So... late again. Sorry. I'm in the middle of trying to figure out what to do with my life ^^
Thanks for the reviews, everyone! It's really good to feel supported :)
And thank you, FateMagician, my invluable BetaReader, for all your work in bringing this story a little closer to perfection!
Now, rejoice, everyone! This chapter includes a brand-new scene with just Enola and Abraham! Yeah, I thought there weren't enough of those in the first version, so I added a few. I hope you'll like it!
Enola turned around towards Ichabod and Abbie, and the look on the former's face was enough to dissuade her from making any sarcastic comment. Instead, she walked up to him and put a gentle hand on his shoulder, gazing at him with a reassuring smile.
"You know she said that only to divert his attention from you, right?" she comforted him with much more conviction in her tone than she actually felt.
She had sensed something warp slightly between Ichabod and Katrina when he had reproached her for her numerous lies. Irritation bordering on anger had been clear on his face and in his tone. As for Katrina, her expression had been a mixture of shame and disappointment, as if she had expected him to understand and forgive her on the spot, perhaps even to agree with her. He had not. So, maybe Katrina had said those words to distract Abraham, but Enola was ready to bet that the witch had also been very eager to escape Ichabod's judgement.
"I know," the British man answered with a faint smile. "Thank you, Enola."
The vampire nodded and squeezed her friend's shoulder lightly before letting go. As much as she wanted to comment on Katrina's latest lie, it wasn't the place, or the time, or for that matter, her business. So she turned towards Abbie, who didn't look so pleased either.
"If your car's nearby, can you take me to the estate?" she asked.
"Yeah, sure," the police lieutenant said. "No problem."
"Thanks. God, I need a shower…"
"Hmm, can't disagree with that," Abbie smirked. "You stink."
"Oi!" Enola protested, swatting her friend's arm. "It's not my fault that this river is filthier than a garbage dump!"
"How rude, Lieutenant," Ichabod chimed in with a wry smile.
"Ah!" Enola exclaimed emphatically with a dramatic flourish of her arms. "Thanks, Ichabod."
"… Although I cannot deny that she is right," he went on, his blue eyes twinkling mischievously.
"Traitor," the vampire grumbled, though her tone was contradicted by the warmth in her eyes. "And here I thought you were a gentleman."
"Oh, I am. But I was under the impression that you favoured honesty over politeness."
Enola folded her arms and eyed Ichabod with a deadpan look on her face.
"Am I supposed to believe that you didn't say that just to provoke me?"
"Well, of course. I was merely informing you that I concurred with the lieutenant's accurate, if blunt, statement."
"Uh-huh. Well, if you're so offended by my smell, why don't we get going so I can wash it off?"
"Good idea," Abbie chimed in, starting in the direction of her car. "The sooner we drop you off, the better my nose will feel."
"I hate you all."
"No you don't. You love us."
"... Yeah, okay. Maybe I do."
Enola was just finishing putting on her coat and her scarf when Katrina appeared in the doorway leading from the dining room to the rest of the house. Her hair was damp but she no longer smelled like river water, and she had changed her nightgown.
"Oh, sorry, did I wake you up ?" Enola inquired apologetically.
"No, not at all, I was… waiting for you," the witch said.
The vampire lifted a surprised eyebrow.
"Oh? Why?"
Katrina hesitated, clasping her hands nervously and lowering her gaze, which increased Enola's perplexity. Eventually, she looked up and admitted tentatively:
"I was wondering if you would accept to… stay here tonight. I would… appreciate your presence."
Enola blinked, uncertain whether she had heard the witch correctly. Granted, she had just escaped an assassination attempt by her undead rival who had appeared from nowhere in her bedroom and had dragged her into the river. Anyone would be more than a little shaken after that. Yet she had never asked for the vampire's company during the night, even though her stay in Purgatory had probably been a hundred times more stressful. But she wasn't in death danger. She had to be kept alive for Abraham.
"Well… It depends," Enola sighed. "Can I have a bath, and can you lend me a nightgown?"
