A/N (Aroihkin's Notes) 08.08.05:

Wow, I've been writing this story at an insane pace. Do -not- expect TAF #4 (and there will be one, considering this is the second-to-last chapter of #3) to update this fast.

Um, okay, kids. Here's where things start to get a little adult, as you can tell. Usual disclaimers about such things apply. The next (final for #3) chapter is much worse... I'd rate it as a lime. This one just, uh, well. You'll see. Onward to the story!

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.

---- ----: -x- :---- ----
TAF: SNAFU
entry six, I don't sleep to dream

Akara sat back for a few moments, aware of the passing of precious time but refusing to rush into this.

/ If I have to do this… and it looks like I do… there's got to be a way to go about it that won't get my hands cut off with a dull knife later. /

Yes, but how? She wasn't even sure how the sweat-soaked robes came off.

/ They have to fasten somehow, a clasp or tie probably at the waist… no way he pulls these things on and off over his head like a ratty old dress. /

The proverbial torch burst into light.

/ That's how -I'll- do it, though! Excellent. I can just keep him covered in all these blankets and then the only thing with less dignity are the blasted robes themselves. If he wears anything under them he'll just have to live with it… it's better than having all -this- on. / Akara nodded, it made total sense. Then when he was better she would just leave the room and let him get dressed again in privacy. No harm, no foul.

/ Though, if I just start pulling at the shoulders, he'll end up moving quite a bit as well. I need to think about this more. / This could be tricky, then, and the thief eyed the situation from a purely professional standpoint. To take something out from under a heavy object without dragging the heavy object all over the place. That was the essence of this, seen from the perspective of a cat-burglar.

/ Well, okay. If he was a statue on a rug I wanted to take, for whatever reason, I'd anchor him with rope. / Something about tying his ankles down just didn't sit well with her, though. / Not with the way he bruises. /

/ I could cushion the loop, like I would if the statue was painted, but better than that since it's force I want to stop as well as friction. / Akara wouldn't tie it to his boots… they would come off, just like she hadn't given Raistlin a glove to hold onto when she'd helped him up. Stuff like that tended to just slip right off when you needed it to stay in place, no matter how snug it was at the time. / -My- boots, I would trust… and I often do, but they're designed like a second skin. Raistlin moves well enough when he's not sick, but he's still no roof-top prowler. /

"So I'm going to need to go get my rope." Akara quipped out loud to nobody as she got up and left the room, "Isn't -that- a fun thing to have to say in this situation?"

Hovering somewhere overhead in the bedroom, one Guardian turned to another.

"I have no idea," said the second to the first, "sssso don't assssk."

She found her entry easily enough, opening the still-unlocked window and reaching out blindly. It was already early afternoon and Akara winced in the bright daylight found here above the level of the Grove, the sun seemingly staring directly at her without any real interference. She found her rope without seeing it, and tugged the hook off of the window above. It came free, dangling in her hand, and the thief quickly coiled the long, thin line.

It was a very fine rope. A little bit of stretch, no frayed ends sticking out… she had no idea what it was made of, just that it had cost a pretty good chunk of gold. But it was worth it, just like her boots, her lock-picks, any of the tools of her trade. If you didn't want to get caught or plummet to your death, you chose your equipment carefully and paid what you had to. This was the same line she often went leaping off of rooftops with, relying on a loop around her ankle to stop her fall. If you couldn't trust your gear to hold up, you were doomed in just about any profession.

Line coiled over one arm and hook dangling, the thief moved to close the window and paused, squinting at the horizon for a moment. Thick, black clouds… way out there to the East. So they might have a storm sometime tonight, Akara shrugged and closed the window up, heading back to the unconscious Archmage.

But by the time she got there, he wasn't unconscious, per-se. Majere had rolled back onto his side again and had a long, thin silver dagger in one hand, his eyes wide and unreasoning.

/ Crap, he's hallucinating. / the thief frowned, depositing her rope on the floor at the foot of the bed and moving over in front of him. She waved a hand back and forth in plain view, and Raistlin didn't react.

/ Greeeaaat. / Akara rubbed her eyes, hoping this new development would go away. Nope, he was still crazy with the fever when she looked at him again. Wonderful. / Well, the first thing I have to do is get that knife away from him so he doesn't stab me in the face. Or any place else, for that matter. /

Right. So, she reached for his hand.

The moment contact was made, the Mage panicked. Akara quickly grabbed at his fingers with her free hand, hoping to break his grip and snatch the weapon, but Raistlin was fighting her all the way. Several moments of struggle later and Akara suddenly yelped. Loud.

"OW! You -bit- me!" a pause, "And it's -bleeding-! Hey, let go!"

Words were swiftly muttered, Akara yelped and ducked again, fast. Needles of energy shot past where her head had been. Clenching her jaw, the thief stuffed her wrist back between the Archmage's teeth.

