Moonlit Trysts
Neal woke in the library that he had escorted Kel to the evening prior and found something soft and warm in his arms. Without opening his eyes, he tightened his arms around the warm thing and sighed contentedly.
"Having fun?"
Neal opened his eyes lazily and looked down at what he held in his arms. "Ack!" he cried, shoving the black and white cat off of his lap. Upon further inspection, however, Neal found the cat familiar. "...Where did you come from?"
Kel, who stood in the open doorway, watched Neal curiously. She had purposely made a note of the common animals going in and out of the Queenscove castle, but she had never seen this one. It had a black and white coat with green, intelligent eyes. It looked almost as if it had come from the castle in Corus.
The cat purred and rubbed against Neal's arm, darted out of the room, and came back carrying a folded piece of parchment. Glancing at Kel with a bewildered expression, Neal warily accepted the parchment from the cat and stared at it. He scratched the cat's head and watched it. Suddenly, he recognized it. "Mace?" he murmured. Mace meowed at him and rubbed up against Neal's hand, then nipped at the parchment. "All right, all right! I'll read it, but only because you've gotten so insistent."
Opening the letter, Neal almost immediately recognized the handwriting. "It's Merric!" he said excitedly. "'Neal,'" he read. "'Don't read this letter aloud.' Oops. Too late." However, Neal read the rest of it silently. It went something like this:
Neal,
Don't read this letter aloud. I can't say much, but believe me when I say I wish I could be seen. Hopefully Mace has gotten this letter to you. Know that I haven't gotten harmed and I intend to stay that way. I have started spending time with "old friends." I took Mace to Corus and he spent some time with Daine, so now he can "speak" sort of. So if you want, you can send letters to me through Mace. He won't go far, but don't follow him.
-Merric
Neal folded the parchment in half and thanked Mace. He looked to Kel and shrugged. "He says he'll stay with old friends for awhile."
"Sounds good to me. I want to eat," Kel tugged on his arm. "I didn't want to show up without you."
Nodding, Neal slipped the letter into his pocket. He offered his arm to Kel and said, "M'lady."
Kel rolled her eyes and accepted his arm. A few moments later, Mace caught up to them and trotted next to Neal as he walked. "Where did you get the cat?"
"I found him in an inn while Merric and I had gone searching for you. Named him Mace," Neal explained. "He left with Merric the day I found you, and...now he came back."
Kel abruptly found herself in the dining hall, noting that a few of the guests at Queenscove had switched places. Suddenly, she frowned and released Neal's arm. "Who hasn't shown up yet?"
Jonathan answered her question from his rather comfortable chair situated by the hearth, Alanna and Thayet on either side of him. "Sir Myles, Lord Raoul, Lady Buri, and Duke Gary left just after breakfast."
Neal surveyed the guests then, rewriting the list mentally. King Jonathan, Queen Thayet, Prince Roald, Princess Shinko, Princess Kalasin, the Lioness, Yuki, Dom, Kel, himself, and his mother. "Dom."
Dom looked up. "Huh?"
"You uncultured slob," Neal sighed. "Did your family leave?"
"Yep," Dom nodded, leaning back. He had taken to speaking with a commoner's accent. "I ought to get off meself."
Slapping a hand to his forehead, Neal took Kel over to their seats by his mother, Yuki, the Royal Family, and Alanna. Dom moved a little closer to Neal. Kel's parents had gone back to Mindelan in an effort to escape getting caught in the snow on the way through Corus. Their party had diminished somewhat.
"Well. This seems cozy," Neal's mother remarked. "I think I'll go off to my rooms now."
"Mother--" Neal started to protest, rising when she did.
However, she held out one pale, willowy hand and he froze in his tracks. "Nealan, do eat with our guests. A good duke always serves hospitably." She lowered her hand, turned, and began up the stairs. "And Nealan?"
"Yes, Mother?" he asked, trying his hardest not to grit his teeth at the name she had given him.
"Do not enter my rooms uninvited," she intoned, and disappeared up the stairs.
Closing his eyes, Neal sank back into his seat. "I apologize for her," he muttered, though everyone heard. "She has resigned as duchess yet she grieves for my father still. In the process she seems to have lost all common sense and proper manners."
The group didn't care though, spying Cook and the servants parading out with the divinely delicious supper. Soon supper went into full swing.
The guests talked amongst themselves, and frequently Neal held Kel's hand under the table. He would have to tell her soon. He would have to tell Yuki they couldn't get married and he would have to tell Kel that he loved her so insanely more than Yuki it almost scared him.
However, it would be private talk, not public conversation.
As soon as everyone had finished their supper, they moved off into the parlor as usual. Alanna and Jonathan seemed much closer nowadays, especially since coming to Queenscove together. Thayet began to suspect something had happened, but wouldn't confront it because she refused to let herself believe that Jonathan had betrayed her.
