AN: Yay for me for updating. Yay for ya'll for reviewing. I was blown away by
the eager response. Ya'll rock and I thank you for taking the time to review me.
It means a lot. And it makes me write, quickly, err, quicker. =)
Thanks to my new beta letylyf for proofing this, despite never having seen either
movie. All mistakes within are mine.
************************ Akayla Bay: Chapter Ten ***********************
"Teach me to read English..." Akayla said in a tone that brooked little argument.
She watched, amused despite herself as the Englishman in question twisted around in
his saddle, shading his pale, burned face with equally pale hands.
They were strong though, for any man's, and she had come to recognize their strength
over the last week of travel. Alex O'Connell had braved the desert with the proper
amount of respect. He did not fear the land they rode through, but he understood,
better than any Outsider had before in Akayla's knowledge, exactly how deadly the
dunes could be. His eyes shone with the truth of its fierce beauty.
In another week's time he would be tan enough not to burn, though he'd always be
paler than she was. The sun was bred into her skin. Akayla could never be anything
but dark. She wondered, fleetingly, what tattoos would look like inked across his
string face and pushed her musings aside.
"Why do you wish to learn how to read English?"
Kayla glared at the Outsider, though it held little heat, and shrugged fluidly, the
movement nearly lost beneath the billowing robe her people favored. Its layers made
her look delicate, fragile, assumptions that died as soon as you met the darkness of
her determined eyes. "Because I do not know how," came her final, reluctant reply.
"And maybe because your father's journal is in English..."
Akayla sighed, suddenly weary, and threw her hood back, letting the sun crown the
glory of her wild, untamable hair. She thought for a moment, and quietly answered.
"I did not understand my father well." Her omission was painfully uttered and Alex
O'Connell, to give him his due, did not belittle the trust implied behind its
admission. "He, he thought in English. Maybe if I read it as well as speak it I
can better understand the man I care... cared so much about."
"He wrote to me in English."
She smiled, her teeth bared in a gesture that conveyed little joy. "I know."
"He understood you, very well."
"He understood many things the rest of the world never bothered to comprehend." The
pity and compassion in the Outsider's pale, strange eyes sickened her. Proud Akayla
spat in the blistering sands. "I don't want your misplaced sympathy, Englishman.
I've molded myself into the warrior I am today. Every step I took down this road
was my choice, and my choice alone."
Alex O'Connell reigned in his gelding until Akayla Bay's mare drew even. They stared
at each other for a long moment, which he broke, tone curious. "You called yourself
a warrior."
She drew herself up proudly to her full, if slight, height, eyes flashing darkly,
chin raised. "I am."
His eyes traced the lines of her prominent tattoos before flowing to her lips and
following the curve of her cheek. He wet his lips before asking, "Do you ever call
yourself a woman?"
Kayla's lips parted like a storm, but no sound emerged, despite her intense, sudden
fury. "You have no right!" she hissed suddenly, fists clenched, and he knew, with
the tenacity of a man who had faced death a dozen times over, that she was refraining
from reaching for her sword and completing what she had started that first night she
had found him in her desert. In her home.
He shouldn't push. He shouldn't say the words that formed in his mind, but he spoke
them anyway, because he liked Ardeth Bay's daughter. Because he wanted her to know
more in life than steel and blood and death. "What right do you have to deny the
person you were born as? You created Akayla the Warrior. You are Akayla the Woman."
She looked like a demon in her fury, and it was tragic because of her beauty.
"I should gut you where you stand!"
Alex stopped his horse entirely and laughed, the sound coarse and harsh. "You'd kill
me for speaking the truth? What kind of leader are you?"
She screamed in inarticulate rage. "One who is NOT questioned. Especially by
Outsiders! By Intruders! By, by..."
"By Englishmen?" Alex deadpanned.
Akayla stilled for a breathless instant and he readied to face steel. Instead, she
threw back her head and laughed. Laughed the laugh he had come to treasure. Laughed
with all the vulnerability of the womanhood she denied so fervently. Laughed like
sunrise and rain combined. When she spoke again, her throaty voice was breathless,
but calm.
"Not many dare to speak hard truths to people who do not wish to hear them."
He swallowed and dared to urge his mount close to hers. Close enough that she had to
look up to meet his pale gaze, colored by lands she never hoped to see. Akayla was
not her Father. She belonged wholly, entirely, to the desert. "Not many deserve to
hear hard truths."
"I am not a coward."
"No," Alex breathed as he reached out, spurred by admiration, by desire that he had
denied like the moon denied the sun. His white, calloused fingers, worn from
adventures and scarred by things, people, lands, that he knew Akayla Bay had no wish to
know, bridged the distance between them. He gently traced the fine lines of duty
etched on her fine cheeks.
She shivered once, beneath the shadow of his touch, before breaking the bridge he
had dared to forge. Akayla Bay pulled away from Alex's touch in the first retreat
the proud Medjai had ever taken in her entire life.
She said nothing. Nothing at all. No condemnation, accusations, or reprisals. He
watched as she slowly raised her hood to cover the glory of her hair and shadow her
face. Watched her tan fingers move against the darkness of the cloth with a fine
tremble he pretended not to see.
And without another word she turned her mare and rode away. Away from the Englishman,
the Intruder, the Outsider, who had forced her to bare so much of herself with his
absurd words and unassuming arrogance. He was not Medjai and that would prove to
be her undoing in more ways than one. Akayla Bay rode away from the man who had
watched Ahm Shere sink below the sand as a boy. Away from Alex O'Connell.
