Author's Note
First off, I highly suggest listening to
From Eden by Hozier
while reading this chapter.
Please let me know how you, as the reader are feeling about this story, I'd really like some feedback!
Thank you, please comment, and enjoy!
After a few more moments, Liete couldn't abide by the screaming any longer and with a bark that burned her throat, she snapped at Julle.
"Quiet, I can hardly breathe with you screaming about." The fragile looking servant, falling well short of Liete's five foot eleven frame instantly hushed, her petite hands covering her mouth. Dark streaks practically bleed from her eyes and down her cheeks, but she was as silent as the grave.
Julle was graced with a quiet lovely demeanor, with pale almost green eyes and thick kinky curls that framed her small mouse like features. She'd been raised with Liete, her mother first caring for Liete before she did, and had been sent into exile with Liete when Beckford first passed to continue to care for her.
She'd tried to watch over Liete, powerless but ever watchful with sadness and defeat as prevalent in her own life as Liete's. The simple and awful difference between the two young women was that Julle had still been able to be with people and experience more than simple servitude. She saw the cruelty of slavery first hand but she also saw the beauty in her people and the hope that never seemed to waiver. It was her one sorrow that Liete never had anything more than her misery and her loneliness. In the way of the world, she felt richer than the white woman who had all the money and property to her name but nothing all at the same time. Although Liete had scared her, as she did everyone, she had never truly feared her in a sense understanding why the woman was as she was.
Julle feared Liete now.
She hardly recognized the woman who usually stood slumped and vacant to the one that stood as tall as a palm tree, with her eyes no longer a fog that sat idle but swirled and moved with life and vigor.
This woman, was the soul behind the legends of a pantheress women who came on dark nights where the water enveloped the lands and stole away the souls of those who had done wicked things to innocents. She was the boogeyman to the people, and at this moment, Julle believed it like never before.
After a full minute of Liete standing with both pistols still hanging in her firm grip as she looked at the wall opposite her where blood and other pieces of the captain were spread wide, Julle couldn't help but drop to her knees softly and whispered "Please don't hurt me ma'm, I'm ain't ganna tell no one, I promise.."
Liete moved so quickly it sent Julle jerking back to land right on her bottom as another cry of fright left her lips, the pale women growing an annoyed disbelief over her features as she waved one hand, the pistol clacking slightly as she moved.
"I wouldn't hurt you, you've done nothing but been kind. I've not lost all my wits to forget that." Liete's voice sounded foreign and she realized that over the past few years, she'd never spoken more than two or so words at a time. She'd never had the will to do much more than that.
As she opened her mouth to tell the woman to get herself up off the floor, a vague feeling came off, and chill touched the back of her neck, that sent Liete spinning and the pistols, which had no shots in them since having been discharged, held up to her eye level, pinned on her phantom whom had suddenly appeared on her balcony.
With her turn, Julle howled in horror and began to screech about a voodoo man as she kicked her legs scrambling back across the floor, to put herself fully behind Liete. Liete and the Reaper on the other hand didn't move a muscle save the man slowly lifting his hands to show he held nothing in them.
"Ho, lass, I'm unarmed and mean you no harm. There is no reason to be afraid." Liete let her head slowly tilt as the cool acceptance of Death washed over her speaking mind as she took in the man's rough low voice. It wasn't what she had expected from Death, but not all together unpleasant, and she liked the lilt of an accent which wasn't quite British.
She still couldn't see her killers face, and with a small movement, she put most of her weight on one foot, relaxing easily and said as calm and sweet as a mare in spring.
"I have no fear of you, you may kill me as you see fit. I do implore you, pirate, for some sense of honor in that you leave my maid whole and intact. I do mean in every sense of the word sir, with life and maidenhead. I to will not consent to be ravaged, so please do agree to these terms and with that, your murder of me can then conclude. You may have whatever you'd like from the home, and once you are done I'd implore you to burn it to ash. Do I have your word?"
The calm with which she spoke never faltered even when Julle gasped a simple no, and had reached for the hem of her dress to clutch onto Liete for some form of comfort. What did cause Mad Liete to again cock her head in interest is when Death threw back his head, his hood falling away as he gave a throaty laugh riddled with humor and disbelief.
"I don't intend on killing either of you this day, although you seem eager for that cause." Liete didn't like his laughter at her, it puzzled her and confused what she knew of this man. What further flustered her mind, was the face that had been uncovered as he laughed at her as if she had jested merrily with him.
