Disclaimer: Bioware owns all, except what I most humbly create. While, at times, I will take verbatim from the game, I mostly use the events of the Dragon Age games, expansions and universe as a loose structure around which to construct my re-imagined tale. If you are looking for a strict canon piece, I have no desire to offend, and so I warn you upfront!
When reading this tale, I hope you can easily imagine it being told by the very best of storytellers in Varric (from DA:2). In my version of events, Varric meets "The Hero" (my Elissa Cousland) in Kirkwall during the time period of DA:2. I mention this only so that readers can understand his connection along the way, and so I don't have to mention and rehash it again and again as I make my way through the tale.
A/N: Shorter chapter here, but I had to break it in half to keep it logical (at least in my opinion).
Muse Music: Hurricane by 30 Seconds to Mars.
I'm going to add the "Antivan" translations at the end so I don't give spoilers here :)
Thanks to my readers, followers and reviewers! (I think I look forward to seeing what you think almost as much as you seem to look forward to the updates!) And thanks to my wonderful Lady Beta artemiskat.
Happy Reading!
-Frayed One
Chapter Twelve: Stone the Crow
"You know, as much as I've enjoyed the whole less is more look you've been sporting during our journey home, I hope you realize this armor is beyond repair." Anders quipped, reaching up to help Elissa down from the horse they'd shared for the ride back to The Keep.
The mare Elissa had chosen for Anders was difficult to startle which made it perfect for a novice rider. It also seemed to make it perfect for carrying the living dead, as it had born Justice without so much as a twitch.
"I know…" Elissa tsked, flipping the shredded bits of her leggings about with annoyance as Anders handed their reins over to the stable hands. "Wade is going to kill me! This was crafted from Archdemon scale. He called it his master work."
"Elissa… you're going to want to see this." Nathaniel rumbled, motioning her over to the rear door of the stables so that she could get a clear look at what had caused his concern.
"Maker! There are at least fifty people gathered out there, and are those pitchforks?" Anders muttered, shaking his head as the rest of their party gathered behind them. "I never thought I'd see an actual pitchfork toting mob, but… there they are."
"What do you suppose they want?" Sigrun asked, trying to get a better look at them.
"Blast if I know." Elissa sighed, rubbing her face and then glaring at Nathaniel. "What do you think, Lord Howe? Something else your father did or didn't do while he was off trying to conquer the world, come back to bite me right in the ass?" He started to respond, but she waved him off with an annoyed flick of her wrist. "You know what, don't even bother… I don't want to hear the excuse. Let's just go see what the angry mob has to say, shall we?"
Nathaniel lagged to the back of their group, fuming with a mix of his own ire at Elissa's latest jab at him and the bits of her own fury he could sense feeding into him across their bond. It was apparent that they would have to find some way to disconnect themselves somewhat. It would be impossible to function with such a raw torrent of emotion pumping between them, even if the chosen emotion wasn't always anger.
The crowd started to mutter even louder at their approach, picking Elissa out among the group and hurling threats and insults in her direction. She weathered them as best she could, keeping her face neutral and her tone even though everything coursing through her and into Nathaniel was pure venom.
"Thank the Maker you finally arrived!" Seneschal Varel said, leaning over to bend her ear for a moment as Captain Garavel paced beside him. "Things were really starting to get out of hand. They didn't seem to believe you weren't holed up inside refusing to speak with them."
"Our children are starving while you lot horde the bounty brought by the sweat off our brows!" a haggard looking man at the front of the group cried out, taking an angry step forward toward Elissa until he was stopped by a nearby guardsman. "Open your granaries and feed your bloody people, Arlessa!"
"Is this true? Have we been storing all the crops away within The Keep's granaries?" Elissa asked, turning a furious glare in the direction of her Seneschal and Guard Captain.
"We have been following the directive of the previous Arl, altered slightly to account for the increased appetites of the Wardens." Garavel replied, attempting to remain calm though it was obvious her temper had rattled him. "What can be spared to the general populace, has already been distributed."
