I was at the castle, sitting at one of the long tables eating the chicken and dumplings that Ellena had made for lunch. Finn was here too, speaking with Baramire who would occasionally glance up at me with what I would consider a dirty look, but I couldn't be sure. I mean, I guess he probably was under the impression that I wasn't to be trusted. We definitely weren't ok, and things were still a little bit awkward but he was making a little bit of an effort to still be with me and spend time with me. So after an hour of arguing, he'd convinced me to come to the castle with him for the weekend.
"How is it Lady Annabelle?" Ellena asks with a smile.
"Very good, thank you Ellena." I return her smile. Finn glanced up at me, winking before directing his attention back to whatever he and Baramire were talking about. "What are you talking about?" I ask boldly. Finn looks up at me, and thinks things over in his head before responding.
"We are still trying to figure out, why exactly Baron has interest in the coast." He answers.
"They're probably fucking hungry." I shrug. He tilts his head at me and Baramire scoffs, shaking his own head. "Everyone and everything is just trying to survive, while you're out destroy everything that lives." I shrug. "You might have better luck asking him though instead of playing detective." I suggest.
"They all have one concern." Baramire looks at me. Finn glowers at him, but allows him to speak. "They only want our land, and what's in it." He tries to correct me.
"You're stupid." I shake my head, standing up abruptly. "If you really think that than you're either blind or so arrogant that it makes you fucking blind." I tell him, setting my plate into the bucket.
"You won't speak to me in such a tone, apologize." Baramire states.
"And you won't speak to my woman in such a tone or I'll allow her to choose the punishment." Finn growls his threat to Baramire. I only raise my eyebrows and cock and hand on my hip. I wasn't about to apologize to anyone for fucking anything.
"No one wants to steal what Finn has. What. Finn. Has. Don't think for a second that this land is yours, it's his." I tell him in a snarky tone.
"What 'we' have." Finn corrects me, motioning between the two of us.
"I'll be out with Gannicus." I tell Finn before starting to excuse myself.
"Wait, I'll come with you." Finn says, pushing his chair back. "If you step out of line like that again, I will have to find a suitable punishment Baramire." He warns him.
"Yes, sir." He responds through gritted teeth. Finn's hand is on my lower back as we walked out of the castle.
"You truly think that he's that hungry, that he would travel through another portal to get food?" Finn questions. He'd been watching me play with Gannicus for a few quiet minutes. I glance up at him, and wonder if maybe that icey heart of his is starting to melt.
"I mean I can't say that. I know that he's gone to lengths to find food for the pack before, so I was just kind of guessing." I shrug, giving Gannicus a chin scratch. My little dragon wasn't my little dragon anymore. He was now the same size as Dillon. He would still lay himself in the grass and cuddle with me though. "Can I ask you something and you not get mad?" I look up at him.
"Yes." He nods.
"Why did you let Baron and the others go? When we got back from my parents." I ask him curiously.
"Because it was greatly important to you." He sighs. "I know you'd taken to him, and you'd never forgive me if I'd have killed him. Your happiness is important to me." He states.
"Baron is my friend." I agree, "So is Solomon." I inform him.
"I hate it, so much." He grumbles. "You need to watch your back around both of them. I don't trust either of them." He warns me, his blue eyes staring seriously at my green ones.
"Funny... They tell me the same thing about you." I tell him, earning a scoff. "So... do you want to talk about this and try and find a happy medium with me?" I ask him. "You know I'm not totally opposed to those dungeons right? LIke you haven't even asked me."
"You've made it very clear that you support no such thing." He shakes his head. "You're speaking in circles." He tells me.
"Ok... Yeah I did say that." I agree slowly. "But there's always exceptions to the rules. Like Baramire for example. If you wanted to maybe tie him from the ceiling by his toe nails I probably wouldn't argue with you about it." I shrug and he chuckles, shaking his head. "Seriously though... I mean if they've seriously done something really horrible then we can probably work something out. But Solomon hadn't done anything. You took him because you thought he'd tell you stuff about Baron. That's stupid. But... If he rampages through town, burning families houses to the ground, killing women and children then yeah, tie the bitch up and beat his ass for how ever long." I shrug simply. "You're using the dungeons for, like, your own personal pleasure, and it's a little sickening." I admit.