His face was covered in several days' growth, with a scar that reached across the right side of his face from his jaw line to right underneath his eye. These attributes meshed well with his round chin, stubborn jaw line, and large nose that looked as if it had been broken and set wrong. With hair a golden wheat tied back against the nape of his neck, and blue eyes that danced with all mirth and no regrets, her phantom was roguish and handsome to say the least.
His robes although loose, showed definition, with a large solid waist and body that told of many days working on ships, climbing masts and practice with the very instruments that riddled his body. Standing tall enough for her to lift her chin slightly to look up at him, his entire demeanor seemed to swell and fit the doorway. Two holsters kept a set of smaller pistols peeking from behind his back, and two cutlasses crossed slightly behind his thighs, one on each hip. They were well maintained and freshly sharpened, even if they held traces of dried blood along their shafts.
All in all, this man was a murderer, had murdered, and was now claiming to be anything but.
"Say you?" Her voice had dropped a few octaves on its own, and if she had sense of mind, she might have blushed at the husky tone she had never heard leave her throat before. As it were, she simply continued to stand in her relaxed state, pistols aimed directly at his heart, and with a beginners luck, she held them as if she had been born into them.
The cool metal against her palm felt soothing to her fuddled thoughts and allowed her to once again, focus on the matter at hand. Slowly moving she pulled one hand back, from her still outstretched one with its gun focused on the pirate, to her chest where with little choice she made a very unladylike movement and stuffed the gun into the side of her chemise, the butt of it sticking out across her modest but still evident cleavage. With her hand now free, and the phantom's eyes slightly larger, Liete grasped Julle's hand easily and tugged at the shaking servants hand slowly lifting the lighter woman to her feet. With little more than shaking and small whimpers, the slave woman now on her feet, kept behind Liete for which Liete was slightly grateful. She'd have a much easier time aiding in the woman's escape now that she'd put herself very slowly between Death and the door.
Hopefully, she won't see him slice my throat. She thought coldly, as she then felt for the pistol once more, never taking her eyes off the fair haired man in front of her. He also stood calm with palms raised and facing her as a merry little smirk formed again as he gestured towards her with his chin, and then to the dead animal dressed as a man on the floor to her right.
"I am not the one holding a death mark to a chest, my lady. There is only one dead soul in this room, and I am not the cause of its departure. So whom is the real danger?" Liete felt the pricks of amusement, and took the chance to glance at the deceased captain, and with venom snarled low in her chest.
"There was narry' a soul in the body lying there." Silence and understanding stretched between Liete and the man, an intimate moment where someone saw the horrors behind her swirling eyes but didn't pity her circumstance. An understanding that pity didn't change a thing, because as he saw for himself, she handled her circumstance just fine without anyone's pity.
A deep baritone voice called from outside of the manor, spooking Liete in her momentary trance, as her fingers tightened and the empty chamber of the pistol clicked. Even though no bullet had lain in the chamber, her phantom had moved so quickly it would have missed him even if there had been to stand on top of her bed, crouched like a waiting tiger, watching her with astonished and still amused eyes.
"Kenway, we're done emptying the warehouse. Let's leave this place, the slaves speak of a spirit comein' here!" Julle, with the movement by both Liete and the pirate, had clamped her hand onto the taller woman's waist and had physically turned them both to now face the pirate, her shaking increased to an uncontrollable movement that had Liete's body trembling by association.
The pirate on the other hand seemed more at ease than ever, clearly deducing that both pistols had no shots within him, and to make the point that he had figured the ploy of the mad woman before him he again motioned towards her with his chin, not bothering to answer the summons of the man outside.
"You could have shot me."
"That was the general idea, yes."
That earned her another throaty full laugh, and with it the man easily jumped from his perch on Liete's four poster bed, to stand to his full height before her, both his hands no longer held in surrender, but now balled and resting against his hips, and with a wicked smile she was vaguely aware was almost always in waiting on his lips as he all but ended the tension within the room, at least between him and Liete.
"Now, let's drop the guns. I give my word I won't touch you or your lady, but I think we need to have ourselves a tawk' if only for the sake of curiosity." His accent drawled sweetly with his words, and with a single moment of hesitation Liete let both pistols she had still held at eye level drop with a loud clamor to the wood floor.
Julle flinched and began to pray underneath her breath, and Liete having never been more sure about something in her life, turned away from the man as she laid a hand on the servants shoulder, looking Julle square in the eye. Julle felt her body cease trembling without her telling it to do so, as the swirling silver within Liete's pupils which had only given her chills before now calmed her immensely.
