Author's note:
11:42PM and this is getting the rough edit. Will fix mistakes tomorrow, promise, until then enjoy and do leave a comment if you'd like! :)
"Wherefore art thou, oh Lady of the House?"
Kylo couldn't claim to be surprised that his mermaid wasn't home when he got back. It was very late, or perhaps very early, by the time he had reached the watchtower after leaving the celebration. Along the way he had snatched up – literally snatched up – a dress for her from a line of washing.
And now here he was, fish pie and other gifts in hand, only to be greeted by a dark and cold house with only him by his lonesome.
Kylo sighs and puts his offerings away. There was no point is looking for her. The night was dark with gloom, the fog having crept up the hill from the shore and remaining rather spilled across the land with such a thickness that it had made his horse uneasy and he'd had to use a touch of the Force to sooth it into continuing forward.
The girl could have gone anywhere. No point in looking, though Kylo ignites a shielded lantern on the front porch just in case.
"It's up to you if you come back to me or not, M'Lady. Though after my day spent killing your own I suppose you may well not anymore."
True, but a rather unhappy thought nonetheless. Especially with the very real possibility of a month long trip looming so close on the horizon like a storm cloud on Kylo's mind. He would like to see the girl- see Rey- again just once more before that.
"You won't be here when I get back, will you? It will be well into winter then, and the Knights that stay will need to use my tower. You'll have to go back to-"
To… where? Where did she come from? What will happen to her when he's gone and can no longer keep her safe? Safe from the villagers and his Knights and even her own kind?
"You shouldn't be my responsibility, My Lady. But you are. Somehow our fates seem to have been linked together, even if it wasn't for so long."
Kylo had spent a lot of time thinking about how the girl came to be in her life. The chances of finding the one tame mermaid in the entire ocean and having her just happen to wash up on his private shore… It seemed impossible. Someone or something had willed this. She had been wanted to be found.
"Do come back soon."
He says is to no one as he brings in an armful of kindling and logs with him as he comes inside. The stove still had embers, and once he gets it burning again he moves to fill up the two metal buckets that he keep warming on top.
They were filled already. Overfilled, really, with a small puddle of water splashed underneath them.
"Did you do that?" he asks. "Did you bring those in before you left?"
The girl must have, unless some other random stranger had broken into the Master of the Knights of Ren's personal abode to fetch him tonight's bathwater.
Kylo smiles then, the muscles of his face twitching slightly in protest to the unfamiliar move. The girl had done it, hadn't she? That was- that was oddly sweet of her, there was no other way to describe it.
"Thank you." He address the leather wrapped handle of the closer bucket where her hands must have once rested. "I suspect this was more for your intended benefit than my own, but it's a gesture much appreciated nonetheless."
He places them atop the warming circle of the stove and starts to slowly undress as he heads back to his bedroom. His armor is in poor shape, torn and bent badly in several places from when the mermaids had pulled him under. The shirt beneath lies in tatters, fresh blood seeping still from his bandages. He will have to seek out another round of healing from Taleisin tomorrow, but for now there's little more he can do at this late hour that take a much needed bath and get some rest.
"I hope you're somewhere warm, Rey."
The heat of the new fire hasn't yet reached the further parts of the hallways, and there's a miserable biting chill to the air. If it's this unpleasant inside he can only image how it would be to a naked, shivering former mermaid no doubt hunched over herself under a rock.
"You shouldn't have left, M'Lady. I don;t know why you did. At least in here there isn't a draft."
Maybe he hadn't left enough food? A ridiculous notion, but the girl's appetite rivaled his own or even a brute like Rowan. And he'd sealed the front door quite securely before he had left but it didn't truly surprise him that-
"What in the gods?!"
His bed looks like it has been mauled. The sheets are thrown about, long rips shredding them in places and balled up into a messy tangle in other.
Just the bed, though. The rest of the room seems as he had left it.
Kylo gapes in disbelief, pausing for a moment to take in the spectacle. He lights another candelabra, holding it closer in one hand while his other rests on the hilt of his saber out of cold instinct.
No girl. No blood. No sign that she had been attacked. Just torn messy sheets and no explanation.
"It looks like a wild animal came here and made this its wallow."
Master of the Knights of Ren or not, Kylo still feels highly ridiculous as he checks under the bed for a monster. Perhaps a wild boar or-
No, nothing. Neither in the closet. The room is as empty as the rest of the tower.
"How strange."
Kylo throws the sheets of, grimacing as the movement of his arm aggravates the wounds on his chest. He shouldn't get his bandages wet, but he has fresh ones in the storeroom. After such a long and bloody day taking a bath has far more appeal than avoiding a lecture from Taleisin tomorrow.