"Let me make this very clear, as it has apparently not been obvious how I feel about the previous Arl and anything he deemed to be a reasonable way with which to treat the lives for which he was responsible." Elissa hissed, glaring at the men and making sure that her voice carried out over the crowd who silenced rapidly in order to hear her. "Arl Howe was a despicable man and a sad excuse for a ruler. That he ever managed to gain and retain control of anything is beyond my capacity for understanding, but I know that he ruled those holdings using fear and malice. I was raised in Highever where my father taught me to respect your land and love your people. If you hold a man's heart, you hold his loyalty. Fear only ever results in betrayal. Now, you will open the granaries…"
"I'm sorry, Commander, but I must object. Think what you will about Arl Howe, but much of Amaranthine is blighted. If we open the granaries, we set ourselves up to starve once winter sets in." Garavel retorted, stepping forward to challenge her.
"I am not done speaking, Captain. You will stand down." Elissa spat, watching the man recoil back from her. "Open the granaries and send these people home with rationed amounts for the coming weeks. Tomorrow I will sit down with you all and we will work out some sort of balance that will allow us to put away enough to get us through the coming winter without starving off the entire countryside in the process."
"Maker bless you, Commander!" the haggard man cried out, spurring up a rousing cheer from the others gathered nearby.
"Wait! Do not cheer me yet, I am not done speaking." Elissa said, turning to the crowd though she backed down her fury slightly. "My men are right to tell you that the land is blighted, and that the months ahead of us will not be easy. I will do what I can to ease this burden, but I must also trust that you will do your parts as well." The muttering began immediately, people attempting to puzzle out what she was insinuating before she raised her hands to silence them as she began to speak again. "Am I right to assume there are hunting restrictions and bans in place, also set by the previous Arl?"
"Yes, your Ladyship." A woman near the front replied, and Elissa caught a nod from Nathaniel that verified as much.
"They are no longer. I will have scouts evaluate the wild populations of Amaranthine and set up a proper hunting rotation as soon as possible. In the mean time, I ask that you kill with intelligence and take only what you need." Elissa continued, sending another round of applause up among the stunned populace. "If you can hunt, help to provide for those who cannot. If you can cook, share a meal with your neighbor. If you can do neither, find someone who can teach you or come to me and I shall show you myself. Gone is the time for selfishness and separation. We must work together to rebuild what The Blight and The Civil War have taken from us all and to weather the coming storms. Fereldens are like stone! We do not break beneath the weight of our burdens… they break on us!"
Nathaniel looked out across the sea of faces, watching the group that had been so set on having her head now gathered closer to her singing her praises and reaching out to touch her as she gave instructions to Varel to organize a distribution for the food they would send out tonight. She should have felt elation or at least some sort of relief after managing to neutralize a mob so set on hating her, but all Nathaniel could feel from her was a muddled mix of sorrow, fury and exhaustion.
"If you give a mob a rooster, they'll take the coop next time." Varel admonished, though his face was gentle and his voice held no animosity.
"I do plan to put limitations in place, Varel. I'm not just handing everything over to them and leaving us with nothing." Elissa replied, pursing her lips in response to his gentle critique. "But those people were motivated by fear and hunger, and those are powerful alone much less combined. I cannot risk civil unrest when we've already got talking darkspawn to deal with."
"This mob did not organize itself against you, Commander." Garavel insisted, risking her wrath by approaching her again. "As you said, Arl Howe wielded fear as a weapon to keep his subjects in line. They would never have come here were they not prodded by someone working against you."
"Which brings me to the next thing you don't want to hear…" Varel interjected, listening to Elissa's sigh as she folded her arms over her chest and waited for whatever else had gone wrong while she'd been away. "Before all this mess began, a group of nobles arrived. They're in the throne room waiting to speak with you."
"Bloody hell… can I at least change out of my shredded armor? Perhaps take a bath?" Elissa whined, watching the Seneschal fold his arms across his chest and raise an eyebrow in response. "I didn't think so… fine… lead on. Let's finish this great steaming pile of a week off in style."
When Elissa walked through the door behind Varel, she was unsurprised to see Bann Esmerelle standing at the forefront of the group waiting to see her. What did surprise her was the fact that the woman, and all of those with her, were dressed in armor and bearing weapons in lieu of their usual fancy gowns and tunics.
"Esmerelle." Elissa said, attempting to offer her most convincing smile to the woman and noting the shift in her companions as they became suspicious of the group themselves. "How wonderful to see you, and in such lovely armor."
"It is nice, isn't it?" the Bann smirked, stroking at the sleeves. "Would that I could say the same for yours."
