Chapter summary:
Where Rey and Kylo go on a date without him even realizing it, and she manages to flash him her betwixts a record number of times.
The girl hadn't been there when Kylo had woken up for the second time.
He had overslept and it had drifted from the wee hours of the morning to past the start of full daylight. He still had a few hours before meeting with his men in town, at least. Plenty of time to go and find that wayward mermaid and see what in the blazes kept her busy while he was away.
Kylo dresses quickly when he descends back to his room. The notion that he had drifted off upstairs with one of his mortal enemies so close when he was so vulnerable…
"You make me lose my way, M'Lady. Perhaps my men are right to be wary of what I'm becoming."
As for the girl's own behavior yesterday Kylo was more or less speechless. First she had barged in on him, then she had stricken him, then they had argued until, suddenly, the bottom of her anger seemed to drop out all at once.
"Should I be offended that the sight of me in all my glory was enough to render you mute with shock?"
Perhaps it had simply been the final proof that no, he wasn't like a merman in all aspects. Perhaps that had been too confusing for her. As he gets dressed he chooses to wear his light armor, both because his heavy equipments badly needs repairs after yesterday and that he's not expecting much in the way of trouble.
"What were you thinking last night? Perhaps the fish pie was drugged. That would explain some of your behavior, though hardly all of it."
When it comes time to put on his boots and head out, Kylo takes a moment to make sure- just truly to make sure just in case- that all of his toes were still intact and where they belonged.
"Good. Good. Not that I had any doubts, M'Lady."
It's not that he wouldn't have noticed her gnawing on him in his sleep, right? But the visual confirmation was still reassuring.
Outside the sun is shining and the air is something approaching both warm and still itchily cold. The last tendrils of fall clinging and making their final performance before the real winter drudgery settles down.
"We shouldn't' be sailing in this weather. An ill wind takes us and we could drift for weeks off course. It will be trying to push us to the north and the waters will just get colder and co- oh."
A row of fish are laid out along the railing to the front porch. They all been gutted and cleaned and look fresh. Probably from no more than a few hours ago.
"Well I had been thinking about charging you rent, so I suppose this is a step in the right direction."
It's also a sign that wherever his guest has wandered off too may not be so far after all. Life would be so much easier if she would just let him put a bell on her neck.
Kylo begins his morning patrol just like he would on any other day. He trusts his Knight's implicitly, but he also wouldn't completely put it past them to show up unexpectedly. They could use concern over his injuries as a reason to encroach on their leader's sanctum, or they were also well within their rights to question his mental well being after his altered performance over these last few days.
The claw marks on his chest hurt, some still weeping in places, but simply being outside is enough to raise his spirits back up. No bodies of either his kind or another lay strewn about the beach. No severed heads swing from the low branches of the shoreline scrub. No wrecked ships and mermaid feasts or sirens tempting him into the water or cold glares from unwelcoming villagers.
It was quiet. Peaceful and sunny and quiet. The fog has fully lifted by the time he crosses the narrow spit of land separating one side of the peninsula with his watchtower to the other. There lies the wider beach where he had first found his feral guest all tangled up and presumed dead.
He goes to right where she had been that day. Footprints in the sand. Small footprints, human, and leading down along the beach.
"I wonder how hard it would be for me to get you to wear shoes?"
She'd taken to suitable modesty well enough, aside from that one baffling interaction last night. Shoes were far more optional, though Kylo could try and hope for the best.
The next stretch of the beach is broken from the wide shore by a small hillock guarded by two tall boulders on each side of the well worn path. It lead to a rocky cove that offered excellent fishing in the warmer months, and the girl's footprints leads right through to it.
Kylo can't sense her, but he can't see her either. Not until she lunges out at him, leaping from her hiding spot behind the second boulder with a deafeningly fierce howl.
"Gah-hads!" Kylo shouts, stumbling back and drawing his sword out of instinct.
And the girl starts laughing. Cackling, really. Howling in amusement at him, her whole body bent over and shaking with each of her hearty exhalations.
Kylo clears his throat, stands tall, and sweeps his hear back from over his eyes.
"I suppose you find this really funny, don't you?" he asks, jabbing at the direction of her with the tip of his saber. "You know I could have killed you in an instant, right? How foolish it is to try and startle a Knight of Ren with your childish games."
Truth be told, she did more than try to startle him. Kylo can hear his pulse pounding in his ears, and not even the nipping cold of the morning breeze can cool the flames of embarrassment from his cheeks.
