King of Shadows, Queen of Light

Author Notes:

So, um…hi! I know that this seemed like a completely abandoned and orphaned story, and for a while, I really wasn't inclined to continue. Many things happened, many other stories intervened (some of those stories are on the Archive), my life went in directions I didn't quite anticipate…but yet, something kept pulling me into a direction of 'at least provide some sort of a semi-closure here'. And recently, I took a look at some old files and said 'self, you owe it at least to yourself but maybe also to a few people who really liked this story to at least come to a decent stopping point that may set up a point to continue with a Part Two, or Volume Two, or something like that'.

And so, here is a chapter for now…not sure how, not sure when, but there will be more. I absolutely loved this story and how everyone in it took me in directions I never imagined, and how they stretched my abilities to a limit. More importantly, though, they allowed me to tell the story of two Good People, who tried to remain Good and change things around themselves for the better. And if their story, in turn, changed how my dear readers thought about paladins, at least a little…then I think I've achieved something.

As usual: there was music. Of course there was music. The ones this chapter are: All Of This Past- Sarah Bettens; Trovommi Amor-Mediaeval Babes; Queen of the Sun-Angels of Venice; and The Call-Regina Spektor.

My immeasurable thanks to all of you who've read and commented and patiently asked through the years about what's going to happen.

You'll come back

When they call you

No need to say goodbye

Chapter Sixty: Everything's Changing

So I made tisane.

Back when I was still living there, in West Harbor, I always did that when something kicked me off-balance: an argument with Daeghun, running into the Mossfelds unprepared, bad training day, my monthly cycle… My foster-father maintained a rather extensive selection of dried herbs in his kitchen and as I got older, he taught me the basics of preparation for certain minor ailments. Retta refined that knowledge enough that I at least was rudimentarily versed in the usage of some common herbs people in rural areas used to treat small illnesses.

"Right." I muttered now, marching into the house and kicking off my boots almost reflexively at the entrance. It was amazing how fast the memories of time spent in this small house came back. I wiggled my stockinged toes on the cold stone as I realized the kettle was still in the same place by the kitchen fireplace. Bunches of herbs hanging from the rafters in the pantry, the little pots for the more delicate ones on the middle shelf…

"Half handful of lavender, half of linden flowers, pinch of lemonbalm… there we go." I measured the herbs into the teapot very carefully, concentrating on not spilling any, and trying not to hear the noises of those two coming into the house. "Now the water..." Daeghun always had the kettle there, over the fireplace, as he kept a pretty irregular schedule and this was easier than waiting for the cooled water to reboil even if he (or I) wanted a hot drink at the crack of dawn. "And two prayers' worth of time to wait to make it just right."

I sat down at the kitchen table heavily, all my thoughts stilling as I remembered who taught me that.

Aevan.

"Crap." I whispered in front of me, hands clasped on the table in front of me so tight my knuckles were white. "Crap and damnation and all the Nine Hells."

As far as dramatic revelations went, it was pretty much right up there with 'and now you need to leave your village, so others don't die because of you' and 'there is a silver shard in your chest'. Come think of it, it probably just took the prize the way I took that last Harvest Cup.

"Do you still have the writing stuff in that drawer, foster-father?" My furiously churning brain finally came up with something and I stood up way too fast, bumping the table so hard the solid oak frame moved.

"Scrap parchment, ink, quill, sand and wax." Daeghun nodded and moved before I could: he was always faster. I nodded and sat back. Beyond my disbelief that he withheld this from me through all the years and the barely dawning realization of what all of this meant, I started to feel the slowly spreading chill of the spheres of the heavens: my celestial heritage yet again started to reassert itself.

Of course, if we follow things to their logical conclusion… that cool reasoning and logical half of me interjected…the question inevitably rises: did the celestial blood come from your mother or from your father?

"No, we were not going there just yet." I said that out loud, as I pulled a piece of parchment in front of me. I caught a worrying glance from Casavir as he sat down cautiously, balancing at the edge of his seat almost like he used to when we first returned to Neverwinter after we've met. "I am mostly fine." I muttered just as much to him as to myself and started scribbling. "Will feel much better once I have this out of me and found someone to take it back to the city."

