with an embroidered robe tied about him and an icy look on his face. He stopped by Gara, hesitated long enough to see if the Ninja Master were alive and stalked into her room. Schneider was on his feet by that time and surging forward to meet the challenge.
"How dare you---?" Kall got out before Schneider hissed a word and Kall staggered backwards, holding up an arm reflexively to shield himself even as he threw up a shield of a more magical nature.
"You little son of a bitch. You knew and you hid it from me. You took her away when she carried my child."
Kall-Su snarled and something of equal and violent nature as what Schneider had thrown at him slammed into Schneider. Schneider shielded it.
"You invade my castle. You attack my guests. I do not wish a battle with you -- I swear I do not -- but you force my hand."
"You think you're up to it, Kall? Maybe wake up Gara and see if the two of you together can take me?"
Yoko couldn't stand it. She couldn't stand the violence and the anger and the indignant sound to Schneider's voice. As if he were the one slighted. She crawled off the edge of the bed. Pushed her feet into her slippers and slipped along the wall and out the door with neither wizard the wiser, the both of them being to wrapped up in facing each other. How could he do this? How could he come back when she was just starting to live again?
The entire, frenetic journey here, he had thought about what he would say to her. How he might explain, without explaining, what he had done. Why he had done it? All the things he would do to cajole her into forgiveness. He had a talent for talking his way into women's good graces, even women who knew better. He had forgotten that Yoko was for all intents and purposes immune to it. One forgot the sound of her screech and the heat of her glare after not being on the receiving end of it for a very long time. The sweetness of her embrace washed all of her more shrewish qualities away. He had not expected her to freak out on him. He didn't deal with accusations and verbal abuse well. So all his sweet words got pushed to the background as his defenses came up. Stupid. Stupid, to let her goad him into anger when he desperately wanted her exoneration.
Then come Gara and Kall, threatening, when his back was already to a wall higher and sharper than they could imagine. What did they expect? For him to act meek and shamble away with his tail between his legs. Little chance of that.
Kall was glaring at him with wide, ice blue eyes, breathing hard and looking torn between misery and stubbornness. He still had his shield up, though Schneider had dropped his, daring Kall to throw something else at him. Kall didn't. Kall hated fighting him. He knew that well.
"This is not your business, Kall. Stay out of it."
"It is. I offered her my protection. She took it. That means even against you."
"Oh, does it? That's too bad for you then, isn't it?"
A middle aged, broad boned woman appeared in the doorway with a rustle of nightskirts. She looked about the room in disgust laced fear, then glared at both wizards.
"Well isn't this a fine thing to wake up to? And in lady Yoko's own room. Look at the window." She cried and stalked past the two of them as if they weren't there. Then turned and shook a finger towards them.
"I don't know what all this clamor is about, but if it in any way concerned that girl, then you're both unobservant clods, because she's flown and in this weather."
Schneider whirled. The bed was empty. Yoko was nowhere to be seen. Kall' eyes widened and his shield faltered.
"Sonuvabitch." Schneider hissed. He stabbed a finger against Kall's shoulder and suggested. "Don't get in my way."
Then whirled and stalked for the window, because he knew deep down that she had fled the castle. He hit the cold winter air, flew over the courtyard and the castle walls. The streets outside were covered with a light film of snow. She hadn't gotten far. A shivering, white gowned form stumbling down the street outside the castle gates. He floated down in her path. She didn't even see him, her head down, her arms wrapped about herself and shivering so hard he could hear her teeth clatter, until he caught her arms and stopped her forward momentum.
"Are you insane?"
Her head snapped up, eyes wild with what very well might have been a touch of insanity. Bits of blown snow caught in her hair. White against dark auburn. Tears streaked down her cheeks. Her face was wet with them.
"Let me go." She whispered. He shook his head, hesitated a moment, then did. He reached up to unclasp his cloak and flung it around her shoulders. She did not reject it. Just kept walking, as if he might give up and go away if she ignored him. He walked beside her, thinking desperately what he might say to make her listen to him. What he could and could not admit to her to make her understand.
"I'm a fool sometimes. I act and I don't take the time to rationalize what I'm doing -- and sometimes I'm -- wrong." That was not an easy thing to admit. No one in the world would ever hear it but her. She made no response to it. What if she didn't? What if his ploy had worked too well?
"That's what happened. I got my powers back and it was like -- euphoria. Like some kind of drug and I wanted to destroy Angelo and that army so bad it hurt. You stopped me. You had that power and I still can't understand how you got it -- but it -- scared me." He drew an uncertain breath, mind scrambling desperately for excuses and realizing even as he said them that they were truths. "I had just finished being powerless and I find that someone still has to power to influence my wishes. I wanted to destroy that Army. I wanted to send the lot of them to hell -- and I couldn't because it would have hurt you. The only thing at the time I could think of to protect myself was to chase you away. You've been my conscience since I've known you and sometimes the things I need to do are better accomplished without the shackles of morality."
"Shackles?" She whispered. "Well, then you are best rid of me. I wouldn't want to ever bind you against your will. You've had enough of that."