The girl starts snorting then, righting herself halfway up mimicking his stabbing motion at her with her own hands. She seems to find this whole thing quite hilarious. A sentiment Kylo can hardly return.
"You're lucky we're alone, M'Lady. My Knight's would have you mounted on the edge of their blade by now."
It's a less than pleasant thought, and Kylo grimaces as he sheathes his blade. The girl has sparks of mischief dancing in her eyes, and for a few moments they both watch each other in silence. Kylo frowns at her, and she returns his curmudgeon expression with a growing beaming smile.
Then she spins, turning on her heel away and scampering off along the path.
"Oh where are you going now?" he calls out, his irritation only mounting the further away she goes.
That path would eventually lead her to the main dirt track. It was a good few miles into town and no one should be around on this abandoned stretch to his tower, but it was the small chance of his Knights coming to pay him a visit that prompts Kylo to continue after her and take her back inside.
She looks over her shoulder when he gets close. Kylo narrows his eyes as her lips widen, an infuriating grin decorating her face. He knows what she's going to do, it's painfully obvious.
"Don't you dare you little-"
She breaks out into a full on run, her bare feet seeming to have no trouble at all as the sand turns into dewy sea grass and shrub.
"M'Lady!"
It's pointless calling out, Kylo knows this, but he does it anyhow as he runs after her. Why? Just why? Why couldn't they just have a nice, quiet breakfast inside together before he had to leave for the day's endeavors? Was that so much to ask?
Despite being weighed down by his lighter armor, Kylo still has a much longer stride than his guest and he starts to close the distance to her. He looks back over her shoulder, mischievous lilt still to her feature, but she gives a little chirp when she sees how close he is.
She stops for only a a second to seize the hem of her dress and pull it off over her head leaving her without a stitch to protect propriety from any eyes that should see. Then she bolts again, this time running all the faster without the shin-length garment restricting her movement.
"M'LADY! Stop this at once!"
What does she think she's bloody well doing? Kylo snatches her dress up as he dashes past it, now finding the two of their speeds to be nearly equal.
His prey bends back to the right, heading in the direction of the shore and not the road at least. Kylo debates reaching out with the Force and seizing her in place like an unruly kitten, but he's been very reluctant to use his powers against her ever since their first night when he had to put her to sleep many times.
With an agility that not even Silas could manage the girl scales a tall boulder at the shoreline. Finally she comes to a stop, standing there a good ten feet above Kylo's head and grinning down at him with her hands on her hips.
"It's not-" Kylo's breath falters from his exertion. His armor may be light, but it's not buck-naked light. "It's not a fair race, M'lady, if you're the only one who knows where the finish line is."
She spins then, giving him a brief view of her derrière, before diving off her rock and into the ocean waters beyond it before Kylo can stop her.
"Be-" careful.
There were rocks in the water. Plenty of them. She seemed to have missed them and Kylo once again wonders how deeply disturbed his mind must be to willfully put up with so much from the girl.
She surfaces about ten feet out. Waves lap at the bottoms of Kylo's boots as he stands on the gravel shore and shakes his head as she beckons him to join her.
"I hardly intend to walk around in wet gear all day, M'Lady, though I see that's hardly a problem for you."
She laughs again, sweeping her arms out and sending a wave of water splashing toward him before she starts to swim away. She heads out deeper into the waters towards a lonesome rock thirty spaces out. Far enough away that Kylo couldn't get to her in time if if her kind is about.
"How are you not freezing? You hardly seem to be effected by the waters at all, nor slowed down by not having your tail."
Kylo folds and refolds her dress absently, half watching at the back of his guest's head and half looking over his shoulder at the forlorn hillsides around them. When she gets to the rock she heaves herself up and crouches there, leaning down on all fours and peering over the edge into the waters. If Kylo had thought that his view of her naked form had been candid before it's nothing compared the buttocks proudly in the air and everything betwixt posture she's adopting now.
"Gods," Kylo mutters, looking down at his feet or anywhere else but the lurid display in front of him.
He can sense her interest rippling over at him from her mind. She sees something down there that she wants. Out of the corners of his eyes he sees her shoulders hunch, her whole body coiling tight like a cobra about to strike as she creeps closer to the edge of her perch.
"Be careful its wet," he says flatly, again refusing to look as her buttocks now sway side to side with her slinky movements.
Then down she goes, disappearing into the water with only a faint splash to signal her departure from view.