"This?" he asked, tilting his head sideways. He was way too courteous to even think about reading my letters, so I knew this was a questioning gesture instead. "Are you writing to Father Prior?"

"I am writing to the Reverend Judge himself." I said between my teeth. "And I am doing it as fast as I can and remain legible, in case there is something tricky at work, so try and not to distract me, please…there." I lifted the quill, sanded the scrap of parchment (there really was only place for a couple of lines and I wasn't planning on writing a treatise anyway), folded it and started to melt wax by the light of the candle on the table. "Basic inquiry about the whereabouts of one Brother Aevan of the order at present and during The Year of Shadows. I gave no details except that I would regard this as a personal favor. That is general enough; I hope, because…" I swallowed, hesitated, and then decided that letting the inner voice out at this point cannot really hurt.

Especially to him.

"Because I really don't know at what point whatever causes me and everyone else around me to forget questioning my parentage kicks in." I felt my breathing speed up as I tried to talk faster and make sure my words translated my thoughts right at the same time.

It wasn't easy.

"At this point I can reasonably assume it's magic, but I'm not sure asking Sand would help—if this is arcane magic, then we have yet another player on the board and I'm just too tired to think about that. So, let's just assume that this is all of divine origin and follow that line of questioning."

He reached over the table to touch my hand holding the folded parchment.

"What are you afraid of?" he asked quietly. I looked down; yes, my fingers were trembling.

"I don't know," I whispered. "All this past…. All these secrets. All the things I don't know about how… how I happened." I took a deep breath. "I am sworn to Truth and Justice. I need to know: otherwise, I cannot be…" I couldn't finish, but he nodded.

"Otherwise, you cannot be who you were born to be." He turned his palm upward and closed his fingers around mine, lifting his gaze to look me in the eye. "If you entrust it to me, I will carry it for you, my lady."

"Oh." I breathed, my heart giving a fast, hard 'thud'. "You?"

I knew that this was the simplest, the fastest, and the most logical solution. My Tyrran reasoning arrived at this conclusion probably right at the same time he made the offer. My non-human half nodded sagely at the notion: I had to continue on, as planned, to the ruins of Arvahn, to meet Zhjaeve and Elanee who went ahead on a more direct route and let the Progress with its new recruits and supplies trudge back to Crossroad Keep. My fellow paladin on his warhorse, traveling light and alone back to Neverwinter to take a message to the chapterhouse—this was exactly the decision a field commander would make.

But to go on my mission without him? I swallowed as I realized that: I always counted on him being by my side when I finally reached Arvahn. To attempt the Ritual of Purification without his steady presence and his guiding light…

Come on, Arrighan. Stop being a lovestruck swamp-born little girl and make the right call.

"That is the best way." I was glad that my voice sounded as steady as it did. "Thank you." And as soon as I said that there was a flash of memory: a gentle smile on a weather-worn face, the touch of a sword-calloused hand on my shoulder, and a rough voice, softened, as Aevan answered my question long years past at the end of a training session.

"It's not about whether you are worthy or not, Arrighan: that is not for you to decide, or know. It's about whether you are willing, regardless."

"I shall leave at first light." At least he was sensible and didn't just dash out the door: riding through the night at full speed was not recommended around here. I lifted my head, trying not to succumb to the decidedly un-paladinlike urge to sniffle.

"Good." Daeghun stood up and lifted his pack from the door. "Your room is as you left it, Arrighan; there are plenty of blankets. Firewood is restocked, and the pantry has eggs and ham for breakfast. "He slung the pack on his shoulder and opened the door. "I'll be back by sunrise to see you out, Casavir."

"Wait, what?" That came out suspiciously close to rude and swamp-hick-like, so I reconsidered and corrected the tone of my voice. "Foster-father, could you slow down a bit and tell me if you said what I think you just said? I am tired and obviously not on my best behavior, and for that I apologize."

"Apology accepted." Daeghun stopped but I could see from the tilt of his head that he was looking up at the sky to see if the stars were out. "Your time away already changed you too much, Arrighan. Let me, then, tell this to you differently. I am spending the night, as I planned, out on the Mere. I believe Georg mentioned to you how we had to conduct semi-regular patrols the past month or so due to lizardmen migration patterns that are different from the usual. I would invite both of you with me, but…" she shrugged his elegant Elven shrug, "…no offense meant, the two of you would hardly be able to move silently out there."

