Title: Not Yet by Lightning

Chapter: Sixteen

Author: Jade Sabre

Notes: I luff this chapter. And I luff my readers. And I especially luff my reviewers.

Disclaimer: I don't own Neverwinter Nights, or any of its sequels or expansions, or any of the characters contained herein, aside from my PC, who was created on a Bioware engine and thus probably therefore partially belongs to them too.

16

Bishop was on a hunt.

He liked it best this way: stalking his unwitting prey, shunting aside all distractions (which happily included ignoring all the people trying to talk to him—and there weren't many, but some of the Greycloaks hadn't heard his reputation and labored under the impression that, as a companion of the Captain, he was as powerful as but more approachable than their stolid leader. Boys, mostly, and he sneered in their faces, but it still involved talking to them) in favor of the trail of the hunted. Better still when the hunt was in familiar territory, when he knew exactly where he was at any given moment, despite the maze surrounding him.

He started at the point where the prey had last been spotted—in the front hall, speaking with a sergeant—and followed the trail of servants to the dining hall, which was full of people, but not the one he sought. He took the shortcut he always used to reach the bedroom first, but the door was open, the room empty. Circling back, he cornered a terrified-looking greenie and threatened him until he saw a trembling finger pointing outside.

Taking a deep, appreciative scent of the outside air, opening up a new realm of possibilities, he skulked in the fading afternoon shadows, searching for a new lead to point him in the right direction, racking his brain for clues. He looked up at the sky, taking another deep breath, smelling the incense wafting out from the church, the few trees still standing in the courtyard, the smoke from the armory and blacksmith.

Smoke…

He paused, and then headed through the gate to the outer courtyard, climbing the tower's stairs until he stood atop the outer wall. His eyes scanned the skyline until—there. He dropped back down and skulked his way around the wall, dodging the guards posted (laughing at how oblivious they were), until he reached the last corner, where he paused, daring to look around and make sure his prey was still there.

And she was, leaning on her crossed arms, staring out across the southern horizon, completely unruffled by the breeze blowing from the east. Then again, wind never seemed to bother her—she faced even the worst thunderstorm with the same implacable calm she had towards everything else. The damnable tight coil she pinned her hair into prevented it from being "messed up," which was what most women complained about the wind anyway (stupid, really; just cut it off, and then there's no reason to complain). She wore a plain, simple tunic and pants (ever the farmgirl, he thought, though he wasn't sure what he thought about it), and so focused was she on the horizon, she was completely oblivious to his presence.

It would be so easy, he thought, staring at her, because she was so indefensible in this moment (not totally—watch for those rings she wears), so easy to rip her a new scar that would never heal, watch the blood spill out of her (as he had countless times before, but never personally), see what little light there was in her dark eyes fade as her knees buckled and she fell to the floor—so easy.

But—he didn't really want to. Which was a problem in and of itself, and not one that was solved by rushing in and killing her.

(It would be. It would all be over if he killed her—her life, his reactions to her…his life, and if all this King of Shadows talk was as true as it seemed, potentially the whole world, or at least the world as it was. Which would almost be worth it. Almost. If it weren't for the part where it would be her blood spilling like Shandra's had all those months ago—and what was one faceless farmgirl for another?)

The problem would be solved if he killed her, but he didn't want to. And rather than face that problem, as he had faced thousands of problems throughout his life (usually with the simple solution of killing them all, which worked fine except when he lived when he was supposed to die), he pushed it to the side, and watched her. Always watching.

She was still looking at the horizon when she spoke. "I know you're there."

He didn't answer, because that would confirm her wild guess, but then she turned and looked straight at the shadows where he stood and said, "You might as well come out, whoever you are."

Oh, right. If she was so sure a person was there, she would know who it was. No one else in her party would even be close to sneaking past all her pathetically trained guards. Now his silence was a matter of pride.

There was a beat, and then she resumed her former position. "Or stay there. Whatever suits you."

He stole up behind her, in the steps of her shadow, and whispered in her ear, "You do."

She sighed, her eyes closing, and she said, "I knew it was you."

"Oh, sure you did," he said, leaning with his back against the wall, arms propping him up on either side of his body, looking over at her (always watching).

"Were you looking for me?"

"Just out for a stroll."

She had that partially exasperated, partially apathetic I'll-believe-that-when-Cania-melts look on her face, the one that took people off guard because they never knew whether she cared or not. "It's a nice evening," was all she said.

"Depends on your definition of nice."

"Small talk is never easy with you," she observed, carelessly.

"If it didn't involve dancing around any and all subjects that matter, maybe I'd be bothered to be good at it." He was still looking over at her, and she was still looking at the horizon. Unacceptable.

She snorted a little and said, "So that's why you and Casavir don't get along."

He waited, and she finally elaborated with, "Whenever I ask him how he's doing, he always answers, 'Fine.' Or 'well.' Or 'how are you?' Or 'do you need to rest?' The weather's always nice—though he seems to think it best when it's grey—and he always feels fine."

"Well, that's just paladin-talk for you," he said. "Can't trust 'em to say a straight word to your face about anything. Too busy contemplating how fantastically good they are to consider how the common folk feel."

"And are you common?" she asked, a smile touching the edges of her mouth.

"I'm under no delusions about how fantastically good I am," he said.

The smile grew, exasperated, but there. "Oh yes, the great and wonderful and gentle and kind Bishop, king of benevolence and generosity and feeling…"

He shuddered, and only half-meant it. "I don't understand why you bother having him around all the time. I mean, he can fight, but you've got Khelgar and me to do that. I don't see how his limited combative expertise is good enough to put up with having him underfoot all the time."