She truly has no qualms with being in the icy waters, does she? She wasn't even shivering, not that he was looking closely or anything like that. This alone proves to Kylo more than any actions of hers before that she must be something more than she appears. She may have so clearly have the shape of a human woman, but no one, not even one of his Knight's, would e able to swim and leap and cavort as freely in the water as she does on the land.
"Would Maz know what you are? Would anyone? I doubt it. They would all think me a madman, and they might well be right about that."
A hand breaks the surface of the waters halfway between Kylo's feet and the rock. Clutch in it is the thrashing length of an eel, its body lashing at the ebbing waves as his guest swims back to present it to him.
Her smile is wide and beaming. Not the sly and half-wicked grin she had given him earlier. No, this is a sunshine glow of pride as she slumps her way out of the waters, holding her gift in both hands out to him.
When he tries to offer her a hand and take it she draws back, preferring to scamper out the rest of the way herself. She throws her arms in a circle in front of her, sending the eel smashing headfirst into a rock and killing it in an instant if not rather crude manner.
Then she drops it at her feet, stepping back a few paces and clearly waiting for Kylo to come to her instead of the other way around.
"Most impressive, M'Lady," he reluctantly admits. "Perhaps its for the best there's only the one of you in the land or you'd put the whole fishing village out of a livelihood."
Kylo might as well cut and clean the eel now rather than alter, so he kneels by her feet after handing her the dress. Instead of wearing it properly she wraps it around her shoulders like a towel. She's not shivering but goosebumps are all over her skin, spanning from along her arms to the smooth planes of her stomach to-
To Kylo cursing as his saber nicks a gash on his palm in thanks for him letting himself get distracted.
The girl squats down next to him, once again forcing him to look away from her unintentionally lewd posture. She picks up his palms in her own hands and turns it slightly from one side to the other as she examines it. Her fingers trace along the length of his and she smiles again as she she strokes and pinches at his index and forefinger. There's an odd sort of rosiness to her cheeks that he hadn't seen before and Kylo clears his throat before pulling his hand back and standing up.
"If you're planning on eating them, I have meatier places on my body than my fingers, M'Lady. Now put that on. Properly."
Kylo pushes the image of her wearing her clothes into her head. If he didn't know better, he could have almost sworn he saw her rolling her eyes before she complies.
He takes the eel with him as they walk back. This time his guest follows without complaint, her morning fun at his expense apparently losing out to the promise of a fresh meal and warm house.
"I will be back very late tonight or, more likely, tomorrow morning. I would like it very much if you're here when I return."
Kylo doesn't know why he feels compelled to tell the girl this. She won't understand and there's no effective way to try and show her through images into her mind.
"If you keep the fire going and stay in, you'll be warm. If you run out and disappear you won't be warm. One certainly sounds better to me than the other."
The girl twitches her nose and rolls her head, clearly listening but giving no indication of comprehension. She tears another long strip of the roasted eel off from the serving platter and smears it around in the puddle of gravy she had poured onto her plate.
Kylo adjusts his armor as she regards him. He'd put on a few additional pieces in key places, though for the most part he's simply trying to look the part of the Master of the Knights to match the expectations of the villagers tonight.
He was over an hour alter now. he'll have to ride quite fast into town to catch even the endings of the meeting with Maz. It was an unfortunate delay, but he'd shown Rey the basics of keeping the fire going. Open door. Throw in log. Close door. She'd seemed rather uncertain about it, but hopefully she'll be able to manage. If the village celebration tonight runs long as it always has before, Kylo will have no choice but to bunk with his men at the inn rather than head back in the pitch blackness.
"I'm off, M'Lady," Kylo has to stop himself from an odd impulse to kiss the top of her head as he walks past her to the front door. "Stay safe, stay warm, and stay inside."
He can feel the girl's eyes watching him from the window as he mounts his horse and leads it around to the front gate before taking off. Hopefully, and he knows he thinks this every time, but hopefully she'll still be there when he gets back and his day will be simple, calm, and mercifully uneventful for once.
Author's Note:
Kylo telling Rey about the meatier places on his body than his fingers may not be helping his virtuous quest, amiright?
Comment replies:
.Feathers- Go on an adventure? Absolutely! Kylo just doesn't even know it yet! Thanks for commenting!
Guest: Ha! Glad you like the setting even if it's rahter odd! Thanks so much for commenting!
longmoonedraptor: I'm so glad you're enjoying this story! Thanks for commenting!