"Ah, yes. Sadly stabbing large demonic blood mages to death in the Blackmarsh takes its toll even on Archdemon scale." Elissa shrugged, twittering in false laughter.
"How proud your father would have been to see you standing in front of the upper crust of Ferelden covered in dirt and half your armor." The woman snorted, rolling her eyes. "And your mother… poor dear Eleanor must be…"
"Oh, Mother stopped rolling over in her grave long ago, I'd imagine. She'd be having a very unrestful afterlife, otherwise." Elissa interrupted, her voice still calm and polite though malice glittered dangerously in the green of her eyes. "But surely you didn't come here to exchange witty, but rather inappropriate, dialogue about my long murdered family."
"Straight to the point, just as a woman should be." Esmerelle replied with a low laugh. "I am here about the good Arl. The good Arl you killed."
"You're still loyal to Father? Knowing everything he did?" Nathaniel interjected, working his way to Elissa's side.
"Rendon was good to us. Good to me in particular." Esmerelle smirked, turning her eyes to him. "And you, Nathaniel... you truly are your mother's child. So completely disappointing in every possible way." She laughed, watching him take a step forward only to be stopped by Elissa's hand on his arm. "It will be nice to give him both your life and your murdering whore's in return for all he has given to me."
The room devolved into insanity soon after, both Esmerelle and Elissa's groups arming themselves and diving headlong into battle. Elissa herself was set upon almost immediately by two masked assassins and the hateful Bann. It took a remarkable amount of effort to sidle her way through their furious attacks, until she started to recognize a pattern within them.
"Crows, Esmerelle?" Elissa chuckled, watching the woman's smirk shift from haughty to concerned as she began to mimic the motions of her attackers flawlessly blocking their every blow as though she could read their minds. "Honestly? Do you lot ever do your research? I spent the entire Blight traveling with an Antivan assassin. Did you think I hadn't learned a thing or two from him during that time?"
It didn't take long to incapacitate the two assassins after that as she and Zevran had worked out several twists to the dances he had taught her that these men had no way of knowing about. As the second man dropped to the floor at her feet, Elissa grinned at the Bann and she watched her scramble back away from her toward the dais at the rear of the chamber.
From Nathaniel's position near the back of the room he could see many things that Elissa could not, namely the archer who had taken a spot of his own behind a pillar just in front and to the right side of the dais. The man took no shots at all, focused singularly on his target – the Warden-Commander. Nathaniel had tried several times to get a clean shot at him in between keeping anyone from interfering with Anders, but had been unable to do so.
He watched as the assassin continued to struggle to get an easy target on Elissa, relieved when her movements in fighting kept her from becoming still long enough for him to do so. Once the second of her targets had fallen, he felt the wave of confidence wash over her, as she seemed to see no threat in Esmerelle herself. He tried reaching out to her with his mind as she had in the Blackmarsh, but whatever efforts she had made to seal herself off from him appeared to be effective as she had no reaction to it at all.
"Elissa!" Nathaniel called out, trying to get her attention over the noise in the room – but it was useless. She had tunnel vision now, led only by her rage.
"Go, I can keep these at bay!" Sigrun yelled to him, dashing over to his side to take up a defensive position in front of Anders.
Nathaniel popped a quick shot off in the archer's direction, knowing he would not hit the man but hoping that the arrow hitting wood just in front of his face would distract him from taking his own shot long enough for him to reach his destination.
"I'm curious, Esmerelle… how did you even manage to get the Crows to accept another contract for me?" Elissa asked, dodging her blows easily enough to make idle conversation. "I was given the impression that I'd killed so many of them at this point they'd given up on that bounty."
"Oh, you'd be surprised what the right amount of coin can make people forget." The Bann laughed, continuing to retreat toward the rear of the room.
"I know how much it cost Rendon and Loghain to put out those contracts on myself and Alistair during the Blight. I wasn't aware someone of your station had access to that kind of financial backing." Elissa snorted, grinning when the woman swatted out in rage in response to her taunts.
"Once again you are arrogant enough to assume you know everything there is to know." Esmerelle barked, breathing harder as Elissa increased the pace of her advances slightly.
"Do correct me then, please. I'm always looking to learn from my elders." Elissa retorted, blocking two blows sent in her direction.