"Of course," Katrina immediately answered with a clearly relieved smile.
"All right then. I'll stay."
Just pray she doesn't try to talk about, you know... her big bad lie. That'd be awkward as hell.
Well, now that you jinxed it, she most certainly will.
Half an hour later, Enola sat cross-legged on Katrina's bed, a steaming cup of black tea in her hands and her hair still damp from her bath. She was wearing one of her friend's long white linen nightgown and felt much cleaner. The witch sat on her pillow, with her legs under the sheets and also holding a cup of tea. They had been silent for a few minutes now, Katrina staring into space and Enola gazing at the steam rising in twists and waves from her cup. But if the silence had been companionable at first, it was now becoming uncomfortable rather quickly.
"You disapprove of my lying to Ichabod about Mary, do you not?"
Katrina's voice was soft and detached, and her question was more of a statement than a real interrogation. Enola looked up at the witch, who was gazing at her with a neutral face, and refrained from grimacing uncomfortably—see, you fucking jinxed it! For a second, the vampire considered lying to Katrina not to upset her, but she quickly pushed this idea away. Katrina deserved her honesty, and besides, she wouldn't do what she reproached the witch with. As Ichabod had quite accurately remarked earlier, she wasn't one to sugar-coat the truth—except maybe when it came to her students, but that was just basic pedagogy.
"I do," she said with her usual bluntness. "I think you should've trusted Ichabod not to abandon everything he had fought for since he had joined the colonists. Now, I haven't known him for as long as you have, but I don't think Ichabod is the kind of person who'd give up the cause and the people he had pledged his loyalty to just to go and bury someone."
"Mary was not just anyone," Katrina protested. "They were promised to each other, Ichabod cared about her… His honour would have demanded he bring her body back to England."
"His honour would also have demanded he respect his engagements towards Washington and the revolution," Enola pointed out, trying to keep her voice even. "Maybe he would've escorted Mary's body back to England, but then he would've come back, I'm sure."
Annoyance briefly flashed in Katrina's eyes when she realized she had no more valid argument to justify herself.
"Yes, well, as you said, you do not know him as well as I do," she snapped before she could think better of it.
Enola stiffened at the petty, unfair comment that hit her like a needle driven through her heart. The regret that immediately washed over Katrina's face might have made her feel more forgiving if her pain hadn't been so quickly replaced by anger. She felt her upper lip beginning to curl up, but she firmly tightened her lips. She bit back a growl and forced her fingers not to squeeze the cup—otherwise, they would shatter it. Had it been anyone else, she would already have retorted with scathing words that would have sent her interlocutor cowering in a corner, but she couldn't bring herself to destroy the friendship that she and Katrina had begun to build.
"Enola–"
"You should try to sleep," the vampire cut her off coldly, getting off the bed.
Right now, Katrina's apologies wouldn't mean anything to her. She closed the bedroom door behind her and padded to the dining room to retrieve a fresh blood bag from her cooler and the book she was currently reading—Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys—from her purse. She stoked the fire in the living room, then curled up in one of the sofas near the hearth, finishing her tea before sticking a straw in the blood bag. She sipped on it while staring into the dancing fire and listening to the noises of the house: the fire crackling, the ticking of the mantel clock, the wooden floor creaking, Katrina's steady heartbeat, the roof truss groaning, a strange scratching sound coming from Abraham's bedroom—she could have sworn it was that of a pencil sliding over paper, and she wondered whether he was writing or... sketching? That sounded almost ridiculously out of character.
She dismissed that train of thought and attempted to focus on the sounds again. She tried to let them fill her mind so they'd leave no room for thoughts about Katrina's words because she didn't want to think about them yet. She was still angry, and even if she knew she was perhaps overreacting a little—Katrina was tired and upset, she had probably not meant what she had said—she needed some distance. Unfortunately, it didn't work; she felt too restless, her mind stubbornly coming back to Ichabod's wounded expression, the witch's long list of lies, and her disparaging words. Enola huffed in exasperation and threw her book onto the coffee table before pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. She'd never be able to focus on the book, not in her current state of mind. I need company, she decided. And there was only one being in the estate against whom she harboured no ill will. She quickly finished her blood bag before putting on her ankle boots, which had been drying on the floor in front of the hearth, and leaving the house with a determined gait. Now... Where is the stable?