A little later on, Yuki watched Neal slip out of the parlor, followed ten minutes later by Kel. Shaking her head, she walked out into the gardens, finding Dom leaning again a wall, his eyes focused on the retreating forms of his cousin and almost-ex-girlfriend. "Good evening, Dom," she greeted him.
Dom nodded. "Evening."
Silence nestled between them. Yuki almost spoke again but thought the better of it. Nonetheless, Dom thought to speak as well.
"I don't like this."
"Don't like what?" Yuki wanted to know.
"Them and what they do," he didn't have to explain who he meant by "them": Neal and Kel. "They always disappear right after meals and walk in together. Kel belongs on my arm, as you belong on Neal's. But everyday, almost every waking moment we can find one with the other." He looked at her, his eyes wild and desperate. "Has he even kissed you fully since you came here?"
Yuki looked down and refused to even acknowledge the question.
"I thought as much," Dom sighed. He slipped the letter from Neal to Yuki out of his pocket and contemplated sharing it with Yuki. No, he wouldn't break her heart like that, not unless he had to. Back into his pocket went the letter. Suddenly, an idea struck him. "I have an idea."
Yuki looked up. "Oh? An idea for what?"
"An idea to make them notice us again," Dom grinned. He looked around them to make sure no one stood nearby. Unnoticed to them, of course, Garvey of Runnerspring and Merric of Hollyrose stood on opposite sides of Dom and Yuki. "We'll do it like this. We'll act like we have forsaken them for each other, and if that doesn't get their attention, nothing will."
Yuki's heart fluttered in her ribcage nervously. "What do you mean? Hold hands and...kiss..." she blushed at that, "in public?"
Dom nodded enthusiastically. "Yes!"
Punching Garvey on the arm, Merric scolded him, "You fool."
Garvey punched him back. "What the hell did you do that for?"
"Because I find you utterly lacking any intelligence at all," Merric growled.
Garvey punched him again and turned back to Yuki and Dom. Dom had talked Yuki into agreeing while he had argued with Merric, and Yuki latched onto Dom's arm and walked into the castle with Dom. Running behind Dom and Yuki, Merric and Garvey yelled at each other the whole way. After just four days in Queenscove, tension already ran high between most of the guests. As it was, Alanna and Jonathan had done something irreversible, Kel and Neal sneaked off every chance they got to make out, and now Dom and Yuki had taken to pretending they had begun to court each other.
Not to mention that the Master's Aescili hung in the air, a constant threat, like blaring heat from the sun in the peak of summer in the desert.
Merric and Garvey found Dom and Yuki flirting in the parlor, the Royal Family and the Lioness watching them rather oddly, Shinkokami especially. She even went as far as to approach the lady who served as one of her attendants.
"Yuki?" she asked politely.
Yuki looked to Shinko. "Yes, milady?"
"This will not bode well," Merric muttered. "This won't bode well with anyone."
Shinko pulled Yuki aside with a quick apology to Dom and spoke to her attendant in a hushed voice, in Yamani. Neither Merric nor Garvey speaking Yamani, they could only guess that Shinko demanded to know why Yuki acted so strangely with Dom. Yuki had answered in equally as hushed tones, though her voice sounded a little indignant.
She returned to Dom shortly afterward, apologizing for the interruption.
Neal and Kel entered the parlor, laughing. Yuki and Dom siddled closer to each other, Yuki on Dom's arm.
Neither of them even noticed.
Discouraged, Yuki plopped down in a chair and looked up at Dom. "This won't work."
"Sure it will. Did you expect them to notice right off the bat? They've gotten too involved with each other right now to notice if a rock hit one of them in the head," Dom told her. Besides, he had liked having a woman on his arm again, a woman to flirt with.
Neal and Kel mingled until the others whisked off to their rooms, and Neal finally escorted Kel back to the library where he had taken her earlier.
From a small window just below the ceiling, moonlight streamed through and shone onto the carpet, illuminating the two best friends that had found a much deeper love for each other. They stood, kissing each other sweetly for a few moments before Neal finally pulled away.
"I love you," he whispered in her ear.
Kel froze, her arms around his neck. "What?" she asked, afraid to trust her ears.
Neal repeated himself. "I love you, Keladry of Mindelan. I've loved you for a long time, and I've finally had the courage enough to admit to you, and to myself. I love you. I'm totally, completely in love with you."
Kel stepped back from him and looked him in the eyes. "You love me?"
"Yes. Very much so," Neal nodded. "I know with the making out thing that you had probably guessed, but I just wanted to tell you myself."