Kylo strips the rest of his clothes off, throwing his destroyed shirt into the pile of the equally ruined bedding.
"Keep a mermaid around and she still lets a feral animal just wander on in."
It was surprisingly careless of her. Kylo would have rather thought that anything four legged nearby would have met a savory end at his ravenous mermaid's hands.
When he gets to the bathing room he fills the tub and eases himself. A loud, rather rude sounding grunt leaves his lips as the nearly scalding water stings against the wounds on his chest, but soon the heat works its magic. Soon the memory of the bloodbath on the shore begins to fade to a low back ground hum in his too-tired mind.
"Taleisin won't like this."
He won't, but it doesn't really matter, does it? One of the advantages of being their leader is that his men allow him extra leniences that they wouldn't let pass with each other. It was an exception that Kylo had been relying on more heavily than he should when it came to hiding the presence of the girl.
"What am I going to do with you?"
He dips his head fully under the water after he says it. The cuts on his face sting only a little, and if he cleans them well they should look like almost nothing.
Nothing to bother the girl or raise eyebrows at the big festival tomorrow.
Kylo sighs deeply under the water, the bubbles from it rising up along with head as he surfaces. The festival tomorrow. The big celebration in their honor. It was something Kylo was greatly not looking forward to. The villagers may value the work of him and his Knights, but that doesn't mean they truly wanted them there. Even before at the meal when the servant girl was flirting first with him and then with the twins, there was still a palpable note of communal fear to the air.
Powerful warriors talented in the dark arts. Kylo and his men had come from far away, been sent there by the Council to bring peace to the war torn land. They had succeeded in their task largely but not completely. An unsteady truce had been forged with the Winterton hold, ending two whole generations o bloodshed and bringing about the start of much needed trade again. Progress was being made. Things were getting better.
And then the merfolk had gone berserk.
Kylo unwinds the now soaked and sagging wraps from around his chest and tosses them onto the floor next to the tub. He regards the wounds on his chest. Teeth. Claws. Carelessness. What in the world was wrong with them and why wasn't the girl the same way? Why couldn't he read her mind or even feel her presence at all?
Tomorrow, gods and good luck be willing, maybe he'll get an answer to at least one of those questions from Maz. The old woman was a strange one, but she was the best and only choice that could keep them here where they were needed the most.
A creak comes from outside and Kylo smiles lopsidedly. Definitely the sound of a human, and most likely a barefoot one at that.
"You were out late, M'Lady," he calls through the door. "I trust you had a more pleasant day than I have?"
No answer, of course. Kylo probes with his mind, seeking that blank space and unsurprisingly finding it just outside. The doorknob turns. Turns again. Then the door shakes and a very familiar sounding frustrated growl echoes.
"Why yes, I did lock it. Unlike yourself, M'Lady, I'm not in the habit of wandering about unclothed in open spaces. There's some food for you in the kitchen. Help yourself if you haven't already."
Which she most likely has. Kylo wouldn't be a touch surprised if half his pantry had been raided again.
The door shakes again and a louder growl rings out.
"Kitchen. Food. Eat."
Kylo projects an image of a fish pie at the void. The shaking stops for a moment, then renews in greater force.
"It's locked. You'll have to wait for your turn."
Kylo fumbles a few times with trying to figure out how to project the concept of a locked door to his guest's mind. He eventually settles on a zoomed in view of the door's keyhole.
Another pause and then a strange prickle tingles through their connection. Kylo frowns, sitting straighter up in the steaming waters.
"What are-"
The key starts to turn. Oh she had caught his message loud and clear, but Kylo had unknowingly been telling exactly how to get in and not why she shouldn't.
He sticks out his hand, fingers up and palm out, and uses the Force to keep the door firmly closed.
"Very clever indeed, little one, but there's the human concept of 'privacy' that you must-"
A far greater push of the Force sends the door bursting open, nearly flying off its hinges.
Rey seems as surprised by what she's just done as he is. They gape at each other for a minute, her wide eyes blinking at him. She looks healthy and well. He had been worried that she might have gotten herself mauled by her kind again.
"You're wearing the dress. Do you like it? It's warmer than the last one."
The girl's eyes may have started off wide, but they immediately narrow as she takes him in. Kylo frowns, leaning forward and angling his knees strategically higher in the water line.
"My lady?" he asks, cautions rising as he hears her suck in a deep breath.