"None taken," I muttered, smiling a little, almost unselfconsciously, because yes, sneaking around unheard and unseen was so not me.

"And, besides that…" he continued, still in that same almost inflectionless tone I knew so well from my childhood, "…you two need time alone. Do I need to be blunter, or do you wish to spare your mate's sensibilities and let me leave the obvious unsaid?"

After all these years, after all that happened this past year since Harvesttide, my foster-father could still reduce me to the state of utter speechlessness.

The furious blushing, on the other hand, was new. Daeghun Farlong was the absolute last person who should have caused me to redden, and yet, there we were.

"I thought so." He nodded, with something approximating a smile playing on his lips and I blinked. "Rest well, don't rise too early, try not to burn the bacon to bits and don't forget…"

"…to let the cat in when he scratches," I finished, because at least that part was familiar from years before. "Just like always. Although the 'don't rise early' part is new," I added, tentatively.

"All things change." Daeghun's complicated hand gesture included my entourage in the village outside the door, my dress, and Casavir standing next to me with a puzzled and not entirely comfortable frown on his face. Also, that sentence was suitably Elvish in its aloof simplicity to make me believe it was really my stepfather standing there after all, and not some skin-changer.

"Our memories about this house are not the best." He stepped close and to my great surprise, gave me a fast hug, one-armed but hard. "Make some better ones, foster-daughter."

I was staring after him with my eyes somehow going all blurry with moisture.

Did he just give me a hug?

"So that's what it is." Casavir's voice was quiet by my ear, but I was so lost in my thoughts and my surprise over Daeghun's unexpected show of affection that I almost jumped, turning halfway and backing into the closing door with a soft thud.

"Ow." I said somewhat shakily and sniffed. "Sorry, I just… what was it that you just said?"

"The answer to a question I've been wondering about for a long while." There was something in his eyes that made me go very still. "I suspected, especially watching you with your oldest companions. And with the Wolfpack, Marcus, and Andoras, of course: the children." He shook his head and stepped a bit closer, one hand coming up and resting on my shoulder. "You grew up here, in this house, the child of a mother who died when you were not even two years old, fostered by an elf who deliberately closed himself off from showing any emotion or attachment other than bare necessities, providing care but nothing else. No affection. No mother's lullabies, arms that hold you close when you have bad dreams, smiles that encourage you, gentleness when you need it…or just the joy of simple touching, gods..." He swallowed, and I just stared at him dumbstruck, for being so observant, seeing to the bottom of my childhood so perfectly. "That hug was probably the first one you ever got from him, wasn't it?" As I nodded, still mute, he continued, voice shaking slightly from emotion. "Say what you will about my father, my family, but at least growing up I wasn't denied the simple, basic delight of being touched, hugged, laughed at, something we crave as a child so much and which affects us and shapes us as we become adults." His fingers tightened. "I watched you from the first time we've met, being so carefree with your touches and hugs to Neeshka and I didn't understand then: it would have been a highly unlikely pairing, aasimar and tiefling, and your two didn't look like a courting pair, so…" I blushed slightly, realizing how it might have looked for others, too. "I learned that she was an orphan later, and then saw you with Wolf and the children at Duncan's inn. It is a trait of us, paladins, to be kind and giving to those weak and in need, so naturally I admired how good you were with the little ones everywhere we went. There were certain other things, however, that didn't really make sense beyond that until just now."

His hand cupped my cheek gently, and his words had a slowly building power in them, a vein of shining silver I could not help but acknowledge: truth.

"Spending the day with your foster-father and then seeing the two of you together helped me to see. I believe he knows you needed love as a little one and grieves for not providing. I believe that he could not do anything about it. He was broken that night, when his wife and your mother died, and he did the best he was able... which, he knows now, may not have been enough, had others not stepped in." His eyes were gentle, his thumb stroking my cheek feather-light. "Meum mel, you act as if you want to make sure no one ever should want for love the way you were, growing up. You gathered us to you, broken lives from the road, one by one, to rest under your wings, to learn to trust, to rest, to grow and to be who we really can be. We all, one by one, owe our lives to you for that alone."