That thought hadn't even entered Kel's mind. She hadn't exactly known why she had taken to making out with Neal in libraries, but it she hadn't guessed that he had loved her as anything more than his best friend or his sister. Her heart pounded forcefully, driving all other thoughts from her mind. She knew she wanted to tell him that she loved him back, but her mouth didn't want to cooperate. Instead, uninhibited, her mouth answered him. "I...I have to...I..."
Frowning, Neal reached out to touch her shoulder, only to find her jump back. "Kel?"
"I...uh..."
She ran around him, overcome with emotion, and ran up to her room.
That left Neal standing awkwardly in the middle of the small library, desolate moonlight shining on his forlorn image.
The eighteenth of October brought a sullen day. The sun shone ironically on the barren hearts of two knights, a sergeant, and a Yamani lady. Kel felt incredible guilt at having betrayed Yuki and Dom, and also felt her heart ache for Neal's. She had pretty much shattered his heart last night, that much she felt sure of; why couldn't she have told him that she loved him just as much as he did? And now he wouldn't even look at her when she looked at him.
Dom and Yuki seemed off in their own little world. Yuki kept casting nervous glances at Neal, who seemed so involved in his breakfast that he wouldn't speak a word to anyone. She felt guilty about fooling around with Dom, she felt like she had betrayed Neal and Kel.
Dom probably felt the least guilty out of all of them. He saw Neal's refusal to act normally and thought he deserved it, but his heart did feel terrible about the way Kel kept looking at them and at Neal.
Neal felt the worst. Kel had broken his heart by running out on him. He had felt so sure that she loved him and...she had run out on him. He felt bad about taking her from Dom, who she obviously preferred over him if she didn't love him. He felt absolutely horrible about treating Yuki so poorly, but he saw that he had pretty much lost her. He saw the way she had flirted with Dom the night before, and he saw the way she talked so animatedly with him. He felt terrible for himself, too. Not only had he lost his father the month before, his mother tettered on the edge of falling into death too. He had tried to heal her somewhat, but only so much of natural death would recede for his Gift.
And now...
...And now...
Neal stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor. Everyone looked at him and he excused himself quietly, turning and walking away into the maze of rooms deep in the Queenscove castle. He wished he could just think away his problems, but he knew that the more he dwelled on this matter the more it would fester and drag him down. Neal didn't even realized when he entered the fusty morgue beneath Queenscove until he took a breath and almost choked on the dust.
"...Always seem to find my way to you when I need help, Father," he murmured, walking over to the plaque marking Duke Baird's existance. "I took your advice...I told Kel that I'm in love with her...and...she broke my heart, Father. I've lost Yuki, too. She's taken to Dom now. Everything's a mess..."
He sat down in front of the plaque, not caring that his breeches would appear obscenely dirty when he rose again. "You picked a hell of a time to die. I feel sort of weird talking to you like this, but...well, anyway. I don't know what to do now. I thought Kel loved me back. I know I should probably break up with Yuki...but maybe I won't feel so guilty if she breaks up with me first. If she doesn't come to me before we leave, I'll tell her once we get back to Corus. Does that sound good, Father?" he paused and watched the torches cast shadows on the walls. "It sounds good enough to me."
Neal sat there in silence for a few moments longer. "I think I've loved Kel since I met her. Maybe even before. I always had that ideal woman, didn't I, Father? Tall as me, maybe a little shorter, strong, good sense of humor...sounds like Kel to me. Yuki almost suited me, but I don't know what I thought when I decided to marry her. I can't stand this."
He got up and patted the plaque. "Thanks for hearing me out, Father."
Neal turned and left the morgue, heading outside. He entered the stables, walking up and down the stalls, pausing at each horse and saying hello to them. He wanted to distract himself from the subject formost in his mind, but he didn't think he could. He could already see the sun shining horribly outside. Must be noon, he decided, saddling up a horse. I have enough time to take a ride, even though I should probably eat lunch with them. I don't feel like dealing with them right now.
After saddling Skunk, the horse he had bought from the wayhouse-keeper, he led the horse out onto the barely visible trail.
An hour must have passed, because Neal began to feel the chill of the snow creeping into his bones and Skunk began to falter in his step. As soon as he turned to head back to the stables, he saw someone on a horse galloping towards him. He recognized the horse and the rider soon enough, and turned the other way. He didn't want to talk to Kel right now. He had convinced himself that if she sought him out now, she only wanted to apologize for running out and gently break it to him that she didn't love him that way.
"Neal!" Kel called.
He kicked Skunk into a canter.
"Neal!" Kel yelled again.
He urged Skunk onward.
"Neal!"
All too soon he heard thundering hooves behind him. He didn't want to push Skunk too hard, but he really didn't want to talk right now.
"Neal," Kel panted, grabbing the back of his tunic. Her horse trotted to canter evenly with Skunk. "Didn't you hear me?"
He didn't reply.
She frowned. "Won't you talk to me?"
No answer.