"Damnit, Majere! Fine, chew on me, I'd rather you gnawed on my arm than shot out my eyes."

Of course, he didn't seem to like this idea either, but she didn't have a proper gag at hand, not while she was still fighting for the dagger. The hand with the wrist being chewed through was the one holding his wrist, her other hand was still pulling at his grip, and it was -his- free hand that had fired the spell. It had given up on breaking her hold, and Raistlin was now trying to strangle her.

He seemed to like the suggestion of taking out her eyes, though, because his free hand suddenly left her throat and moved up toward them.

She bit onto his fingers just enough to keep them contained, and didn't let go… eyes watering from the pain in her wrist.

/ I shouldn't have hesitated like that, I should have just ripped his clothes off without thinking about it. I would have at least known about this knife, then! /

The knife finally came free, but Akara wasn't about to let go of his wrist or un-gag his mouth, so that hand stayed where it was. Her free hand, clutching the knife, ripped the covers off of him. During the course of their struggle she had ended up sitting on his stomach to hold him down, so she moved. Thankfully, the Mage seemed too busy trying to get his hands and mouth free to start thrashing.

Only watching what she was doing just enough to avoid stabbing him inadvertently, the thief slit the black velvet down one side, from shoulder to knee as far as she could reach. Then she used the razor-sharp knife to slit the lengths of both sleeves, and tossed the blade away. The blankets were pulled up as far as she could manage before anything else could happen, and then she reached under said blankets to grab the side of the robes that hadn't been cut.

One jerk, and the tearing of cloth resounded through the room. A ruined set of black velvet robes were flung away. Now he seemed to realize what she'd done and panicked worse, and she sat on his stomach again to keep him from thrashing off of the bed or kicking her in the head.

Akara grabbed his other hand with her own, freeing her mouth. Blood was steadily trickling down her arm between his teeth.

"Majere, calm down." she tried, "you're beating the crap out of me, here."

He didn't seem to hear her. Akara sighed and finally had to lay down next to him, keeping one leg over his blanketed waist to hold him (and said blanket) down. She yawned.

"This is going to be a long, long day."

How she'd managed to fall asleep was anyone's guess, even after the Archmage settled down… obviously to bide his fevered time against whatever he thought was holding him captive. Akara had watched this flicker across his expression and yawned again, settling her head onto his shoulder for a lack of anywhere else to put it, prepared to wait it out.

When she woke back up…

"Ow… shit…" the thief muttered, trying to roll onto her back. Something had her wrist, however, and wasn't letting it go… and her wrist -hurt- like the abyss. She couldn't roll, or clutch her wrist in her other hand, with it captive… and no matter how hard she pulled it, it wasn't being let go.

"Shhhh, calm down…" said a familiar voice, and Akara's eyes were suddenly open. Wide open.

"M-Majere!" the thief exclaimed, trying to sit up. Again, she couldn't move much without her arm, and couldn't complete the motion. So Akara just stared over at the Mage, who was holding her wrist in both long-fingered hands, inspecting it closely. He ran his fingertips over the deeper wounds, and the thief shook.

Pain? Fear? Perhaps… it -did- hurt an awful lot, and she -was- worried about what he would say, finding himself in his current state of undress, covered only in a few layers of thick blankets. But those weren't the only two things in motion, here, and Akara quickly grabbed those thoughts and shoved them in a closet somewhere, locking the door.

"The fever has at last broken." Raistlin said quietly, fingertips still running over the wounds... almost caressingly. There was a track of dried blood down his chin, still… -her- blood. She stared.

"How long was I asleep?" Akara asked, feeling stupid for letting herself doze off like that.

"I do not know. When I woke, I had to relax entirely and then move very slowly to be released. You seemed most intent to keep my hands to yourself, and your wrist in my mouth…" the last bit sounded questioning.

"You were doing magic while in your fever." she explained, "Nothing protects me from that except a quick reaction and room to duck."

"Or a gag, as you threatened."

"Well, you had that knife at the time, also. I couldn't really spare the hands to tie anything, especially once you decided to go for the eyes."

"I see."

"Yeah, well, I might not have." the thief groused, before tugging on her arm again. "Hey, you going to give that back to me?"

Raistlin seemed to consider the question seriously, pursing his lips slightly in thought. Not that Akara noticed, of course, and it had absolutely nothing to do with her sudden start of surprise when the Archmage suddenly spoke.

"No." he replied at length, "I don't think that I will, just yet."

"N-no! Majere, it was a rhetorical question!"

The Archmagus' smile was ironic, and he nodded slightly. Akara didn't notice the last part very well, though, as her brain had hit a stone wall at this new expression. It wasn't a smirk, it wasn't a sneer, it was a smile. When he noticed her shock, watching her out of the corners of his eyes, it quickly changed into a triumphant smirk.