I shook my head, tears gathering now in my eyes: he painted a picture of me that at once was familiar and frighteningly different.

Was I like that, in truth?

And then he took a deep breath, and his arms went around my waist, drawing me to him.

"A long time ago, it seems, I told you that I really wished to understand what made you so afraid of being who you could be. At Tavorick's mansion you were so righteously wroth over Sydney Natale's lies, and how my uncle had to maneuver between them to steer the ship of his land, to protect his people, and you just wanted to run away from it. I vowed then that I would find out, truly, what lies at the bottom of this all and how I could, if you allow me, help you. "I nodded, mutely. "And so, tell me: am I doing right so far?"

"Gods, yes," I said, tucking my face into the crook of his neck. A fully trained Tyr-paladin's Truthseeing was frightening to behold, and this, what he just did...

We knitted our souls together… well, I did that with that inadvertent spell of mine last year, and that, apparently, allowed him to see my soul's faultlines almost as deep and well as I was able to observe just about anyone's.

"I didn't know that I… that I was…" I sniffled into his shoulder. "I mean, yes, looking at it that way it's so clear why I am doing all the things I am doing, but…"

"Will you forgive me, then?" His voice, so full of the surety of Truth just a moment ago, was plaintive all of a sudden. So much so that I had to pull back and look at his face.

"Forgive you?" I asked, somewhat incredulous.

"For adding to all of that burden," he continued. "For keeping you at arms' length always, even after I've made my intentions plain and gave you a ring. For…"

"Hold on just a bit, now." I stared at him, yet again slipping back to West Harbor brogue. "Casavir: are you apologizing for being a perfect gentleman now?"

"On one hand, yes," he answered with the typical Tyrran honesty of our order and I smiled. "On the other hand," he continued, bending his head at exactly the right angle and lowering his voice just to this side of a whisper right next to my ear, "it is, indeed, Greengrass."

Oh, Hells. That did not help at all: practically all night I tried really hard not to think about that, and the effect it possibly had on that damned spell of mine.

And on him.

"And so…" he continued, while I stood there, frozen, mesmerized by how his breath was tickling the back of my ear, the exquisite sensitivity of the skin there sending little shivers down my spine, "…with this being practically the only time you and I have been alone since what seems to be an eternity… may I remind you of that discussion we had about the life-bond of the Path, meum mel?"

"Oh." I exhaled a bit more harshly than I intended as my hand was casting about, almost blindly, to come to rest at his waist, my voice shakier than I thought it would be. "The mind-opening exercises to…"

Trust him to steer this back to a ground that was safe, while at the same time telling me that perhaps it was time for him not to be that perfect gentleman any more… it ran through my mind as I tried to remember, and having an increasingly difficult time if it.

But was that ground, in truth, that? Safer?

Or was it simply that this was the right time and place for the two of us to cross at least some of the invisible barriers that both of us raised and were, so far, not able or capable of lowering? What with being indeed alone for the first time, helped by the general atmosphere of the festivities, the soul-shaking discovery of my parentage, and the knowledge that he will be departing tomorrow, and we won't see each other for a while, by my decision alone.

"I would not presume you wish to lay with me just to honor the rites of Greengrass." He smiled into my hair, his unusual forthrightness taking my breath away utterly. "However, as you gave me your trust and reaffirmed it fairly recently, I still presume you would allow me to…" My mind went conveniently blank for a moment as he placed an open-mouthed kiss at the base of my neck, slow and thorough. "To steer us onto a path that is…acceptable."

I always knew there was something in the air during Greengrass around our village. After all, undisturbed nature, a druidic circle, Chauntea's bounty and Lathander's blessings were equally present in and around West Harbor, along with some old, weird spells that still could be felt when one walked the Mere. The trite words of 'magic in the air' and 'special time of the year' that I've heard so much growing up really didn't touch me overmuch my entire time here…

Until now.

"Letting you into my mind and you opening your mind to me we prepare for the union of the body," I heard myself whisper the words he once breathed along my skin.