He let her dwindle in the distance before following as Thor screeched accusingly
overhead.
the eager response. Ya'll rock and I thank you for taking the time to review me.
It means a lot. And it makes me write, quickly, err, quicker. =)
Thanks to my new beta letylyf for proofing this, despite never having seen either
movie. All mistakes within are mine.
************************ Akayla Bay: Chapter Ten ***********************
"Teach me to read English..." Akayla said in a tone that brooked little argument.
She watched, amused despite herself as the Englishman in question twisted around in
his saddle, shading his pale, burned face with equally pale hands.
They were strong though, for any man's, and she had come to recognize their strength
over the last week of travel. Alex O'Connell had braved the desert with the proper
amount of respect. He did not fear the land they rode through, but he understood,
better than any Outsider had before in Akayla's knowledge, exactly how deadly the
dunes could be. His eyes shone with the truth of its fierce beauty.
In another week's time he would be tan enough not to burn, though he'd always be
paler than she was. The sun was bred into her skin. Akayla could never be anything
but dark. She wondered, fleetingly, what tattoos would look like inked across his
string face and pushed her musings aside.
"Why do you wish to learn how to read English?"
Kayla glared at the Outsider, though it held little heat, and shrugged fluidly, the
movement nearly lost beneath the billowing robe her people favored. Its layers made
her look delicate, fragile, assumptions that died as soon as you met the darkness of
her determined eyes. "Because I do not know how," came her final, reluctant reply.
"And maybe because your father's journal is in English..."
Akayla sighed, suddenly weary, and threw her hood back, letting the sun crown the
glory of her wild, untamable hair. She thought for a moment, and quietly answered.
"I did not understand my father well." Her omission was painfully uttered and Alex
O'Connell, to give him his due, did not belittle the trust implied behind its
admission. "He, he thought in English. Maybe if I read it as well as speak it I
can better understand the man I care... cared so much about."
"He wrote to me in English."
She smiled, her teeth bared in a gesture that conveyed little joy. "I know."
"He understood you, very well."
"He understood many things the rest of the world never bothered to comprehend." The
pity and compassion in the Outsider's pale, strange eyes sickened her. Proud Akayla
spat in the blistering sands. "I don't want your misplaced sympathy, Englishman.
I've molded myself into the warrior I am today. Every step I took down this road
was my choice, and my choice alone."
Alex O'Connell reigned in his gelding until Akayla Bay's mare drew even. They stared
at each other for a long moment, which he broke, tone curious. "You called yourself
a warrior."
She drew herself up proudly to her full, if slight, height, eyes flashing darkly,
chin raised. "I am."
His eyes traced the lines of her prominent tattoos before flowing to her lips and
following the curve of her cheek. He wet his lips before asking, "Do you ever call
yourself a woman?"
Kayla's lips parted like a storm, but no sound emerged, despite her intense, sudden
fury. "You have no right!" she hissed suddenly, fists clenched, and he knew, with
the tenacity of a man who had faced death a dozen times over, that she was refraining
from reaching for her sword and completing what she had started that first night she
had found him in her desert. In her home.
He shouldn't push. He shouldn't say the words that formed in his mind, but he spoke
them anyway, because he liked Ardeth Bay's daughter. Because he wanted her to know
more in life than steel and blood and death. "What right do you have to deny the
person you were born as? You created Akayla the Warrior. You are Akayla the Woman."
She looked like a demon in her fury, and it was tragic because of her beauty.
"I should gut you where you stand!"
Alex stopped his horse entirely and laughed, the sound coarse and harsh. "You'd kill
me for speaking the truth? What kind of leader are you?"
She screamed in inarticulate rage. "One who is NOT questioned. Especially by
Outsiders! By Intruders! By, by..."
"By Englishmen?" Alex deadpanned.
Akayla stilled for a breathless instant and he readied to face steel. Instead, she
threw back her head and laughed. Laughed the laugh he had come to treasure. Laughed
with all the vulnerability of the womanhood she denied so fervently. Laughed like
sunrise and rain combined. When she spoke again, her throaty voice was breathless,
but calm.
"Not many dare to speak hard truths to people who do not wish to hear them."
He swallowed and dared to urge his mount close to hers. Close enough that she had to
look up to meet his pale gaze, colored by lands she never hoped to see. Akayla was
not her Father. She belonged wholly, entirely, to the desert. "Not many deserve to
hear hard truths."
"I am not a coward."
"No," Alex breathed as he reached out, spurred by admiration, by desire that he had
denied like the moon denied the sun. His white, calloused fingers, worn from
adventures and scarred by things, people, lands, that he knew Akayla Bay had no wish to
know, bridged the distance between them. He gently traced the fine lines of duty
etched on her fine cheeks.
She shivered once, beneath the shadow of his touch, before breaking the bridge he
had dared to forge. Akayla Bay pulled away from Alex's touch in the first retreat
the proud Medjai had ever taken in her entire life.
She said nothing. Nothing at all. No condemnation, accusations, or reprisals. He
watched as she slowly raised her hood to cover the glory of her hair and shadow her
face. Watched her tan fingers move against the darkness of the cloth with a fine
tremble he pretended not to see.
And without another word she turned her mare and rode away. Away from the Englishman,
the Intruder, the Outsider, who had forced her to bare so much of herself with his
absurd words and unassuming arrogance. He was not Medjai and that would prove to
be her undoing in more ways than one. Akayla Bay rode away from the man who had
watched Ahm Shere sink below the sand as a boy. Away from Alex O'Connell.
He let her dwindle in the distance before following as Thor screeched accusingly
overhead.