"I have paid for nothing. I am merely the facade, child, meant to mislead. Something I have done quite well judging by the look on your face." The Bann laughed, her grin widening as Elissa's faltered. "Even now you focus on me when your attention should be elsewhere. I thank you for that."
"What…" Elissa started, seeing the movement from the corner of her eye and hearing the distinct twang of a bowstring a second too late. "Shit."
She wondered if she could repeat the snatching the arrow from the air trick she'd somehow pulled out in the dungeons weeks before, but doubted it as she'd no idea how she managed to do it then. Esmerelle advanced on her then, knowing she could not block her blows and dodge or deflect the incoming arrow.
Elissa turned her shoulder inward, hoping to take the shot in the place it would do the least damage though she knew she would sacrifice the use of an arm in the process. She heard the hiss of the arrow and braced herself for the pain that should have followed the audible pop of its tip piercing flesh, but felt nothing.
When she opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder, Nathaniel was standing there with an arrow protruding through his upper chest – his own bow clattering to the floor as he reached up to grab his now useless arm with his good hand.
Elissa reached out for him, helping to stabilize him against her right side as she used her left sword to block Esmerelle's attacks as best she could. In her periphery she could see another of the Crows shifting in behind the woman, and began to panic – looking around the room to see if any of her other companions were free and paying enough attention to see that she and Nathaniel were in dire need of assistance. It was then that she caught the assassin's eyes just long enough to see a familiar wink through the slight gap in his mask.
As The Bann assumed he was there to aid in her assault, she paid the man no mind – making it easy for him to sidle up to her and open her throat in a subtle sweep, easing her down to the floor and moving back into the fray.
"Did that assassin just…" Nathaniel started, groaning and starting to cough as Elissa eased him to the floor on the dais, turning the ornate throne to the side to provide what cover for him she could.
"Stay here and don't try to talk. You've punctured a lung." Elissa instructed, reaching up to wipe a thumb across his lips and show him the blood there in the hopes that would help him to listen this time. "I'll be back with Anders as soon as we've cleared the rest."
He watched her move back into the room after that, losing sight of her a few minutes later and unable to move enough to see what was going on behind him. The sounds of battle grew increasingly more silent as all of the remaining nobles and Crows fell. When he heard footsteps later he was not surprised to see Elissa come around the corner with Anders in tow, the rest filtering in behind them as they were able.
Elissa knelt down in front of him, holding his eyes as she grabbed the tip of the arrow and broke it off in her hand with no warning.
"Ergh! Bloody Maker's balls, Elissa! That hurt!" Nathaniel hissed, continuing to groan as she tilted him forward intent on pulling the shaft of the arrow out.
"Being shot with an arrow hurts, so does having it removed." Elissa replied, yanking the shaft out and ignoring the pain when he latched his hand down around her knee squeezing hard to keep himself from giving her the satisfaction of crying out again.
She waved Anders over with the tilt of her head, not releasing Nathaniel's eyes as she stood and crossed her arms in frustration. It was obvious to everyone that she was furious with him, though only Nathaniel could read her well enough to know that she was also terrified of what could have happened had that shot gone lower.
"The muscle and joints are going to be sore for a few days, but the arrow wasn't poisoned and went in clean. It will heal fine with minimal scarring." Anders said, proud of his work as he stood with a smile and turned to help Nathaniel to his feet.
"You are an archer, you idiot." Elissa muttered, when he came to stand across from her, shaking out his shoulder. "What were you thinking sacrificing an arm?"
"A riot and an assassination attempt! You certainly know how to keep things lively, Commander." Sigrun quipped, stopping Nathaniel's response and bringing some much needed levity to the heavy air of the room.
"I should never have let that simpering prune in here, Commander." Varel said, wincing as Elissa came over to inspect the grazing blow he'd taken to his forearm before calling Anders in to heal it. "I failed you. It won't happen again."
"You failed at nothing, Varel. The riot was sent here as a distraction – and a well orchestrated one at that." Elissa replied, refusing to allow the man to feel guilty for something even she had misread from the very beginning. "Search the bodies, you should find a contract somewhere if this was an actual Crow assault. It will be signed by whomever paid the bounty."
"You won't find one." A very familiar voice said, turning all eyes but Elissa's to the man emerging from the shadows. "This was not officially sanctioned."