She stomps over to him stiffly, her face turning white and her hands squeezing into fists so tightly her the bones of her knuckles were practically jutting out
Kylo quickly reaches to grab for the washing cloth hanging over the bathtub edge, but the girl is quicker. She snatches his wrist and yanks hard, pulling as if she means to drag him out of the water. Kylo clings to the rim, kneeling awkwardly as he pries her fingers off of him with his free hand. His own inner anger starts to bubble up at her rude behavior, but then he realizes what she's really after and his retort dies before it can leave his lips.
His wounds. With him kneeling like this she's chest high with them, and he can see a look of pure fury in her eyes as her gaze darts from one jagged, angry cut on his skin to the next.
Then she looks up at him, her lips curling into a feral snarl and she squeezes her hand against his, digging her nails into the fleshy part of his palm.
If this were anyone else he would have thrown her across the room by now. No one gets to treat him like this without dire consequences, but something new in her eyes gives Kylo pause. Fury, yes, but not pure like he'd just seen. Now it's replaced with a deeper frown, her lips pulling down and the bottom one pushing out into a sort of pout.
She looks disappointed in him. There's no other word to describe it.
Kylo blinks and lets her wrist go as her eyes start to tear up. The girl stumbles back a little, her lips now pressing together into a tight line. Her mind is as much a mystery to him a sever, but there's no hiding her expression of a woman great and grievously upset.
"M'-"
Kylo doesn't get any farther than that start of a sound before her hand lashes out, striking him hard enough on the back of his skull to leave a ringing behind it.
She recoils then, stomping to the corner of the room and turning her back to him, leaving Kylo sputtering in disbelief as realization dawns.
"Did you just hit me upside the head?!'
It was the sort of clap a mother would give to correcting an under performing child, except coupled with a grown and lunatic mermaid's angry strength now behind it.
The girl crosses her arms, her whole back trembling with barely contained emotion.
She's standing on his only towel and robe. He'll have to get them from her It's ridiculous. His whole world with her in it is ridiculous.
The washcloth draped strategically and held with one hand will have to do. She looks over her shoulder when she hears the water slosh as Kylo gets out. He returns her glare with his own, matching her earlier stomp with his own far louder one. It's a tricky thin to look intimidating when you're soaking wet and only wearing an insufficient washcloth, but Kylo projects the image of being the most feared man in the Kingdom that he is as he looms over his infinitely rude guest.
"Move," he orders.
When she doesn't he grabs her shoulder, pushing at her, and she spins to face him fully. This time the anger's back in her eyes and she pokes him hard right in the square of his chest just above his biggest wound. She juts her jaw out, cocking her head to the side as her eyes narrow even further.
"I expect you'll want to behead this one too, then?" Kylo leans closer, bringing his face deeply into her personal space. Dangerously so, if she's feeling inclined to bite him. "Well, M'lady, I'm afraid you can't. I've already don't it, and this time I've made sure to do it very well."
He projects the images into her mind backwards, starting off with the final, last memory he has of his attacker. Or rather, what was left of her as he and his men piled their trophies high on their cart to parade through the village.
For a moment the girl seems suitably impressed then, her eyes softening slightly as she receives his message. Then something rather odd happens. She reaches out, her arm slightly hesitant and jerky with the movement, and she hovers her hand over the front of his face.
Kylo can feel her tugging at his memories, trying to see what had happened before that point. She's clumsy with it. Worse than clumsy. Her attempts to use the Force with this degree of precision is roughly like trying to crack a robin's egg with an anvil, but Kylo inwardly grits his teeth and lets her try. He can stop her in the blink of an eye, but a curiosity to see what the reach of her growing powers are gets the better of him.
The images are pulled from his mind in the same sequence he had offered them. The girl sees him and Silas limp back to the others, a collection of dead mermaid dragging in a net behind them along the rocky shore. After that comes the before, of Silas helping drag up back up from the murky depths where he had fallen.
The girl starts to get agitated again at that. Her prowling through Kylo's memories because palpably more vigorous as she pulls even harder on their connection.
Then she gets to the part where he had hesitated, gaping down at the dying mermaid by his feet. The girl starts to hiss then, and Kylo quickly drabs her wrist as her fingers curl up close to his face like claws.
He'd killed the mermaid because it had been a mercy. A mercy to his enemy that he knew full well would not have been reciprocated. But his victim had distracted him. He had been careless. Fallen for their trap. Another one of her kind had come out of nowhere, lashing out and knocking him right off his feet. Snatching and grabbing into the dark briny deep.
The cry the girl makes is bone-chilling, their connection through the Force severing in an instant as she begins to pummel at him. The hand that he's not holding onto beats at his chest, slamming itself hard against the upper part of his sternum just above the now weeping wounds that his carelessness had brought him.