Riding. That was what he needed. Only a good long ride with Daredevil would distract him from the uncomfortable, disturbing thoughts currently bouncing around in his mind. With a frustrated huff, Abraham pushed away the piece of paper on which, for the first time, Enola's lopsided smile wasn't tinged with mockery but with affection—that smile was the cause of several of the aforementioned thoughts. He left his room on light feet so as not to disturb Katrina's sleep and stopped by the kitchen first to retrieve a lantern, lighting it before heading to the stable.
Only, when he came into view of the stable, the doors were already ajar and a familiar voice was filtering through the opening. This sight froze him in his tracks and sparked a flare of annoyance in his chest.
"You must be joking," he muttered.
For a split second, he considered turning back, but the thought had barely crossed his mind that he was scowling at himself. Are you really going to let her chase you away from your own home? … No, certainly not. He pulled the door abruptly and marched in, his feature set in an obstinate mask and his boots clicking on the stone slabs that made the ground. His eyes found her the moment the light of his lantern repelled the shadows before him. Daredevil was standing in the central aisle, chewing on one of the bales of hay stacked in the corner between the walls and the first stall on the left—it seemed he'd have to refill the feeder. As for Enola, she was lying on the stallion's back, dressed only in a nightgown. Her head was propped against his crest and her bare feet against his rump, her legs were bent at the knees, and her hands were moving as she spoke. There was a small picture in black lines—a tattoo?—on her ankle, but he couldn't make out what it depicted.
"... The foal was grey and had eight legs, and he grew up to be the strongest and the fastest of all the horses. He could even carry a man through the air! That's why Odin chose him as his mount when–"
"What are you doing?" Abraham cut her off in a sharp tone.
She turned her head to him and he almost started when he found himself staring into a pair of glowing yellow orbs—her eyes were reflecting the light of the lantern. Her eyebrows rose in an 'isn't it obvious?' look and her hands dropped down to settle on her stomach.
"I'm telling your horse about Sleipnir's origins."
"Why?"
She shrugged, pursing her lips in a careless pout.
"Well, because it's a horse story. Why else?"
"Get off my horse," he commanded, hanging his lantern on a hook stuck into the doorframe. "Daredevil, we're going out."
The stallion snorted and shook his head in displeasure, which drew a smirk from Enola.
"Seems he wants to stay where he is," she commented with a sarcastic glance at Abraham.
"Don't flatter yourself. He merely dislikes his name."
"Not a Marvel fan, huh?"
That earned her an uncomprehending look from Abraham.
"Excuse me?"
"Nothing," the vampire replied, waving a dismissive hand. "Why do you call him that if he doesn't like it? I'll get off him if you tell me," she hastily added when the Horseman took a few threatening steps towards her.
"Because he also refused all the other names I could think of, because it was the name of my previous horse and a perfectly good one, because I had more important things to do than to go through every conceivable name until one caught his fancy," he explained impatiently. "There, happy?"
"Ooh, picky, are we?" Enola chuckled, patting Daredevil's flank. "All right, if you don't like Daredevil, how about... Pendragon?"
The horse shook his head and Abraham folded his arms as he pinned the vampire with a half-disbelieving, half-incensed look.
"You are not staying here all night trying to find him a new name," he growled. "Daredevil is perfectly fine and even if I wanted to change it, I wouldn't need your help."
"Well, I bet I can come up with something he'll like," Enola shot back with a challenging smile.