"Who? Where?" Anders said, turning in circles and trying to decide if he should be afraid or not. "Weren't you just trying to kill us?"
"Me, no." the man laughed, pulling lose his mask and revealing his face and tousled mop of blonde hair as he came to stand in front of Elissa. "I tried to kill this lovely lady once, years ago. Failed miserably. Never tried again."
"Lei non ha idea quanto voglio baciarla proprio ora lei l'uomo magnifico." Elissa muttered, grabbing his face with both hands and leaning her forehead against his.
"Queste labbra sono delle vostri, poiché mai sono stati, il mio Custode." The man replied, reaching up to take her face in his hands and tracing his thumb around the edge of her bottom lip. "Chi mi sono di evitare l'inevitabile?"
"Cheeky bastard." Elissa said, tilting his head down and kissing his forehead affectionately before wrapping her arm around his shoulder and turning them both out of the room. "You all are dismissed. Wash up, eat, mingle. You're free until tomorrow morning." She called back in afterthought, focused completely on her rapid exchange with the newcomer.
"Can anyone explain what just happened?" Anders asked, watching as the blonde elf reached down to grab a handful of Elissa's ass before she corrected him back to her waistline. "Well... that was forward... who is that?"
"That is Zevran." Oghren chuckled, heading for the rear door himself. "And this little party just got a whole lot more interesting."
Anders followed behind, escorting Justice to the unoccupied rooms so that he could claim one for his own, leaving Nathaniel and Sigrun to round out the group.
"Does she know?" Sigrun asked, pulling Nathaniel out of his focused attempts to read anything from Elissa as she had long disappeared into the halls with the assassin.
"Does she know what?" Nathaniel replied, making his features as blank as possible and hoping the sharp little woman hadn't been able to make out what he'd been doing.
"That you speak Antivan?" Sigrun answered, sighing in annoyance.
"You speak Antivan?" Nathaniel asked, surprised that a dwarf – particularly a member of the Legion that was never meant to exit the bowels of the earth – would know any foreign tongues.
"No, but I spend enough time watching you to know that you do." Sigrun replied with a wink, "And I spend enough time watching her to know if she finds out before you tell her, it isn't going to help you mend whatever fences you haven't already managed to smash beyond repair."
"I'm fighting for her because I love her!" Nathaniel retorted, coming to a stop and turning to grumble angrily down at her. "I'm sorry if I don't always go about it to your liking. Love isn't a logical thing and Elissa… she… she…"
"Easy, hot stuff! I'm on your side…" Sigrun said, holding up her hands in surrender and smiling at him as his temper cooled. "I mean… I'd rather be on your top or bottom… but I'll take the side for now."
Nathaniel flushed, still breathing heavily from the temper that had risen within him moments before – but his anger was no match for the perky little woman tracing lazy circles on his arm and smirking up at him.
"There is something very wrong about you." Nathaniel replied, unable to contain his laughter.
"Give me one chance and I'll make it oh so right…" Sigrun retorted, smacking the back of his leg and setting him back in motion behind the others.
"What would you do if I took you up on that?" Nathaniel answered, raising an eyebrow at her as he folded his arms across his chest.
"You mean after I had you screaming my name in however many different languages it is you speak?" Sigrun retorted, watching him flush even more red than he had already been.
"Alright, alright… bluff called. Enough! I concede." Nathaniel laughed, shaking his head. "Seriously, Sigrun. Thank you. You're probably my only friend here. Maker... you're my only friend anywhere, come to think of it."
"No need to thank me. This isn't exactly altruistic after all. I mean I get to look at you when you blush all pretty like a school girl…" Sigrun laughed, winking at him as he flushed again. "But you can talk to me, anytime. Maybe practice some of the things you're thinking about saying to the Commander before you actually say them?"
"Am I really that bad?" Nathaniel asked, stopping and turning to her as he ran a hand through his hair.
"It's kind of painful to watch." Sigrun replied, nodding her head with a soft pat to his arm. "I mean, she's no better… but I'm not going to tell her that."
"I… we used to be good at this! We used to stand in these very walls and talk for hours about anything… everything." Nathaniel said, leaning back against the wall and letting out a breath. "I just don't know how it got to be this way… I don't know how we became these people who can't speak to one another without trying to inflict pain."
