"Please let go of that, M'Lady. It's dripping on my floor."
The sickle clatters to the tiles but the head remains clutched tightly in the girl's arms. Kylo is carrying her now, trying to dissociate himself from every aspect of the situation. The soaking wet, bloody, human-mermaid is carrying a severed head and he's holding her in his arms, bringing her back inside as if she was a bride who is either in the before or after stages of a particularly twisted wedding night.
He takes her -them- to the bathroom and sets her on the floor. She curls up, pulling her knees into her chest and regarding the gruesome head in her hands. There's a smile on her face now, though it's matched with a tight line of pain that pulls her brows together. Pride and a job well done. Those are the emotions he can pull from the surface of her mind as he watches from a distance.
"I will need to get you clean, M'Lady," he tells her softly. "See what the extent of your wounds is."
He starts the bath filling a few finger depths with cold water, then he goes to the kitchen to put two buckets on to heat. His clothing is a bloody mess from where he'd come into contact with her. Lucky his Knights aren't here to see this or they would think, perhaps accurately, that their leader had finally given in to the tides of lunacy.
"Sometimes I wonder if you're even real," he says. "Perhaps you really are a trick of my own mind. A projection from your kind meant to throw me off course. If that's the case, they're doing a marvelous job of it."
What will she need? Food, clothing, and rest. And she'll need to let go of the head, won't she? Then Kylo can bury it or-
Ah, or hand it off to the villagers as proof of his and his Knight's capabilities. It seems like the girl has done part of his duties for him then, though hardly in a way he could have ever fathomed.
As he waits for the water to warm, Kylo starts dinner. Earlier when his Knights had come they had brought with them some fresh fish and the haunch of a stag that the older of the twin archers had shot. The fish can be raw, she'd probably prefer it that way, and the deer goes into the cooking pot with a few other staples to make a stew.
Clothing was a harder choice since he had brought only that one dress for her and she seemed to have completely ruined it. Maybe it could be mended, perhaps, but it would need a deep washing just like Kylo's own clothes and that would have to wait until morning. Until then, he pulls out from his wardrobe one of his longest shirts. Black, simple in design, and intended to be warn low as was the current fashion so it should hopefully reach her knees and keep her at least a little more modest.
Then it's back to the girl and she's waiting there, kill still in her hands except now she has it facing him to better display what she's brought home.
Kylo swallows. The girl looks so damned pleased with herself it's downright eerie.
"Very good," he keeps his voice light and even as he reaches out. "May I have that? I'll put it somewhere where we both can see it?"
The last thing he needs is this stubborn, insane girl trying to fight him for the severed head of her enemy. She looks at the head and then his hand, the gears in her mind clearly running on overtime. With jerky movements she reaches out, extending the prize to him but making him come more than halfway to meet her.
"That's very… yes. Thank you. Let's just put that right here for your bath, alright?"
The 'proper resting place' of the head is soon going to be inside a burlap sack placed far out of sight if not out of mind, but until then Kylo has to improvise. With a grimace he lifts a candle out of its holder and places the head inside it, ignoring the nearly obscene morbidness of what he's doing.
The girl's scowl eases when she must figure out that he's not just taking the bounty away but putting it on display. Kylo swallows and rolls up his sleeves, pouring one of the two buckets of water into the bathtub itself and saving the other to dip a rag into. Her whole body is filthy and wounded. He'll have to clean her off first before she gets in, if she'll let him.
She still frowns when he approaches her with a soapy rag and bucket of water in hand. She clearly doesn't like to be touched, old habits die hard, and Kylo himself has to admit to a newfound leeriness of his guest after what he's just seen.
"Give me your hand."
He reaches his own arm out to demonstrate when he wants. The girl cocks her head, regarding him. He starts to wiggle his fingers before deciding better of it.
Like this.
He projects the image of her stretching out for him into her mind. Her scowl grows more suspicious and her arms extend only a little.
She growls as he carefully pulls the tatters of the dress away from her body. Perhaps the noises she makes aren't exactly sounds of anger? Or she may well be annoyed with him because several of the many claw-shaped wounds that litter her body had started to scab over and removing the dress pulls at them.