Abraham swallowed a curse. Why was it that she knew exactly what to say to get him to comply? First when she had extracted from him the permission to visit Katrina, and now this. He wouldn't back down from a challenge, especially not one she threw down to him. Her smile widened into a grin at his frustrated glower, which faltered for an instant. For the second time that night, the world shifted until he no longer saw an enemy, but a young woman as formidable as she was annoying... A young woman who hadn't hesitated to put herself in danger to rescue his future bride. And for that, he was... grateful. The fact was that he owed her. Indulging her whim would be a good way to repay his debt, or at least part of it.
"And I bet that you cannot," he retorted. "But feel free to try."
For a good ten minutes, Enola listed all the names she could come up with—Chimera, Shadowless, Nocturne, Myrddin, Neverwinter, Kalevala, and many others. Daredevil rejected them all and Abraham scoffed at quite a few. When she fell silent, her eyebrows knitted in a pondering frown and a finger tapping her stomach, a smirk pulled at the Horseman's lips.
"Do you give up?" he asked, his voice laced with a taunt.
She scoffed and gave him an incredulous look.
"Please, you should know me better than that. Hemlock?"
The stallion shook his head again and a disgruntled noise issued from Enola's throat.
"Archon?"
There was a beat of silence, and then... an approving nicker coupled with a firm nod. Abraham bit back a frustrated growl: of course she had won—she always did.
"Ha!" Enola crowed with a victorious grin, throwing her hands in the air. "I win! So, what's my reward?"
Abraham raised a deadpan eyebrow.
"A polite request to please get off my horse instead of the most violent shove I can muster."
The vampire sniffed in mock offence and swung her legs down, her feet touching the ground without a sound.
"Hmpf. It's the last time a make a wager with you," she declared, padding to her shoes, which she had abandoned near the door.
The neckline of her nightgown dipped low enough on her back that he could see the strange tattoo running down her spine—a cluster of circles each containing complex patterns of circles and lines.
"You have no idea how relieved I am to hear that," he quipped, tearing his eyes from the spot where her tattoo disappeared into her nightgown.
Much to his surprise, she laughed and shook her head as put her shoes back on.
"You're saying that because you don't want to lose again."
The glare that the Horseman directed at her lacked its usual fierceness. She was at the door before he could retort, a smirk on her lips and mirth dancing in her eyes.
"Good night, you two."
"Wait," he blurted out before he could think better of it.
She levelled a quizzical look at him, one that quickly changed into a perplexed frown when she noticed that he stood as stiffly as a poker and looked as if he'd bitten into a particularly bitter grapefruit.
"Thank you for rescuing Katrina," he said with obvious reluctance.
"Well, that looked painful."
His customary scowl took back its rightful place—the one time he showed her some courtesy, and that was what he got? Her mockery?
"I didn't do it for you," she added just as his mouth opened onto a scathing retort.
"I know," he bit out. "I'm no fool."
"You're welcome anyway."
And she disappeared behind the doors, leaving him to process her mercurial change of tone, though he quickly gave up divining what had prompted it—maybe she had recognized his effort and decided to return the favour? Instead, he turned a critical look to his white stallion, who returned a placid gaze, his ears relaxed and his head slightly lowered.
"Archon," he articulated thoughtfully before shaking his head in mild exasperation. "You had to choose one of her ideas, didn't you?"
The only answer he received was a snort.
"Well, it's not what I would call ominous, but I suppose it could be worse."
Is that some progress I see? Yeah, it is! But don't get too excited, they're not going to be kissing anytime soon ;) They still have a loooong way to go.
So, I changed the horse's name. I'd called him Acheron in the first version, remember? I kept it close because I liked the way it sounded, but at least now it doesn't scream 'he's a hellish horse so let's give him a Hell-relaed name'. What do you think?
Now for Enola's tattoos. The one on her ankle is actually the dragon that appears on the cover and back cover of the first edition of The Hobbit. You know, long, thin, with raised wings near the head, rather minimalist? You should find it easily if you enter 'smaug tattoo' in your search engine. And the one on her back is circular Gallifreyan, which I've always found quite pretty ^^
Five reviews left, guys! I'll update the moment I have the last one, unless it takes more than two weeks. I'll try really hard not to be late this time.