"Trust me," he murmured, his voice like velvet and soft fur, like midnight air on bare skin. His silver and blue aura brushed up against my own with the same deliberate slowness his lips moved from my neck to my collarbone and lower… and even through the silk of my gown I could feel the heat of his breath.

I sensed the pressure of that cloud of silver and blue, and in answer my own powers woke, silver and crimson, like a slow, lazy uncoiling of something vast and almost uncontrollable. Something low in my body tightened in response, something opened in me, just like that night when my powers answered the call of his horrible burns at the Flagon, but instead of the need for healing this was…a need for something else. A different need to answer a different call, just as the Path of the Silver Fire was, in its complete form, a bond that was forged between two lives to knit them irrevocably together, in mind, body, and soul.

To this day I don't quite remember how we managed to get up those stairs and into my room. I just know that there we were, my back pressing against the closed door (again?), his hands on the sides of my face, watching me from under eyelids half-lowered, auras slowly pressing and sliding against each other, yielding and pushing in turn, in a rhythm that was at once familiar and deeply and starkly new.

"That…" I breathed, my body thrumming with tension as a silver lance of my power danced across the boundaries of his aura, trailing sparks in its wake, my mind struggling to comprehend, yet wanting to continue.

"Yes, that." Casavir nodded, his voice low and hoarse , one hand sliding down my neck, fingers drawing a path of blue fire until they finally, blessedly, at last, circled my breast, trembling at first, then the pad of his thumb grazing at the tip … and I cried out, short and sharp, silver lancing through me, the power bursting in waves of crimson and silver across and into his own aura.

"Shhh…" he soothed, his lips following the path of his fingers, body pressing into me with the rhythm of those waves, the other hand moving up to my shoulder where the tiny buttons holding my gown up opened up, one by one… "Trust me…"

Silk sliding off my shoulders, pooling at my feet, my own hands fumbling with freeing his shirt from his belt, the need growing along with the cloud of my power seething around me, another of my cries he tried to smother with a deep kiss as we tumbled across the room to the cool, smooth quilt on my bed, the cloth of his shirt slipping down his back as he shed it with one effortless movement, bending over me again.

Something pushed back, something across the horizon of my mind, silver and blue, a pressure at the crown on my head, connecting to the only point we touched: where his lips, hot and wet, circled the tip of my breast through my breastband…

"Let me in, sistinae mea …" he rumbled against me, the sensation of that shaking my very core. Suddenly and with almost-painful clarity I knew what he meant; and at the crown of my head the slowly commingling powers of our auras responded at once. Flaring up, the hues cascaded down in reds and purples and brilliant golds, shimmering and trembling…

He needed my permission. He lowered both of our barriers as much as he could without dishonor, thin fabric still separating us both from joining in the body, but he needed me to say the word, to complete the circle, to allow him to…

I wasn't sure what I was allowing, but I understood one thing: I trusted him with it. With me. Whatever this was, I understood that I was not controlling it, that I could not control it, and it was his to know, his to understand, his to show; here, now. With me.

"Yes," I breathed into the silence that descended between us, the silence broken only by our breathing, heavy and ragged, my fingers spearing through his hair, my back arching with the need to feel him even closer, not sure what I was saying 'yes' to, and, in truth, not much caring at the moment. I just knew that he stopped and I didn't understand why and I needed him to… "Cas… Casavir. Yes."

"Am I the one who completes you?" He held himself utterly still above me, waiting, his ragged breathing the only noise in the room; and I knew then, suddenly and without a doubt, with the clarity of truth, that this was, still and again, part of that ritual that I've unwittingly started all those months ago.

And I wanted it to be. I wanted the Path of the Silver Fire.

Gods help me, I wanted him.

