Author's Note: The plot is still building. Pay attention to words… They will be back to haunt ;)
As with all fanfiction writers, unfortunately, I went through a lazy stage. In my defense, the Olympics are rather distracting… Happily for all, I have most of the next three chapters written. I will tidy them and space them out a bit so updates do not get too sporadic again.
Thanks to all you readers, especially Shang Leopard, Evilstrawberry and oirishgoddess who reviewed the last chapter. I love the new Reader Traffic feature, don't you?
Going Out
Both draped in warm cloaks against the cool breeze that had wound its way through Corus and up the hill, Laurel and Amelie walked together toward one of the palace gates. A sloping path led them from an unassuming palace door, around the outskirts of the training yards where warriors of all kinds were honing their fighting skills, and to the large nobles' stables where the picnicking party would depart. The girls were eager for the outing and easily exchanged commentary on the changing weather of the season and the upcoming events of the social season as they made their way down. They rounded the corner to see horses all tacked up and waiting patiently as their high-spirited humans were busy chatting and settling the things for the picnic in sturdy saddlebags. Laurel froze instantly at the sight. Amelie continued to walk toward the group, not realizing that her companion had stopped.
Three of the party spotted them and came forward. Merric met the petite beauty halfway, but Dom and Iden moved past them and bowed to Laurel. "Milady," Dom said graciously, offering his hand as an escort.
"I can't go," Laurel whispered hoarsely, swallowing hard. Her gaze was directed past him, over his shoulder. She eyed the beasts that idly twitched their ears and touched noses amongst themselves.
Dom straightened fluidly as Iden inquired with concern, "Why not? Are you feeling ill?"
"Yes, I think I should go back to my room," the girl replied hastily, already half-turning to leave. With her breath now coming in pants, Laurel was in flight mode.
"Well, let's have our friendly resident healer look at you… Neal!" Dom called, not seeming to notice her panic. Iden, however, scrutinized her face.
Blue-eyes widened. "No! Don't—" she pleaded, feeling trapped as she looked around her for an escape route. "I just can't go with you today!"
Neal sauntered over wearing a grin, but one look at her with his healer-trained eyes changed his features to concern. "What's wrong, Lady Laurel? You seem anxious." Neal's fingertips burned with the green fire of his healing magic as they reached for her forehead.
Laurel shied away from his touch. "No! It's just—" She struggled internally for a moment and then gave up the charade under the stares of the three men. Her voice was semi-calm again when she said, "I can't ride a horse, so I won't be able to go with you. I'm sorry."
The green-eyed man released his magic. "That's all?" he asked incredulously. "Don't apologize for that—we can teach you sometime on a gentle, old gelding. And for today, you can ride with one of our fine, strong knights." He clapped a hand on Iden's back, offering him as her ride. Dom looked insulted.
"No! I just cannot ride a horse!" she cried in response, her eyes watering on their own accord. Laurel fought her ridiculous display of emotion. Inside her head she was thinking fairly clearly—Stop it you silly girl, you're making a scene! Yet, her body would not forget its emotional foolishness and tears spilled down her cheeks.
Kel and Yuki had made their way over to the outburst. "Is something the matter, Lady Laurel?" inquired the lady knight evenly with a questioning glance to Dom and then Neal. The latter shrugged a shoulder back.
"I regret to say that I cannot attend your picnic today, Lady Yuki. I'm terribly sorry for my delaying your party," the girl said with some semblance of control while looking studiously at the ground. Her hands shook at her sides.
Yuki gave her best effort at a comforting smile. "Don't worry about us, Hitomi. You are always welcome to visit me," she replied meaningfully in Yamani.
Iden picked up Laurel's trembling hand with his own steady one. "Would you excuse me from the picnic too, Lady Yuki? I would be honored to escort Lady Laurel back to the palace," he said, giving up an outing in favor of another, more chivalrous duty. He did not seem to mind doing it either.
"As you wish," the Yamani replied graciously. "You both shall be sorely missed today."
Kel and Yuki pulled Dom and Neal back to rejoin the rest of their waiting party as the blue-eyed girl faced her knight with a red face of shame. "May I?" he asked. She nodded, looking down and away from his concerned stare. He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and they headed up the slope to the palace.