"You are distressingly easy to manipulate, my dear." he turned his head to look at her properly, not releasing her wrist, and she was startled to realize how terribly close they were just now. His fingertips continued to move over the bite wounds, hypnotically, and Akara quickly wrenched her eyes from his face back to his hands.

"Seriously Majere, I need my hand back."

"No, you don't."

Akara's mind hit another abrupt wall when the Mage raised her wrist to his lips, brushing over the scabs and bruises. Her breath hitched, and she found herself staring at his eyes again over the red and purple mess he held in both delicate hands.

"You're scaring me..." she admitted in a very small voice.

"I thought that you liked to be scared?"

"This is different," the thief whispered, "this is out of my control. I can't fight this, I can't avoid this, no amount of running and jumping and dodging will distance me from it." as she spoke, he pulled insistently at her wrist, and Akara was rolled forward by her shoulder, towards him. Like a spider pulling in its prey.

The thief didn't notice she'd been moved until suddenly she was staring straight down at him, keeping her head lifted off of his blanket-covered chest.

"I have caught you, then, if there is no escape."

"No, don't even think that." Akara said, pulling her free arm up to snag a thin golden chain around his neck, pulling the pendant free from the tangle of white hair beneath and holding it up for him to see. Obviously, she hadn't pulled that off when she'd ripped his robes off... and he'd managed to not notice it.

"Nobody catches a Krinir thief." she said with her own tired smirk, "We're just too good at what we do."

Raistlin's free hand took the pendant from her, surprised.

"When?"

"During one of your doze-offs in the library, of course. You know," she couldn't help a little of her ego slipping through here, "when it was still your birthing day?"

"Well, you seem to be caught now, miss Krinir." he looked as amused as she felt, in his own quiet way, but Akara shook her head.

"I blew my -own- cover, Majere. You have yet to catch me."

"Is that how it works?"

"It is."

Majere shook his head, setting the pendant down on the blankets before using the same hand to push her head down next to it. Grudgingly, she let her neck relax, settling her ear over one of his lungs.

"Your breathing is getting better." Akara noted out loud, "Think you'll be back to normal pretty soon?"

"Soon." he agreed, resting his hand on her neck again. "But it is daylight, still, and you need to rest as well."

She opened her mouth to argue, and found that she was yawning despite herself.

"Fine, fine." Akara sighed, "I guess you wouldn't kill me in my sleep anyway, would you? Much more fun if I'm awake..."

And with that, she was out.

When she woke the -next- time, she found she could move even less. Akara struggled to roll away or at least sit up, panicking slightly with the restriction. Raistlin's arms were wrapped tightly around her ribcage, however, and not letting up... the Mage's stare boring into her when she stopped fighting and dared to look.

She was the bug under the glass again. Akara felt her mouth go dry.

"M-Majere?"

"What were you dreaming?" Raistlin demanded, out of nowhere. Akara blinked.

"What are you talking about? I don't dream."

"Well," he frowned, "something was certainly happening in your subconscious."

"What the hell are you going off about, Majere?"

"'Majere'?" Raistlin's eyes glinted, he was obviously closing in for the kill on -something-. Akara raised her eyebrows, waiting nervously... not even sure what he could be getting at but knowing it couldn't be good. "That isn't quite what you -moaned- in your sleep!"

"M... m... moaned!" Flashes of something jerked across her mind, golden skin and white hair, black velvet in a nearby pile. The taste of skin... "Let me up!" Akara yelled, panicked. She began to struggle again, but with an edge of desperation. Her hands lurched behind her back, pulling at his arms, but the frail Mage seemed to have regained a surprising strength and did not budge.

He simply lay where he was, holding her in place, and -studied- her reaction. All while wearing that blasted, arrogant, triumphant smirk...

"I'll figure out a way to hurt you if you don't let up right now." Akara growled, "I mean it!"

"Oh, I doubt it." Raistlin drawled, suddenly grabbing both of her arms. The thief froze immediately, aware that he could easily pull her shoulders out of their sockets from this position. She stared at him wide-eyed, slightly out of breath.

"Fuck off, Majere."

"Is that what we were doing?" he inquired innocently, but his eyes were still every bit the predator. Merciless.

"...yes, alright? Now let me up..."

"Do you know what you said in your sleep?"

"No, and I don't want to know!"

"And why not?"

"Because I don't want to have to face it!" Akara blurted, red-faced. "Please!"

Raistlin stared at her for another long, silent moment, and seemed about to say something... but stopped. Wordlessly, he let her go.

Akara immediately fled.

---- ----: -x- :---- ----
Dragonlance © someone else.
All here that is not found in the books... is mine.
Never steal if you value your spleen.