When the garment's gone he tosses it aside and begins to carefully swab at her limbs. She swats at him and shrinks away whenever the rough cloth comes in contact with a wound, but this is an essential step. Kylo has to see the extent of her injuries before they can continue with getting her cleaned up.
Some of them are bad. It looks like more than one of the merfolk had attacked her. Or she attacked them. Luckily none are life-critical, but there are three along her back and abdomen that are continuing to ooze blood still.
"After we're done up I'll apply an ointment and bandages. Try not to pull them off, you'll just make it worse again."
The only response he gets is a particularly firm foot to his shoulder as he leans over he to clean off the far side of her stomach.
"Ticklish? Good gods, m'lady. I'm lucky you didn't bite me for that."
Indeed his neck had been within a dangerous distance, and the act of drawing so near rather reminded him of a trust test that Varactyl would do with placing their master's hand in their mouth.
When she's as ready as she'll be Kylo steps back and pours the rest of the warm water into the tub. The girl wastes no time. She pushes herself up with a grunt and immediately flops over the edge and inside. Water splashes over from her ungainly movement, and Kylo shakes his head at the mess she's made already of his bathroom.
"You must be very tired. Beheading has a way of taking it out of you."
Kylo himself has slain many of her kind in the same way this girl has done, and he carries the battle scars all along his own body to prove it.
Last time he had taken her to the bath she had been jubilant, splashing and playing about in the water. This time his guest sighs deeply, her bare chest rising just above the surface of the water before it sinks with her exhalation. Dark circles ring the bottom of her eyes and Kylo feels exactly the same way. It's several hours past midnight and neither of them has slept. Fine for the girl, she can and he hopes will simply lounge around in bed all day, keeping herself out of trouble. For Kylo, however, the next twelve to twenty-four hours of his life will no doubt be filled with great hardship.
"I wonder how many of your kind I will kill tomorrow?" He picks up a lock of the mermaid's hair and she dives under the surface to avoid him. "I will aim for as many as I can, and I'm sure my men will slay many as well. Will they be your family? Your own clan? Was she one of your own?"
He gestures behind him at the severed head on the shelf. His guest rises just enough out of the water so her eyes peep out from the surface. They're squinting at the edges as if she's smiling.
"You did that for me, didn't you? Why?"
He pokes at her mind. The head ducks under again.
Kylo moves to stand then. Time to prepare dinner or a very early breakfast depending on how you see it. A hand reaches out though, wrapping around his wrist. The girl holds onto him, pulling him back to her until he's leaning over the edge of the tub again.
He can see now this close the strain her efforts have taken on her. She's pale in parts, bruised in others. Her limbs shake from the effort to lift themselves, but she still holds on to him until he stops fighting and comes closer to her on his own will.
"What's wrong?"
One of her hands goes to his hair. She seizes a piece and pulls on it, but lets go when he huffs and makes an exaggerated pained face. The other hand goes first to his shoulder and she kneads at the flesh their with her palm.
"Searching for the juiciest spots to feast upon, M'Lady?"
Kylo says it mostly in jest. Mostly. Yet he still feels relieved when her hand moves on, now pushing at the broad width of his chest. She starts to yank on the fabric of his shirt and he realizes that she either wants him to remove it or she's about to do it herself.
"No, M'lady. Stop."
He pulls away and the growling begins. She grabs at him, trying to seize his hair and hold him in place. He catches her wrists and pulls them away. When he steps back she lunges, scrabbling at him through the air and trying to climb over the tub but she's too weak and slippery to do it in a timely manner.
"Calm yourself, please!"
He tries to push the notion into her mind. She relents, leaning half in and half out as she makes scooping motions at the air toward him.
Come back here.
He catches her message loud and clear. She projects it instinctively, and Kylo can almost palpably feel her frustrations that he's so far away.
Out of curiosity or maybe something else he moves closer again. When he gets back to the edge of the tub she flops back down, sending another smaller wave of water soaking him and the floor. She takes his hand again, yanking, and Kylo descends to his knees so she can drag his arm into the tub with her.