The walk was in silence, but as they entered the palace and neared the hall of her rooms, Iden suddenly spoke. "Would you like to take a stroll in the gardens?"
"Sure," was her quiet reply. She blindly allowed him to lead as she fought down waves of mixed up feelings. They were back outside by another door in mere moments.
They walked among fountains and flowerbeds, skirting the menagerie where the chattering of monkeys could be heard from their high enclosure. "Would you like me to show you the best hidden treasure of the palace gardens?" he offered enthusiastically.
"Sure," Laurel said half-heartedly. The pace swiftly quickened and her body responded without any conscious thought on her behalf. The girl was slowly pushing away the tight feeling in her throat and chest. The more they walked, getting farther from the stables, the better she felt.
She was led into a thicket on the edge of the park and along a small winding path. They had to walk one behind the other, so Iden led with her hand firmly grasped in his. Laurel would have thought that this path led nowhere and that the clump of trees was just that, a big forgotten clump. Yet, the path quickly opened into a clearing with a large rock grotto dominating the far side. Water trickled down levels of rock into the large pond at the floor of the great cavern. Dropping the hand of the knight, Laurel stepped forward and her blue eyes were enraptured for long minutes as she studied the glint of water over well-smoothed rock and green moss. Her gaze found spots where one could possibly climb up and inside to explore the shallow caves.
Iden spoke slowly when he addressed her again, his voice drifting into her consciousness from somewhere far away and behind her. "What was really wrong back there? Do horses scare you that much?"
The girl looked around to remember where she was and who she was with and then just sat on the thick green grass of the clearing, spreading her skirts and cloak around her. Laurel looked up at the knight and patted the ground beside her. "I have a story for you, Iden."
He settled himself next to the blue-eyed girl and looked at her interestedly. Laurel's eyes were trained on the grotto as she spoke. "When I was thirteen, I loved riding more than anything, even reading. I got a beautiful little gelding for my birthday, a coppery-bay, desert-stock pony with a jagged white stripe down his face and eyes that were always so worried looking, so expressive. I would ride him every day during my free time at the convent. One day a small group of us was out in the hills and something spooked him—I still don't even know what. He took off, and I couldn't stop him. I was determined to ride it out instead of throwing myself off and risking the loss of him. He just barreled across a plain way too fast, and we came across this old rotting wagon that had been broken and left there. With the tall grass, neither of us could have seen it in time to…" She trailed off.
"In time to stop?" he prodded gently.
The girl shook her head violently. "To stop? No, that was the problem. If he had turned or jumped it, we would have been fine—we'd always jump for fun. Instead, he stopped himself, and I flew over his head." Laurel looked up at her escort. Her finger touched the side of her nose and traced the faint jagged scar there all the way down her lips to her chin. "I landed on my face on the far side of that wagon to get this. I also broke my wrist, but bones are easier to set and much less visible…"
"It's not so bad," he reassured her. "I never even noticed it until you mentioned it." His eyes sweeped the line of the scar a few times as though he were trying to memorize it.
Laurel sighed loudly and looked away. "With the way the Daughters and other girls carried on, you'd think I was dying. If a noble girl's face is mussed up, how will she ever find a suitable husband?" she finished quietly.
"I see." That was all he could say to that. A young knight could not comment on the world of convents and betrothal-making without some measure of awkwardness; it was way out of his league.
The girl continued in a tone of hopelessness. "I've had all sorts of healers doing things to my face over the last few years to get rid of the scar—magic and herbal alike. They say this is as good as it will ever be." She waved vaguely at her own face.
Iden waited in silence until she met his eyes again. He asked squarely, "So you will let one bad fall stop you from riding again?"
She looked up suddenly, an almost harsh look on her face. "They killed my pony because he threw me, but it was my fault for not controlling him properly and letting him run off. I don't deserve to ride and ruin another horse's life."
Iden was quiet again. The girl felt guilty for being so harsh, but her feelings on this had been developing—no, festering—for over three years. She was wholly responsible for the death of an innocent, and the past few years had done little to ease that pain. With a deep breath to steady her, Laurel decided to change the subject for both of them. She looked sideways at the knight. "Why did you not ask me to dance at the ball? You were with all the others, and I did notice you looking at me."