"Come now Julle, we have his word. All is well." With the simple promise, Liete released the woman to stand quietly as she'd always done with her hands folded neatly in front of her stomach, the scarf that wrapped across her forehead returning to its normal position now that Julle no longer had her forehead crunched in fear. She was as calm as a pond with no breeze.
Liete again turned to face the pirate who looked more than a little interested in her actions, and gathered her dress within her palms and executed a perfectly royal curtsy.
"I wish to apologize for my rudeness, you came upon us at quite an embarrassing moment, do forgive me." Her complete remorseless actions and proper manners, although unseen, shook the very insides of the man in front of her.
Edward Kenway, was a killer, and driven for coin and little else, but this woman..
This woman, although his suspected reason for her purpose of killing the man was just, didn't seem to have all her marbles. Although hypocritical of him, considering he himself had slain over twenty score of men just minutes before, he couldn't fathom that this woman wasn't a stumbling, fumbling mess from her actions. It gave him pause and a faint thought that maybe he misjudged women for their sturdiness and resilience. He pushed that thought away as she pinned him with the eyes of a witch once again, and concluded that they were the source of his uneasiness.
They appeared to be moving, circling, as if looking into a well someone had just dropped a pence in, into the grey of a swirling fog that skimmed the water on full moons. Eerie and unsettling, he had the uncanny feeling that she could find every one of his secrets if he looked upon her to long.
Giving in to the anxious and panicked knot within his stomach, Edward raised a hand to run his fingers through his hair and forced himself to look away as he scoffed and stomped over to the walk, gripping the small white painted railing to glare down at his quarter master Adewale whom stood impatiently glancing as the crew of his ship The Jackdaw hauled their loot into the bowels of the ship in the distance.
Dark skinned, with scars that seemed to be finger nails scratches framed his dark and thoughtful eyes. With a scarf tied neatly on his head, his vest, holsters and cutlasses evident, and bare arms, Adewale looked like he'd kill you simply by looking at you.
"Ade, you might want to come up here." Moving to pull away, a second thought came forward and he looked down at Adewale and quipped. "Slowly, mind you."
Pulling away and turning, he cursed viciously as he jumped back after coming face to face with the noble woman nearly toppling over the edge of the balcony.
Liete moved closer to the pirate, just a few centimeters from his skin as she studied his features with keen detail to commit them to memory. His skin although worn from constant sun, and wind whipped, it appeared soft, and the small lines that were faint but there around the corners of his eyes, and lips, she knew he had only lived a life of merriment. Chasing foxes in holes, and shadows in the dark, this man was going to be as empty as she was one day.
Edward, although fear was ever present in the back off his mind, couldn't help as his body reacted to her nearness. He'd been chaste, we generally chase, since leaving his wife behind in search of a better life, but it felt as if he had no control as a gallon of fire pumped its way throughout his entire body centrally on his crotch that felt strained and aching as his eyes were transfixed on her red lips that although appeared chapped was one of the only points of color in her entire pale face.
Liete felt the sudden change of heat from the pirates body, with the one thought, and with the thought reacted as positively as she had before on killing her tormentor with no second thought on the matter. Her mind was content with each thought as it came, committing it to action with nothing more.
I believe he wants me, and she with little to no skill, applied her lips against his own, with a pressure that assured both of them that she may have had an idea of what being with a man entailed, she was innocent.
Edward couldn't breathe, as his arms came up to hold her hips firmly against his own, drowning sweetly in the softness of the woman's cold lips. Behind his closed eyelids, he saw lights and the river of his vitality flowing into his partner, as her lips warmed from his, and she became bolder and more forceful.
It was if she was pulling his very soul to mingle with her own the connection point her tongue that swept into his mouth, her teeth scrapping his bottom lip and as he drifted beneath the surface of life for a moment, Liete pulled herself from his grip, took a step away, touched her lips absent mindedly, and then nodded her face that returned to its indifferent features.
"That was interesting."
Edward couldn't speak, suddenly feeling weaker than a newborn babe using his arms to hold him up against the railing, as Adewale chose that moment in time to casually open the master suite door, his dark eyes taking in the entire surrounding within a moment.
"I don't think this is goanna end well braddah'"
Edward only nodded.
Disclaimer
I do not own Assassin's Creed, any of it variations or characters.
I do own Liete and her insanity, but that is all.