"From what I've managed to piece together there was some killing, some lying, a large span of time and a King involved in that – but I don't think any of those things are the root of the problem here." Sigrun replied, leaning beside him. "I think the main issue is you keep talking to her as though she's the girl you knew before instead of trying to get to know the woman she became. A lot changes in ten years, Nate… even for people who aren't The Hero of Ferelden."
"I refuse to believe that the girl I fell in love with is gone. I can still see her there, when she isn't trying to hide it away." Nathaniel replied, shaking his head in frustration.
"I'm not telling you she's gone. We are who we are at the core, that never changes. What I'm telling you is that she grew up, as did you." Sigrun continued, stepping in front of him and refusing to be dissuaded. "Instead of trying to force yourselves to go back in time to reclaim what you lost – which, can never happen by they way – maybe you need to try to get to know her, as she is now, and let her get to know you? If there's one thing dwarves know it's that you don't rebuild on foundations that have been damaged beyond repair. You start over."
"So, what? I'm supposed to pretend I don't spend every waking, and non-waking moment thinking of her? I'm supposed to pretend I don't still love her with every fiber of my being?" Nathaniel snorted, tensing his jaw, "I'm a terrible actor, she'll never buy it. We read each other too well, even without the newest… complications…"
"I'm not suggesting you should do any of that. I'm merely saying perhaps consider using a less heavy handed approach." Sigrun said with a shrug. "No one goes from crawling to sprinting in a day. And, from what I've heard, this Warden deal is kind of a 'til death sort of bargain. I think you've got time to play out your hand."
"And while I'm playing out my hand, she's off marrying the King." Nathaniel replied, dropping his head back against the wall with a thud.
"She hasn't yet, and as long as she hasn't… then you've got time." Sigrun replied, undaunted. "Look, whatever it is you've been trying to do isn't working. Be her friend again, then work your way up to the steamier bits."
"Maybe you're right." Nathaniel sighed, looking down to her.
"I'm always right…" Sigrun answered with a wink, tugging him down the hall. "And… if I'm wrong… my bed is always open."
When Nathaniel woke, it was in the aftermath of a horrific nightmare. He'd witnessed a conversation between another of the talking darkspawn and the thing that was calling itself The Mother. He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to slow his heart rate and his breathing and make sense of what he'd seen so that he could relay it to the others in the morning.
He heard the soft pat of footsteps moving by his door and up the stairs to the ramparts a few moments later, and he didn't have to try to reach out through their bond to know it was Elissa. He'd sensed her there in the dream, watching from a distance just as he was. He toyed with the idea of letting it wait, finally flipping himself out of bed and dressing before he headed up to the ramparts himself.
"Welcome to my nightmare…" Elissa said, not even bothering to turn to him as he came through the door behind her. She'd known it was him the same way he knew it was her who passed his door.
"You see things like that often?" Nathaniel asked, moving to sit in the space beside her and hang his feet off over the wall.
"More often than I care to think on." she snorted, taking a long pull off of the bottle in her hand before offering it to him. "And now you get to see them too. Just one more pleasant side effect of our imaginary soul merging sexcapades. Bet you're wishing you could take that all back right about now."
"I owe you an apology." he said, drinking from what she offered and clearing his throat when it was stronger than the last he'd tried.
"No need. You were right. I was there too. I knew who you were, but I let it happen anyway. This is my fault too." Elissa responded, leaning back on her arms and staring out into the night. "Just leave it. It's fine."
"There is a need, Elissa – and nothing about this… nothing about any of this is fine. Not for you, and certainly not for me." Nathaniel answered, drinking again and then putting the bottle down between them. "When I returned from the Free Marches… I returned for you. Father sent me a letter saying you were dead, but I didn't believe it. I disobeyed his wishes and came back here looking for the truth… but the country was in chaos. I-I didn't know who to trust… I thought you were dead…." He turned to look at her then, and found her watching him. Her green eyes twinkling in the moonlight, full of something he couldn't quite name. "I didn't come back at the end of The Blight, Elissa. I've been here the whole time. I was there the day you killed my father…"
"I know." she said, watching his eyes go wide. "Your father told me when we were fighting."
"My father? But… I never even spoke to him until he was nearly dead?" he answered, shaking his head.