"Jealous?" she asked, but she didn't seem to care if he denied it or not (he would, because he knew he had no reason to be jealous, he just hated the paladin). She was looking at the horizon like she couldn't see far enough, her entire expression distant—apathetic to some, perhaps, or calm, but he knew (and didn't want to think why he had bothered to gather such knowledge) she was straining to be somewhere else, focusing her entire will on being somewhere she could never return. And suddenly he was jealous, of anything that could take her attention so completely from him. He couldn't get to her if she wasn't there to be had.

She came back, little by little, a sadness in her voice as she finally said, "I let him stay because…I understand."

"What? That he's—"

"I understand what he needs," she said, "and…I understand that he finds it here."

"And what's that?"

She shrugged, and for a moment he was distracted by how powerful a movement it was. She wasn't a slender wisp of a woman—she was well, solidly built, but curvy too, every inch of her tightened by the life she led (as he knew from experience—an experience he had come to claim, and here he was standing on the southern walls fully clothed talking about the paladin of all people)—and in her shrug there was a careless display of strength from the muscles causing the movement. "What he needs."

"Something to be slave to? Some kind of rule—"

"It's religious."

He looked at her, and for the first time she looked back at him, and the look in her eyes was amused. Well. At least she was back here with him, and not brooding over the bloody remains of her village. Feeling a need to encourage another smile (for no other reason than to…to…draw her into a more compliant mood), he said, "One of those super-mystical cleric things a simple man like me couldn't possibly hope to understand."

"Something like that," she said, her half-smile appearing again.

"Though I have to disagree," he said. "I think even the simplest of men understands revenge."

"He does," she said. "That's why I'm here." He narrowed his eyes at her, and she said, "Not to explain revenge, but—I was a simple girl, too."

"I don't see any difference," he said, but that was mostly a lie. True, she was straightforward enough, but only in her complexity. She wasn't a zealot and yet her devotion to her faith was absolute, and yet she never appeared to do anything with it, aside from heal her companions' wounds and pray every evening as the first stars came out.

"I found Hoar on my own," she said. "I didn't need guidance, because—even the simplest man understands revenge."

He figured from her tone that she was suggesting he understood revenge, and that probably meant she was curious but—no way in hell was she going to drag that out of him (yet—wait for the best moment to spring it on her, when she's vulnerable, whenever that might be), so he said, "So how did you find him? Some farmboy break your heart?"

"No," she said, and she looked to the horizon again.

He found himself wondering, suddenly, about what happened when you crossed a cleric of the god (however minor) of revenge, realizing that his half-formed plans were suddenly dependant on this knowledge. Taking a light tone, he said, "I'd hate to see the boys of West Harbor when you were through with them." He said, "So, did you come up with a specific way to punish old flames? Or did you simply pray and use whatever power," he drew the word out, "you 'received' at the time?"

Her gaze steady, and on the skyline, she said, "Old flames?"

He laughed out loud, half in derision, half in real amusement. "Old flames? The boys that followed your pretty little face around, who caught your pretty eye and then wandered at the sight of the next pretty face? You know, the shitheads of the world?"

Her dark eyes flicked to the side, taking in his face as they cut under her long dark lashes, as if she was guessing why he asked—and he wondered if she guessed right, and what she thought about her suspicions, and almost whether or not she was hurt but she saved him from having to throw himself over the wall right then and there by looking away and saying, "What old flames?"

He couldn't help it. He stared at her, twisting his expression to make it mocking, but still surprised. "What do you mean, what old flames?"

After a moment she said, "I would have thought you noticed—"

"Well—you're young," though he suddenly wondered how young, realized he didn't have a frame of reference for her age, not knowing how long ago the last War had been (probably because he'd been shut up in Luskan at the time and they would only have bothered mentioning it if Neverwinter herself was burning—but he wasn't going to start thinking about Luskan right now, he was having a hard enough time keeping a grip on the situation as it was) "and it's not like you had time to give your sweetheart a goodbye when you left home, from the way you put it, but—"

She smiled, but it was heavy, her lips turning up against the sadness in her eyes again. "There was no sweetheart. There…never was, really."

He absorbed this, wondering why his heart appeared to be hammering at twice its normal speed, wondering what the hell she was thinking because she sure as hell wasn't letting him see it, but his own face was so still he knew she couldn't tell what he was thinking either. There had to be other, better ways of approaching this situation—whatever the hell it was—she hadn't said he was a sweetheart but—he nearly vomited at the thought of the word—but—

She turned and stared at him, and he stared right back, intimidating, and yet she was completely unruffled like she always was. After a moment she cocked her head and said, "If I wanted a sweetheart," she said, "I could go to Casavir. Or Khelgar. Or hells, even Grobnar. He's sweet enough," she said, as he scowled his disgust.

It was an invitation, he suddenly saw, to ask what she did want, but he didn't want to know. Because knowing what she wanted would involve wanting to give it to her, and he—didn't—no matter how curious he was—he—didn't—want to give it to her. Besides, she couldn't give him what he wanted, not without giving away more than she had to offer. He had her bed, and that was enough for the both of them.

The time had passed for him to speak, and she straightened, side-stepping to stand in front of him, leaning forward as he leaned back against the wall, hands coming up to grip her arms and hold her a whisper away from him. "Kiss me," she whispered, her dark eyes filling his vision.

"Your men might see," he said, using every ounce of his control to sound completely calm.

She smirked, her bedroom smirk, the only intentionally erotic thing he'd ever seen her do, and leaned forward and kissed him anyway. He couldn't help kissing her back, still gripping her arms even as her hands cupped against his cheeks and dragged back around his head, pressing herself into him. She pulled away the space of a breath and said, "That was an order."

"Far be it from me to disobey, Captain," he drawled, and then she pulling away from him, pulling him with her as she started for the stairs, and he tumbled after her, satisfied (relieved) that he wouldn't have to try to fathom her again for the rest of the night.