Silence matters.
Even as a child Kel had understood this. Growing up in the Yamani Isles had given her an education unique to the children of Tortall. From birth, everyone in the Yamani Isles was taught the power of silence.
When you're silent all the time, you have to find other ways of amusing yourself. You go for walks, you play silent games, and you listen to people. The latter is by far the most interesting, and certainly the most educational. When you listen, you learn, and when you learn, while you may not know, you will understand better. Soon, through listening you learn how to hear. Then the real fun comes in. Later on you learn how to hear the slightest change in sound; whether or not the frogs are croaking louder tonight, the gentle padding of a cat's paws which you quickly understood was only nearly silent.
Despite all this, Kel had always been a naturally quiet person. Her mother always joked that Kel might have been able to speak months before the family heard her first word. When Kel arrived at the Yamani Isles, she merely had to revel in the silence, while the rest of her family tried to adapt.
Even in her training to become a knight, Kel never forgot, nor did she stop using the hidden talents she had acquired. However, she rarely had cause to be silent. Her friends were a boisterous lot, and unless she was on her own, the faint buzz of chatter was about as quiet as it got. Kel even grew to appreciate it to the extent that for quite some time, she never had cause to be truly silent. Until one day.
Kel had been walking back to her rooms with Neal, giddy with laughter. It had started to rain halfway through their trip to the markets, and as they headed back to the horses Neal though that it might be funny to push Kel out from under the awning into the worst of the downpour. Soaked through, Kel let out an uncharacteristic shriek and pulled him in after her. The two of them spent the better part of an hour running around, splashing each other. Kel had been running from Neal, when all of a sudden he reached out and grabbed her wrist, spinning her about to face him. Suddenly it struck Kel that without her constant funning around, her very wet, very white, and now very see-through shirt had settled around her, clinging to her form.
"My dear Keladry you are soaked through. Best get you back to the palace." He looked at her, eyes shinning with an affection that he had always had for her since she had been ten years old; and something deeper and darker that had made her shiver with something. But Kel knew how to listen and Neal's voice betrayed no lust, but only the care and concern that he always showed her. So they both headed back to the palace, and Kel thought nothing of it.
As they headed down the corridor, cheeks pinching from smiling so much, Neal decided to visit his betrothed.
"I haven't sat down and spoken to her in so long. I invited her out with us today, but she said she was planning the wedding. She's always planning the wedding!"
Kel grinned, and had to fight back the urge to brush aside the hair that had fallen into Neal's eyes, as it was often wont to do when he was complaining about something. "All this fuss, Yuki is worse than both of my sisters put together…which is probably why I have been avoiding her lately. I just know she is going to try and rope me in to going for fittings," Kel spat the word out like she was Neal and it was a vegetable. Noticing Neal's laughter she started chuckling too, "Stop that! You men barley have to attend these things! And don't even get me started on the seamstress Yuki has chosen. Lalassa may have had me up for fittings more times than I can count but at least she was quick!"
Still chuckling, Neal drew out his key, and opened the door to Yuki's rooms, and the laughter died in his throat. There was Yuki, her hair falling from its usually elegant style, wrapped in the arms of another man, kissing him passionately. Neal made a strangled sound in the back of his throat, and Yuki and her lover leapt apart.
"Neal!" Yuki's voice was high and shrill, obviously caused by the kissing she had just been engaged in, which caused Neal to wince. What she had been caught doing hadn't really sunk in yet, and she seemed more surprised than anything.
Neal was silent for a moment, and for one heartbreaking second, Kel could hear the betrayal he felt in his ragged breathing. Her own heart clenched in sorrow. He was her friend and he was hurting. She was just about to say something when his breathing changed; it grew calm, and cold. When Neal spoke, his voice was dull and toneless, and his speech was formal, a far cry from the Neal whose words often rolled in animation, and whose speech was always close and personal, never detached. Despite what Yuki had done, despite the fact that she had betrayed Neal for goodness knows how long, Kel wanted to take back what they had seen and shove it away into some dark corner, if only so that Neal's old voice would come back.
"How long?"
Yuki seemed to have recovered somewhat, her eyes wild she said "Neal- I'm sorry! I didn't mean-"
"How long?" Neal's tone still didn't change.
Yuki looked down at her feet. "About four months, give or take a few weeks."
"Right," Neal nodded. He paused, and then he said, "The engagement is off."
"Wha-what?" Yuki gasped.
"The engagement if off. Contact any of the help you have hired and tell them you want to cancel your plans. If they require payment for the time they have spent working for you, send the bill to me. Goodbye Yuki." Ignoring Yuki's still kiss quieted voice calling him back, Neal turned, and walked out of the room.
Yuki scrambled after him, but was jolted backwards on her way to the door. Looking down, she saw Kel's hand blocking the way. Drawing herself up, Yuki said, "Keladry, as a lady of the Emperors Court, I order you to let me pass."
Kel sighed, "No, Yuki."
Yuki's usually calm face hardened slightly at those words. "Keladry, while this order may hold no consequence here to most, to you it means quite a bit. I am a lady of the Emperor's court; I could ban you from your beloved Isles in a second if I wished."
Kel stood fast, her gaze becoming diamond hard, "No you couldn't, you forget I helped save the sacred swords, you forget that I know your family. Imagine how ashamed they would be to hear what you have done. I know you Yuki and I never thought you would sink so low." Her gaze focused on the man in the room. "I don't know who you are and I don't care, get out. Feel fortunate that I am far angrier with Yukimi than I am with you."