"Rendon had spies everywhere. Someone saw you, heard you… doesn't matter now. He knew. He told me he only kept you alive so that I could watch him kill you." Elissa said, her voice trembling with rage at the memory. "He… he made me so angry… I made mistakes. A lot of the blood on the floor around him was mine."
"He cut you?" Nathaniel asked, and Elissa could see the fury in his eyes. "Where?"
She traced her finger from the back of her knee, up the inside of her thigh, coming to a stop just below her pelvis. The gesture was disturbingly erotic to both of them, though it was certainly not meant to be.
"In his defense, I had just severed his spinal cord." she said with a broken laugh, trying to fight down the attraction she still felt for Nathaniel no matter how hard she fought against it.
"He sent me to kill you, and he knew… the whole time he knew it was you!" he lost it then, laughing so hard it brought tears to his eyes and drinking a lot more from her bottle. "I was always so certain he wasn't the monster you thought he was… that my family name was destroyed because he chose the wrong allies in a Civil War. But my father, he did it to himself. No conspiracies, no demons in the wings… just one stupid, selfish, greedy man. I am an idiot. I should have known better."
"How could you have known? What child wants to believe their parents capable of such atrocities?" Elissa replied, reaching over to touch his hand and holding his eyes when he looked at her without flinching. "He was your father, Nathaniel… and he trained you well. He knew you would never see it, because you would never even think to look as long as he held you at arms' length. You were a good man then, and you are a good man now. Your father sent you away because he was afraid of that."
"How can you be so sure of that? After everything we've been through… everything I keep putting you through? I am my father's son, Elissa… and there are times when I can feel that darkness tugging at me." Nathaniel asked, flipping his hand over to take hers into it.
"I give as good as I get." she snorted, rolling her eyes when he laughed in return. "And there is… so much damage between us… but, I know your heart, Nathaniel. You are a good man. That will never change so long as you remember it."
She pulled her hand away a few moments later, turning her eyes back to the night sky.
"While we're spilling our secrets, I should probably also tell you that I speak Antivan." he offered, taking another pull off the bottle and settling in beside her – the heat from their skin radiating out across the inches between them.
"I knew that too." Elissa laughed, taking the bottle from his fingers and drinking herself.
"You did not!" Nathaniel snorted, rolling his eyes.
"Il primo Antivan che mai ho imparato aveva ragione laggiù a sedici" she replied, pointing to the far end of the wall. "E la sarebbe stato cacciando le bolle di sapone per una settimana mi hanno avuto mai ha rivelato che ha insegnato esso a me." She laughed as she watched the memory register in his mind. "Then, Fergus married an Antivan. She taught me more to keep my mind off things after you… well, after your father ended our relationship. And then… I traveled with an Antivan Crow for the better part of two years."
"Is there anything you don't know?" he chuckled, shaking his head.
"I don't know how to fix this." Elissa answered, her laughter trailing off as she became serious again and held his eyes with an intensity that brought chills to his skin.
"We don't. We can't." Nathaniel replied, his body shaking a bit as he resisted the urge to kiss her. "We start again, as friends, and work from there."
"Can you do that? Forget what we had, what we were, everything that's happened between us and just be my friend?" she asked, and Nathaniel could feel her trying to read him.
"You can stop trying so hard, I won't keep you from peeking inside my head." he answered, arching an eyebrow at her. "I wouldn't lie even if I could. I love you. I will always love you. But… I would rather be your friend than lose you completely."
"I want so badly to believe you." Elissa replied, sitting up and covering her face with her hands.
"Then believe me. Read me if you need to." Nathaniel insisted, turning her toward him. "I will do whatever it takes to keep you in my life. I can't lose you again."
He ran his finger along her jaw. It was a light touch, hardly more than a whisper – but it darkened her eyes and shot up her heart rate. He felt it happen, and before he knew what was happening he was leaning in to kiss her.
"How are we to be friends if you can't go two minutes without trying to kiss me?" she asked, stopping him with her own soft hands on his face before his could join their lips.
"I never said it would be easy." he replied, clearing his throat and kissing her forehead instead before pulling away to drink again.
Translations:
1. You have no idea how much I want to kiss you right now you gorgeous man!
2. These lips are yours, as they have ever been, my Warden. Who am I to prevent the inevitable?
3. The first Antivan I ever learned was right over there at sixteen, and it would have been you coughing up soap bubbles for a week had I ever revealed who taught it to me.