"You are…the one that completes me," I sobbed, head slowly tilting back so I could look into his eyes fully. The swirls of azure, aquamarine, indigo and cerulean there, the surety within the depths of them anchored me, soothing my frantic heartbeat and breathing at the same time. I felt the feverish trembling of my aura and my entire body slow down to a more controlled rhythm and with my next exhale I sensed something give and something expand and enter me at the crown of my head. A great rush of Power, a shimmering, irresistible push, a wave of azure and silver…

My fingers convulsed in his hair as our commingling energy crested like a tidal wave over our head, as his teeth grazed mine in a kiss that plunged us into the heart of the fire again and more powerfully than ever before. He growled against my lips, low and unrestrained and full of want, and I felt his arms around me like iron clasps, a hand down on my hip pulling my core against his hardness I felt for the first time, as the bars of his iron restraint over himself dissolved. My hands untangled from his hair, slipped down his shoulders, felt the muscles knotting and unknotting with all the passion he kept in check so long, so long…He drank my lips as if he was drowning on my very breath, and I moaned his name into his mouth as our bodies moved against each other…

There was a sensation of push, both outside and inside me. My own Power rushed around and with it, then, with the entry, with the way his hardness pressed against me… and the joining of those two Powers swept from the crown on my head down my entire body in a wave that was, and was more than, the summation of the two of us. It was something new, something vast, and it surged down into my core, swift, hot, sharp, slick waves and then across and into him, and then up and I felt it move…

No. I felt me move. I moved into him, and in him, through him and then again, it pushed…no I pushed through the crown of his head and into me again and… and the silver fire raged on, and on, coursing through us, down my spine from the crown of my head, back down to the very core of my being and into him, no, into us, starting the cycle all over again, feeding on itself…

His name rose keening on my lips, hands sliding lower on him, down his back, to his backside to clutch even tighter, and he groaned something unintelligible between my breasts as he rolled his hips, grinding himself against me without restraint, and I didn't care who heard us. And still the Power expanded and I didn't know how long it would go and how far it would take us and if I could even stop it from building further and further until it consumed us in its silver fire…

It burst, waves upon waves upon waves of Power, cresting with the rhythm of our cries. With a final stuttering of my core I felt him shake and come apart against me: hoarse cry, hot quiver, wet slickness, undone. My entire body clenched and seized, throwing me into an arc, everything in me trying to cope with what was happening...

Understanding came in a blinding flash, the understanding of something that was hidden and shut and bound and now it was free.

I was free.

What I was and who I was and why I was… my mind expanding on the waves of this extasy that was brought to me the only way, the only way, by him, only him and…

The world went white and silent for a moment that was eternity, and all eternity was in that moment. There was no time, and time had no meaning if I willed it; here, now, or forever, it was all the same because this here was my world and this here was me and…

NO. This, here was Us.

There was a binding. There was a deep, clanging sound much like a bell in my mind and the knowledge that I was no longer alone there expanded with the same speed as the silver fire subsided into lapping waves of contentment.

There was an entanglement of limbs and skin against skin, warmth, sweat and slick and slowing breath…

…and time and a place, and words. A name.

"That was…" I heard myself murmur, shakily, into his collarbone. "You were…" I tried again. "We are…"

"Mmm." A rumble in my ear, felt all the way to my bones; then, clearly as that bell earlier, in my mind, his voice.

We are.

I sat up, scrambling back on the bed, my head hitting the headboard with a loud thud. I stared at Casavir with what I knew was utter incredulity.

"Did you just…talk to me in my head?" My lips went dry, watching him to pull himself up to sitting across me and nod slowly.

"What in the Hells was that?"

He tilted his head to a side, wonder and amusement in his gaze in equal measure, and something else too, something that was making me feel hot all over again and utterly vulnerable at the same time. He took a breath, eyes closing and the words were there again, his voice, in my mind.

That was… Us. The Path of the Silver Fire. It can happen.

But…how? My scrambling mind threw that up without sounds, the thought cast wildly at him, hoping. This is the ritual's outcome? That…is that what we did?

No, that's not what we did… There was definite amusement and now I felt myself blushing; I watched his hand reach out, curl around my trembling fingers on the quilt. Please don't make me spell it out in precise details. It was one of the possibilities.

"Holy names, all of them," It slipped out of my lips, still staring, watching his lips curl into a smile that was, I knew now, something I will crave to see more than anything else. "Some binding…"

"Some binding," he nodded, hand sliding up my arm, my shoulder, to my cheek. "Your Powers, mostly."