"Enough!" Kylo shouts, restraining her with both hands as she completely loses her mind.
The girl howls in a now familiar tantrum, her body thrashing and her teeth gnashing and snapping as he struggles to restrain her.
"What in the gods is wrong with you?!"
She kicks at him then, her head snapping from side to side as he tries to pin her at a self distance until she exhausts herself.
Then she stops just as soon as her fit began. She goes rigid and stalk-still, pressed back against the wall at Kylo's arms reach. Anger is clear in her eyes but now so is wide-eyed surprise.
Kylo follows her gaze. Down from his face. Down from his chest. Down to his-
"Oh gods!"
Kylo immediately covers himself with both hands, the washcloth now laying discarded and trampled on during their proceedings.
The girl blinks rapidly, her face falling slack.
"My- I- get out!"
He bends, snatching up the towel from under her feet. The girl steps back then, all the previous righteous fury in her seeming to have died away completely.
Only when Kylo is thoroughly concealed and modest again does he straighten. He can feel how his cheeks are burning, and his humiliation is only fueled by the girl's now contemplative expression.
"My Lady? Kindly leave so I may get properly dressed."
Her fingers flutter by her sides. She bites her lower lip, her eyes focused right at the apex of his indignity even if he's now covered.
it's a focused expression not so dissimilar to when she had been regarding his toes. Kylo straightens even further. He points to the door.
"Out. Please. Now."
He snaps his fingers. Her gaze remains where it was. He clears his throat and she reaches out, her hand extending for the towel but he immediately dodges.
"My lady."
He points again at the door, shaking his hand for emphasis.
The girl finally looks up then. She crosses her arms around herself, biting the nails of one hand while the other makes a somewhat questionable open and closing gesture.
Then her hands drop and she reaches down, catching the edge of her dress and beginning to pull it up.
This time Kylo doesn't hesitate. He grabs the girl, picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder. Oddly she doesn't fight this at first, but it's only when he starts to drop her down outside the bathroom door that she begins to kick at his front and punch at his back.
Kylo slams the bathroom door in her face, locking it and tossing the key aside. Her angry, angry shout echoes, reverberating off the stone walls of the tower. The door jerks once with violence. She must have kicked it hard, he assumes. Then her cascade of growling snarls starts to fade, growing more distant and rising up as she ascends the stairs up to her room.
It takes Kylo a good few minutes to come down from his spire of anger himself, but the embarrassment over their encounter lingers for far longer.
The girl was giving him the silent treatment.
After Kylo had changed, first opting for the robe to see him to his room and then his thickest and most conservative garments to follow afterwards, Kylo had begun to feel…
Well, not bad. Not exactly. But he did think that he could have and should have handled that whole encounter better. The girl was obviously not in the a proper state of mind. He had probably terrified her with pinning her like that while he was thusly unattired. She hardly seemed a likely target to be worried about the proximity of a naked man so much taller and broader than she was, but clearly he had misjudged this softer and more feminine aspect of her mind.
So he had stoked the fire and set out two more buckets of water should she want a bath of her own. Then he had heated up the fish pie as well a a good, strong stein of buttered ale to accompany it.
When he knocked on her door, peace offerings in hand, there was no answer. A flicker of light came from under the crack. She must have learned to light the candles all on her own.
"M'Lady? I've brought dinner."
He sets the tray down and turns the handle on her door. It moves only an eight of a turn.
She had locked it. She had locked him out of his own bloody property.
Kylo sighs, resting his tired head against the wooden barricade. He was beyond exhausted. All he wanted to do was sleep, but sleep would never come easy when there was an upset woman in the house. His father hadn't taught him much, but he had passed on that piece of wisdom at least.
"M'Lady," he tries again. "How about some fish pie? Your favorite? I know you can smell it from in there. It's very aromatic. Very. I know I'll never forget the scent no matter how hard I try."
A ping of interest pulses through the Force. Then it's quickly gone and Kylo closes his eyes, lightly thunking his head against the door again. He wants to sleep. He wants peace. He wants her to accept his apology for something he's not sure he should have to apologize for even to begin with.
He knocks. Silence. Somehow he can sense that she's standing there right on the other side of the door.
"I'm very tired," he tries once and last more. "Please? Rey? Just open the door a crack and I'll slide it through and be on my way."
On his way back to his still demolished bed, but Kylo is quite sure he could fall asleep on the edge of a crow's nest right at this moment.
The locks clicks. He pulls away enough for her to open it. She does it only a little, just so that one of here eyes can peep through the gap at him.