The man left the room quickly, not even sparing a worried glance for his lover. Kel saw the pain that flashed through Yuki's eyes- and couldn't bring herself to care.
"I know Neal, I know him, and that means more that you can possibly comprehend. He is my rock, my best friend, and you hurt him. That is unforgivable. You will do as he says, and if you ever in any way cause him more pain than you have, I will inform your family of the scandal that occurred here today." With that, Kel turned and stormed off, leaving a forlorn Yuki, standing alone in her rooms. She hadn't said all she had wanted to, she hadn't raged at Yuki, called her a fool for letting someone like Neal slip through her fingers. Kel had more important things to do.
She found Neal in the palace gardens, soaked through once more, letting the rain wash away the dirt of the day. Kel listened to the falling rain as it beat a happy little rhythm, as though the heart of a good man hadn't just been torn to pieces, as though Neal wasn't sitting alone in the downpour looking as though he despised himself. Padding up almost silently to Neal, she stood behind him for a moment, unsure of what to say. Then suddenly he spoke, and Kel's heart broke. "It's all my fault."
Kel wanted to scream No! You did nothing but love her, you don't deserve this!, but a long unused instinct took over, and Kel let him speak, let him bleed out the pain.
"I suppose I should have seen it coming, if nothing else than as a punishment. I deserve it. I know you don't understand, you only saw her half, her disloyalty, you were blind to mine. You see all of me Kel, except that which I pray and dread that you might, the one secret of mine that I have kept from you."
His voice sounded rather hurt, as though an insulting comment had been thrown his way, but Kel couldn't help feel disconcerted, his tone in no way matched his words…and yet deep in her heart, she knew he wasn't lying. Troubled, she listened harder.
"In a way Kel, I betrayed her too. When I met her, it was like a dream. She was this beautiful goddess, and she loved me. She was –apparently- as virtuous as she was beautiful, so I fancied myself in love. I never told you that I felt that way about her because I was so terrified that you would prove me wrong. That you would remind me what you already knew; real love isn't dreaming. Real love is in waking up. But I kept that away, and pretended that I could be happy with her. And I was, so I asked her to marry me. Then I started noticing something.
You often accuse me of never listening, and that is true enough, but….there is a girl. I listen to her. I watch her too, all the time. I know how to tell if she is happy or sad, near or far, I just…I know her. And for anyone to hurt her, that would be unforgivable."
Kel heard the echo of the words she had uttered to Yuki, "I know Neal, I know him, and that means more that you can possibly comprehend. He is my rock, my best friend, and you hurt him. That is unforgivable." Neal took a shake breath, and Kel heard the will it was costing him. He was holding himself back, but for what she didn't know. She couldn't read him like this, but she stayed silent. If it had been anyone else, they might not have noticed her. But this was Neal, and he always knew.
"I…I fell in love with her. That's why it's my fault. I betrayed Yuki too; I was never hers, never true. My heart belonged to that girl and nothing in the world could change it. I started to live for her smile, and pray for her laugh, I loved spending time with her. She is so far from perfection like Yuki's. But she has what Yuki lacked so much of."
Curious, Kel spoke, her voice as soft as the summer rains they were in, "What did Yuki lack?"
A small smile, and Kel could have flown with joy had she not wanted to hear what he had to say. "She lacked…grace. The kind of grace needed to touch hearts, the grace that lets others see the beauty she tries so hard to hide, the grace that makes you want to see her smile one more time, because there was one tiny detail that you couldn't remember, and you have to remember everything about her because she is just too precious to forget." He finally turned, and Kel did something that she had never tried to do before.
She looked.
And then it all came rushing back.
Of course she hadn't been able to hear the emotions Neal felt. Neal was a man of words. If you wanted to know him you watched him. She remembered seeing his crooked smile that he never seemed to give anyone else but her, the looks that had made her shiver, the emotion shining in his eyes now, as he braced himself for her rejection. And she remembered seeing him watch her late at night, when they sometimes sat together by the dying fire. She remembered how…beautiful he had looked; with dusk in his hair, and firelight in his eyes, and the love, oh the love, which she hadn't believed could be there.
Keladry had spent so long listening; she had forgotten how to see.
All at once it seemed almost too much, but she reached for him anyway. He kissed her, and Kel let him. They clung to each other like the other had been lost for so long, and they had just come home. In a way they had. His lips were so soft against hers, and Kel could hear the edge to his breathing, and felt that same shiver she had felt earlier in the market place run through her again (Had it only been this morning? It felt like a whole other life), and pressed herself against him.
When they broke apart Neal tried to speak, "Kel, I…" but she pressed a finger to his lips.
"Shhh, just listen," she whispered.
"To what?" Neal asked.
Kel only smiled, and laid her head on his shoulder. There was still Yuki to sort out, there was still a lot left unsaid, but it could wait.
He was with her now.
A/N: There you go: my Christmas story. I know sap abounds, but I was feeling sappy. I'm not too happy with this, if slipped out of character towards the end, and you know how I hate that! But tough, I'm too full to re-write. Fell lucky you are getting anything at all. I did look this over, but one or two or ten mistakes always seen to slip through. Happy Christmas everyone. PS: Dom's Lover has been absent for a while, does anyone know where she is?