I seem to recall you've been there, too, I thought at him, carelessly, and slid forward, answering the slight pull of his hand and the irresistible call of his beautiful, beautiful lips.

And I still am, I heard his chuckle, as his lips danced across mine, lightly. Just a moment, though.

He rolled off the bed in one smooth motion, and I watched, half horrified still, half approving, as he shed his remaining clothes (the memory flashed into me and I swallowed… hot, slick, wet…) without hesitation, flipping the quilted coverlet back and arranging himself back on the bed most agreeably before I even had the time to blush further.

His consideration for my comfort moved me almost to tears, along with his newfound disregard of propriety.

I burrowed to his side, still in the last vestiges of my own clothing, but losing my stocking as fast as I could, gathering all my courage to tangle my limbs with his and pillow my head on his chest.

"Well. This may make things easier when you leave for Neverwinter." I voiced that out loud, my hands moving curiously and with new boldness across his body with slow caresses.

I felt his quiet laughter all the way down my toes.

"Trust you to see the practical applications of…this immediately, my lady." Underneath the scars he wore as testimonies of all his battles, his skin was smooth and soft, the muscles like steel cording underneath. I couldn't get enough of the feeling of him against me, despite the newness of it. "Yes, this may help us to communicate where otherwise it would be impossible, indeed."

"Mmm." It was my turn to be inchoate; turning my head slightly, I placed a kiss on his chest above his heart and I felt him shiver.

"Are you all right, then…with…this?" he asked in a whisper, the cadences of uncertainty clear in his voice.

With us? I thought at him, his nearness, and the warmth of him rapidly robbing me from deep thoughts and from analyzing what may have just happened. I am absolutely all right with us, Casavir.

Oh. Good. The relief was almost visible the way his aura rippled through with paler shades of periwinkle and bright turquoise. I was rather forward, after all, and for a bit I was afraid that…

"The forwardness… if you wish to call it that, really, was mutual, I assure you." I think I snorted. "Please don't make me think too much right now. Right here, right now, with you…this is the best place I can be," I lifted my head, one hand sliding to smooth that wayward lock of his hair out of his forehead.

This is wonderful. You are wonderful. All of what happened was wonderful. Even though I have no clue what exactly happened and how, I admitted grudgingly at least that much, in thought.

"Ah, my lady." His rumbling laughter was back and my absolutely, irrationally wide smile in response, too. He craned his neck and kissed my nose. "It is my fervent wish then, that we should be in the position of…acquainting you with more such happenings, very, very soon."

My other hand skimmed lower on his body and he inhaled sharply at my inquisitiveness, but didn't still my questing fingers.

"I should certainly hope so," I breathed, but stalled my curiosity, sensing, and enjoying the strengthening of our already, undoubtedly existing bonds instead of proceeding further.

I knew he would not stop me, but…

Not now.

The thought was clearer than many others, breaking through with an almost audible sound and I saw Casavir's eyes widen.

Not now what? He felt confused, his muscles under my hands less relaxed, the steel cords of his lower abdomen tightening. Is there…

"Dammit, no; nothing is amiss, everything is fine and I'm not embarrassed or feeling uncomfortable the least." I huffed, but his chuckle in my head stopped me.

Meum mel. Lies. Paladins.

"All right, fine, yes. A bit." I threw an arm and leg across him for good measure, pulling his torso against me as if he was a particularly large and warm pillow. "But clues and analysis can wait, that's all. I have to remind myself that all the time, don't you know? Further… explorations can also wait, there is only so much bonding this swamp girl can take. Right. Can we sleep now?" I asked in what I was fully aware was my most imperious voice, then added, "Please?" in thought, a lot softer.

As you wish, my lady, he sent, fingers combing soothingly in my hair, coming to rest at the nape of my neck. I made a small sound and burrowed even tighter against him, feeling an arm curve around me gently but surely.

My entire body seemed to melt and the lassitude I've felt, I knew with a certainty, was mirrored in him. I could feel his contentment radiating across our bond in soothing, luminous ripples.

Before sleep claimed me entirely, I thought I could still hear his voice in my mind with a final whisper. The memory of that I took with me to sustain me for many lonely nights and bleak days afterwards.

Sleep well my lady.

Sleep well, my love.