He picks up the unforgettable-smelling fish pie and holds it out to her. Surprisingly she doesn't move to take it.
"What's gotten into you tonight, Rey? What were doing out there in the black and cold?"
The girl smiles.
It's a small smile but it grows the longer she looks at him. He offers her the food again and she shakes her head, already starting to learn that gesture.
"I don't- is it because I called you by your name? Rey?"
Her smile widens. She didn't know he knew that, did she?
"Rey." He turns the pastry in a half circle. "Don't tell me you're not hungry. I won't believe you."
The door opens wider. She breaks out into a full-blown grin as she snatches her dinner from him and scampers off with it. Kylo picks up her tall drink of ale before he follows her.
Paintings are everywhere. She must have found his papers that he kept in his bedroom. So she had been there, after all? How confusing.
"This is quite nice. Did you do this?"
He picks up one of the papers which has an inky interpretation of the watchtower painted upon it. Rey doesn't answer, too busy shoveling a full palm's worth of the pie into her mouth. Some day, perhaps, Kylo would like to teach her the fundamentals of a fork and spoon.
Kylo sets the drink down on a table next to her and slumps against the bench along the wall. He rests his head in his hands, rubbing his temples slowly before pulling back. The girl is eyeing him curiously now, her head tipped to the side and her mouth visibly bouncing up and down as she chews.
"I killed many of you today, M'Lady. We all did. It was carnage pure and true, so why don't you care? If your kind had done that to one of mine, Islander or not, I would have an opinion about it."
He flops onto his side as the silence that follows is broken only by the messy sounds of her consumption and the occasional growl of contentment. As his eyes grow heavy he glances down at the floor where his ink and a scattering of papers are thrown about. His brushes as well. He had hidden them in his dresser so her curiosity must have truly lead her everywhere. She had been in the middle of her next masterpiece, it would seem, and the subject of it seemed both alarmingly familiar and shockingly candid.
"If you're going to draw me in the nude, My Lady, I shall need to get you a bigger brush."
Tired as he is, Kylo can't quite manage to feel more than passingly embarrassed, though he does flip the paper over before he flops onto his back and stares at the ceiling. The light of the candle is behind her and it creates a flickering silhouette of his mermaid. It's the last thing Kylo sees before he closes his eyes and will for the gods to bless him with just a minute's worth of rest tonight.
Dawn peaks out on the horizon with the faintest sliver of glowing pink against the black of the night.
For a moment Kylo is convinced that he's still dreaming. This isn't his bed. This is his house, but not-
Movement. Warmth, too. The top of a brunette head peaks out from under a nest of bedding and a softly feminine snoring sound emerges from deeper down.
The girl is laying next to him. She had not only brought her bedding over but she had dragged the only other piece of furniture- the low table- over as well and placed it alongside the wooden bench to make a wide enough platform for them both.
Kylo stares at her for the longest time, trying and failing to process this newest change in her behavior towards him. Just to be sure, he carefully pulls back the covers from around her. No severed head. This isn't like last time he'd been scratched by her kind.
No head but, as Kylo peers a little deeper down, he can see the pie plate. It's mostly gone and she's holding it to her chest even in her sleep.
"Gods. Truly you will make me into a drinker yet."
That doesn't even begin to describe it, but it's a start. Kylo tucks the blanket back in and collapses back down.
Then he watches as the sky as it slowly transforms, his own thoughts matching its careful pace as he wonders not for the first time what his men would do if they were to see their great leader right now.
Author's note:
Heh. Heh heh. Rey saw the Knightly 'D and she liked it : P
And I think I'm going to drop the rating down from E to M, I hope you're all okay with that! Gods know that I've written some pretty dang explicit smut in my time, but for this story I feel like M is the right tone. When our duo do the do, it's probably going to be really funny and really strange (for Kylo, at least! boy's a prude!) and E just don't feel right for this fic!
Comment replies:
kdobrole5: THANK YOU! Your support really means the world to me! I'm so glad you liked this story! : D
lipwip: IKR? Rey saw shirtless Kylo and was immediately like "ping ping radar detecting mate..."
averagepoptart: I wasn't so sure about this chapter and if I should post it or not but it's gotten a great response so far. Thanks so much for commenting!
Guest: Thank you! I'm so glad you liked this chapter! Thanks for commenting : )
.Feathers: I tried to walk the line between showing what's going on in Rey's head and showing too much of the plot, so I'm really glad to hear it worked out for you! Thanks as always for commenting and I'm so glad you're enjoying and sticking with this story!
kdobrole5