He shut his eyes, saying prayers to gods he'd never worshipped that she was talking to him. "But it was just that moment. I wasn't in my right mind with my powers back and Angelo slipping through my grasp. I didn't mean it. I regret it. I wish I'd never done it."
"Done what? Treated me like the lowliest dog, or slept with Arshes before my eyes? Its not like you haven't done that before."
"I explained to you about Arshes." He said quietly.
"You explained nothing I want to hear." She glared up at him balefully. "You want her -- fine. I don't care. She doesn't seem to have a problem with your whoring."
It was the second time she'd called him a whore and he had to suck in a breath to quell the irritation.
"I don't want her. I want you."
"Liar. You want whatever you fancy at the moment. Me, her, Sheela -- Goddess she'd jump for your bed if you even glanced her way -- any other girl that catches your eye."
"Not true." He said vehemently.
"I'm not blind." She cried.
"I don't need them, if I've got you."
"Goddess, Rushie, you're not capable of fidelity. And I could deal with it then -- when -- before we -- "
"Made love?"
"Yes! But I can't now. I'm not Arshes Nei. I can't stand by and watch you -- do what you did with me with someone else. It hurts too much. Maybe you should be with her. She needs you so much that she'll endure the pain just because she's afraid of loosing you. Because she's afraid that if she calls you on it, you'll just give her some flippant remark and leave her for someone more flexible. I don't need you that much. No so much that I can ever endure that. So just go away an leave me to raise my baby where neither it or I will ever have to go through that. I don't want you anymore. I can't want you anymore."
"I want you." She hurt him. Her words stung with the lash of truth. Of Arshes, of him and worst of all, of Yoko. He felt sick from it.
"It doesn't work like that." She cried, stopping exasperated and staring up at him. "You can't have something just because you want it. Goddess I wish there was somebody strong enough to pound that through your thick skull. Oh, you made me hurt so much. You can't even realize what you did to me. I wanted to be dead. Dead!! I would rather die now that go through it again. Do you understand? Can you understand?"
She stood there, shaking, her arms clutching the cloak about her body. And he stared, profoundly shocked at such an admission. That he had injured her so badly that she contemplated death. For a moment he hardly saw her, envisioning the world without her in it. A dozen vision of her lifeless body. Just the thought of it hurt so bad that his eyes watered.
"What do you want of me?" he whispered, stripped of subterfuge. "What vows shall I say that will make you happy?"
"It doesn't matter. You wouldn't keep them. Remember what Glyncara said? She said she didn't think you could keep an oath. She was right."
"What oath have I made to you that I've broken?"
"You said you wouldn't hurt me." The tears rose again in her eyes. Her chin trembled, dimpling with the sorrow.
He reached out as if to touch them, then drew his hand back. "I didn't mean to." But he had, and he had a reason that she would never understand. That he, despite all his power, was terrified to tell her.
"I need you."
"You don't need anyone."
"I need you to hold the demons in check. Without you, I become something all together darker than what I am with you to make me try and be better."
Truth again. Naked truth that left him cold and shuddering and wishing desperately he were anywhere else but here, baring his soul on a cold, miserable northern street. And she rebuffed him at every turn. She shattered his arguments and made him seem trivial and childish. He looked away from her, hair sticking to his face. Wetness on his lashes made him blink. She reached up and touched his cheek, eyes wide in wonderment.
"Is this a tear?"
"Its snow." He murmured.
She rubbed it between her fingers. "You lay the welfare of the world on my shoulders, do you? I'm the buffer between it and your good behavior?"
"I didn't say that."
"Didn't you?"
"I love you."
She sighed. "I know. I just don't understand the ways you show it in."
"Don't let me get away with it."
"As if I could stop you."
"You could."
She looked down at the snow covered stone between their feet. "I don't know what to do, Rushie."
"Forgive me."
"I'm confused. I'm so confused I can't think straight."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let me make it better."
She stood there, shoulders haunched, shifting from foot to foot. Her face was pale and her lips devoid of color. "I'm cold." It was a tiny little whimper. A miserable little admission. She stepped towards him, defeated or victorious, he wasn't sure which, and he wrapped her in his arms and in a cloud of heat that melted the snow on the street in a ten foot radius about them.
"Don't do it again." She said against his shoulder. "Don't hurt me again."
"Never. I promise."
"Don't promise. Just don't do it."
There was no arguing with that. He just nodded, elated, relieved, terrified of what would happen when this baby was born and Mother tried to collect.
"And apologize to Kall."
"What?"
"He didn't want to keep the baby a secret, but I made him promise. He was only protecting me."
"I will not." Indignation rose like a flash flood to wash away dread.
"Then you and I are going to be at odds, I swear." She shifted to look sternly up at him. There were still traces of tears in her eyes. He met her glare, gauging how serious she was in that declaration. He decided she was very serious. The vision of facing off against the pregnant woman to whom he had just bared his soul and declared his undying love almost made him laugh. He did laugh. He pressed her face against his shoulder and carried her into the air back towards the dawn silhouetted bulk of Kall-Su's castle. In light of this monumental achievement, one could be a little magnanimous with one's forgiveness.