"Neal, this is silly!" she cried. "I wanted to apologize to you!"
"And tell me that you don't love me," he muttered to himself.
Kel brought her horse in front of Neal. "What did you say?" she demanded.
"You want to tell me you don't love me," he repeated, a pit forming in his stomach. He refused to meet her eyes.
He found himself grabbed roughly by the front of the tunic, his face suddenly too close to Kel's. "Don't say that," she breathed. She kissed him deeply, hand still gripping the front of his tunic so she had control. When she pulled away, they both breathed heavily. "Don't say that I don't love you, Neal. I'm sorry I ran away last night."
However, Neal noted that she had avoided telling him "I love you." She had kissed him and told him not to doubt her love, but she hadn't flat out told him. That would suffice...for now.
Neal shook his head. "It's all right. I know I kind of sprung that whole 'I love you' thing on you."
"Let's go eat, okay? Everyone sent me out to look for you."
Merric and Garvey played cards in the dining hall in their niche. Truth be told, they had turned into almost-friends, able to tolerate each other's presence and able to actually enjoy the other's company for a while.
"I miss Jeraldine," Merric sighed.
"Jeraldine?" Garvey asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Jeraldine," Merric nodded. "I win." He collected the cards from the floor, shuffled them, and
dealt them out.
"Do you want to elaborate on Jeraldine?" Garvey inquired.
"Not particularly," Merric denied.
They played in quiet for a little while longer, before Merric interrupted the silence by saying, "I win again."
He re-dealt the cards. Garvey took his share and said, "I have a betrothed."
"You do?" Merric tried not to sound surprised.
"Yes," Garvey nodded. "She lives in Persopolis."
"A commoner?" Merric wanted to know.
"Didn't imagine me one for a commoner, did you?" Garvey asked, laughing embarrassedly.
Merric laughed with him. "Actually, I did. I hope to make Jeraldine my betrothed, and if you
tell Bardev that I will cut your tongue out with my dagger. Understood?"
"Perfectly. And if you tell Bardev about Aleesa, I'll do the same," Garvey threatened.
"Fair enough," Merric nodded. "I win again."
"Cheater," Garvey grumbled.
"I don't cheat," Merric replied evenly as Neal and Kel entered the dining hall. He tossed a glance at the four in question and raised an eyebrow. "Especially not like them. Not to mention Jeri would kill me if she ever found out."
"Aleesa would kill me too," Garvey agreed. "How the hell can they do that to each other?"
"I would feel horrible," Merric continued. "I didn't know Neal had it in him--Kel, especially. Or is it that Kel has Neal in her?"
Garvey guffawed at that. "Merric!"
Merric smirked. "Bad company I keep, I suppose."
Garvey's guffawing simmered into chuckles. "I guess so."
They fell into comfortable silence until Garvey crowed his victory and dealt the cards. He won again, and Merric accused him of cheating, and they traded a few half-hearted punches before resuming their card game.
"The Master wants to keep his Aescili pretty secret, doesn't he?" Merric asked conversationally.
Garvey nodded. "Only those in his top ranks know about it. I don't think he even told Kel, as he only wanted to use her to get his Scroll back. Did you know that he sold it to some traveler who sold it to some other traveler who sold it to the Bazhir? I guess the traveler ran into you because you somehow wound up with the map."
"I guess," Merric agreed. "So..."
Garvey didn't answer, except for, "I win again."
Merric sighed.
Before anyone knew it, the afternoon turned into evening and everyone found themselves in the parlor at the customary after-supper social. Neal and Kel didn't seem at odds anymore, but Dom and Yuki still kept up their charade of trying to look like they had begun to court one another. Neal kept an eye on them, and flinched when Dom kissed Yuki's forehead.
Kel wandered out into the brisk October air, half-expecting someone to follow her. She found herself alone though, staring up at the sky, half-obscured by incoming snow clouds. She watched the stars and the moon, noting how much more of the sky she could see when not in Corus.
She leaned back and found her waist encircled by warm, safe arms and her head resting on a familiar shoulder. "Hello."
"Hullo, darling," drawled Neal. He planted a soft kiss on her neck.
"Don't you ever check to see if anyone's around?" Kel asked half-heartedly, snuggling back into Neal's embrace.
"Sure," he murmured. "I did before I came up behind you. Besides, Dom and Yuki have become so wrapped up in each other they won't care what we do."
Kel sighed. "I could stay like this forever."
"If we stayed like this forever, we'd die frozen," Neal replied.
"Neal!" Kel cried, rolling her eyes.
"I only speak the truth, love," he answered.
She turned and wrapped her arms around his neck. "I really would like to stay in your arms forever."
"Didn't fancy you one for the 'forever' business," he told her softly.
"Shut up," she commanded, and silenced him with a kiss.
Dom watched from doorway.