He cleared his throat in embarrassment. "I'm really quite a terrible dancer, Lady Laurel," he admitted. The girl's laughter rang out in the bosquet, and dark stories were forgotten for the moment.
The next few weeks passed in a blur for Laurel as the last warm afternoons of a mild autumn turned into the chilly winds of a fast-approaching winter. Each day was full of social calls and each evening, parties of every sort. She, Mitsuko, and Kaida had become a fixture in Yuki's small get-togethers while other ladies would come and go as the young knights invited them. From parties in their apartments to outdoor walks and picnics where a carriage was always presented without comment for the three Yamanis and Laurel, the blue-eyed girl had found a group of friends away from the convent girls (although little Amelie had also found a place by Merric's side). The bigger events every other week or so that were held in the ballrooms required a Lalasa creation which always turned out magnificent, and Laurel was rarely without a friendly dance partner.
Tucked in between these bigger and grander occasions, the blue-eyed girl would steal away to the infirmary. Neal allowed her to sing, read aloud, and even help relax the long-term patients of the ward, and she made many new friends in the quiet of infirmary. No one grand or with social connections to be utilized, just people who wanted some comfort. Even mean old Count Nelson simply wanted a song or two from her to fall asleep. It was the same with her babysitting the Queenscove twins or reading in one of the libraries: Laurel could just be herself, not just a girl in the running for a betrothal contract. She relished these moments.
Every once in awhile she would find herself somehow alone with Sir Iden of Vikison Lane. He would show up at the library when she was there and they would recommend books to each other. Sometimes he would invite her to stroll around the gardens afterward. Nothing compromising happened—the girl knew to always stay in public places and leave doors open—but she supposed that they might be technically courting in some people's eyes. She questioned if she should be sharing her confidences with him; like the story about her horse, the girl was always telling him things that she discussed with no one else. He seemed to find her point of view in all situations somewhat amusing, though he never mocked her. Laurel wondered if she sounded hopelessly naïve to this man who was almost four years older than her and a seasoned warrior to boot.
On one such occasion, a leisurely turn about the Yamani gardens that had recently been developed, they had begun to discuss their thoughts on what love was like. This had not come from any romantic context, but rather a conversation on a novel that Iden had given the girl to read. Laurel had dismissed it as another silly, unrealistic romance, and the knight had tried to argue that it had deeper meaning.
"He's a fool," the blue-eyed girl stated for about the tenth time in the last five minutes. They were walking in step together and Laurel's gloved hand was tucked into the crook of the knight's arm on another chilly afternoon. "No decent, self-respecting man who would ruin his fief's finances and his family's honor all for the hand of a pretty girl he met just once. He wasn't even very well-mannered during that one meeting—why should she even like him?"
Iden had a small smile on his face as he tried to counter her argument. "Once I was told that you like a person for their qualities, but you love a person for their faults. Maybe it was just the fact that he was willing to give up everything, all the social conventions, to be with her that meant something."
Laurel pulled her hand away and glided over to a short Yamani maple tree to run her fingers over its reddish pointed leaves as she spoke. "A 'fault' is that you are a little messy. What he has is a serious character flaw. Their lives and those of their families are ruined by their hasty actions. If they really wanted to be together, they should have taken the time to speak to their parents and try to rearrange things. And then if that didn't work, they should have just dealt with it. The fate of so many people should not be dictated by the feelings of two childish people."
Standing closely behind the girl, the young knight shook his head swiftly in disagreement, but he wore a wide grin on his face. Laurel could instinctively feel both through the space between them. "Lady Laurel of Fury's Valley, you are no romantic. What about the endless suffering that would be caused by their denied passions?"
The blue-eyed girl visibly tensed as she became fully aware of his close presence but refused to look back at him. She rubbed a red-brown leaf between two fingers. "I would rather look for something that lasts. Passion, beauty, physical prowess—those fade with time; everyone knows it even if they choose not to admit it. Courtesy and compassion—they are with you to the end. If he had proved that the well-being of others was more important than his own passions, he would have been worthy." Laurel spun to face his hazel gaze, her blue eyes glinting mischievously. "And that's why your book is nothing but court trash!"
She adjusted her cloak on her shoulders and walked off down the path to the menagerie. Iden, still processing her speech, had to take a few large steps to catch up.