Bafflingly she calms down then, though she still holds onto his wrist with both her hands. She curls around it, the wounds on her back leaking again from the stretch and tinting the water with a slight pink hue.
She rests her head in his palm. Kylo blinks, wondering not for the first time about his own sanity. Her eyes start to slide to half closed then, but her grip never falters. She's shivering, though, and Kylo swallows. The water hadn't been as warm as it should ave been, and it's cooling to the touch already.
He waits for a few minutes like that. Her resting in his hand, her eyes closed but he can sense that she's not asleep. At peace, finally, but not asleep.
When her shivering gets worse he reaches under her with his other arm and lifts her out. She tenses at that, but he pushes the image of the fresh fish that await her if she doesn't fight him on this.
Kylo wraps her in several layers of towels, deciding to forgo dressing her for right now because she's probably warmer like this than in his clothing. The girl stands for a moment, but she's shaking. He can tell the effort to be upright is hard for her.
With a sigh Kylo picks her up again, carrying her out of the bath to place her next to the fire in the main room.
On their way out she grabs the severed head off the shelf and holds it close. Kylo rather deeply wishes she wouldn't.
Dawn is only but an hour away when Kylo finally sets his guest down in a nest of blankets.
She had fallen asleep during dinner, nearly literally nodding off face first into her bowl of stew. That's how Kylo knew she was truly exhausted, and by now he felt little better himself.
He took her back upstairs and tried to have no opinion about the way her arms twined themselves around his neck as he carried her. She curled up tight again when he laid her down on the bed, and within moments she was fast asleep.
If he was more ambitious, he would have used this situation to his advantage. Her resting mind was more open to him, and perhaps she could have unknowingly shined a beacon on his many questions regarding both her nature and her past.
However, Kylo was tired. Two, maybe three hour's of sleep and that's all he would have before the great hunt today. He tucks her in, wrapping her naked body up in all the layers. She doesn't move, her sleep so deep and complete.
Before he goes, however, he lightly rests a hand on her forehead and skims the surface of her mind searching for something that had become of great importance to him.
"Rey."
It suits her. Kylo couldn't have named her better himself.
Then he descends, retreating back to the shadows of his own room as he prays to the gods for the rest of the night to be peaceful.
author's note:
Another chapter and some character development! How do you like the shorter, more frequent chapters? They have their pros and cons for me as a writer because they're fast and fun, but I also feel like they ironically slow down the characters story arcs because it's more broken up. Kind of like the difference between a 30 minute sitcom and a 50 minute drama. What do you think?
Comment replies:
Thank you so much FFN community! I was beginning to wonder if their wasn't something quite wrong with this fic here because on AO3 I have more than 100 comments and here it was only 6 for 9 chapters and I was worried. But thank you so much for the lovely response to the last chapter! You all totally made my day!
Now, getting back to business:
Guest- Yes, this is definitely a slow burn. I'm sorry to hear you're feeling a little frustrated with this story, but maybe if I explain? Her Rey probably will never talk. It's like in The Little Mermaid, in a way. She may say Kylo's name (or better, call him Ben!) but a big part of their interactions is them learning to understand and fall for each other without words. Of course I understand if this isn't really your cup of tea, but thank you for taking the time to comment anyhow! I really appreciate it!
Lipwip- I'm so glad you liked this story and this last chapter! Rest assured, I've committed myself to resolving this story, I won't just drop it. I'm not sure how long it will be, in a way I feel like it's only just begun! But don't worry: if I get tired of it I promise I'll give it at least a few more chapters and round out the story and give it an ending. Not yet though! Now I'm still having so much fun with it and I hope you are too! Thanks for commenting!
.Feathers- I'm so glad you're liking this story too as well as some of my others! More chapters are coming soon, promise! Thanks for commenting!
Guest- Thank you for your kind feedback! I'll try and update regularly but no guarantees other than I'll really try! Thanks so much for commenting!
Ada- Thank you! I'm glad you liked it! Thanks for commenting! : )