"I can understand why you would feel that way." He agrees. Just by his face I could tell that he was at least listening to what I had to say, and trying to digest it with a more open mind.
"Have you let anything in the dungeons go back home yet?" I ask hopefully.
"I have not." He answers curtly.
"Why the fuck not?" I exclaim. "I'd like a list of everything down there, and what said thing did to deserve such horrible treatment." I tell him. "And we can decide together what stays and what can go home." I suggest. I thought that was reasonable, couples make decisions together right?
"I don't think so." He shakes his head.
"And you say that I drive you crazy?" I scoff. "You drive me fucking crazy. I can't fucking handle it." I grumble, pushing myself up off the ground. "Go back in your home Gannicus." I say to the dragon currently giving me baby eyes. "Go on..." I chuckle, watching him retreat. He gives my face a nuzzle, shoots a look at Finn, snorts at Finn and retreats back into his space.
"I'm supposed to just, 'let things go'?" He questions, stopping me from walking away.
"Yes. Just let shit go." I say, becoming annoyed.
"You realize that 'just letting things go' as you call it isn't that easy. Do you realize how many creatures I have in the dungeon that actually have committed a crime, horrible crimes, that would have absolutely zero problem rallying an army to come back here and destroy everything I've worked 650 years to protect?" He questions. My shoulders slump slightly, I actually hadn't really thought about that.
"And what of the creatures like Solomon, that you took just to take?" I ask him. We stare at each other for a moment before he finally sighs. His eyes retreat to the grass before back up to my greens.
"I will consider sending them home." He finally agrees.
"None of this considering crap." I put a hand on my hip.
"I will let them go home." He corrects himself. "But one at a time, so they can not conspire against me." He adds a stipulation.
"Fine." I agree. I guess that if you let out a huge group of creatures you've been torturing for however long together... They might rage out against you. I'll give him that one.
"Did we just agree on something?" He asks cheekily.
"We did." I chuckle, leaning into him as he wrapped an arm around my shoulder.
***...***...***
I was laying across my bed, watching old episodes of some show when Finn flung the door open. He's angry, but it's a calm angry, if that makes any sense. I raise my eyebrows at him.
"What?" I ask him, turning the TV down.
"Will you please... Stop going down in those damn dungeons?!" He started off soft, but the longer the sentence went the louder he got.
"I haven't been in them since Solomon." I furrow my eyebrows at him. "I swear." I add. This time, I was telling the truth. I haven't been back down here. He stares at me for a few seconds before letting out a long sigh.
"Was Solomon, the only one down there you spoke with?" He asks me. His tone was still calm, he was trying to not lose his shit and talk to me as a 'reasonable adult' as I called it earlier.
"Yes." I nod.
"Ok." He states and takes a few seconds to take another breath. "Then please explain to me, why Baramire has found more of these stupid hair pins littered around the dungeons?" He questions, tossing a handful of like 5 or 6 on my nightstand. I stare at them. I didn't know what kind of answer he wanted, because I honestly didn't know.
"I don't know." I shrug. "Maybe Baramire is trying to set me up to get in trouble." I rattled that off before I could even think about it.
"Don't you dare accuse my second in command of such treason" He basically growled from deep in his throat. In my mind, it made sense. If Baramire didn't like me... Which I was starting to get that feeling with how he's been treating me lately, then why wouldn't he plant junk somewhere to try and either get rid of me or get me into more trouble.
"I should be your second in command." Was all I replied with. I was actually getting kind of bitter about that subject. I know it was stupid, but I don't care.
"You're my woman." He corrects me.
"Which should automatically put me second in command, and Baramire, third." I say cockily. "I don't know what you want me to fucking say. I haven't been down there anymore, shit we've only been to the castle that one time over the weekend since all this junk went down." I exclaim, throwing my hands up in the air. "And you had to drag me there." I add, crossing my arms over my chest.
"Why would Baramire wish to get you into trouble with me?" He questions, tilting his head slightly and trying to understand. He also conviently ignored my second in command rant.
"I don't know." I sigh.
"It's rubbish. They must've just been kicked around a little." He makes an excuse for me. Wait, did he actually just believe me when I said I wasn't down there?
"Yeah. Kicked around." I nod slowly. I was thinking 'you're a fucking idiot' but I was trying to make it not look like that.
"Stop that..." He growls. He knew exactly what I was thinking, in the short time we've been together he could read me like a book.
"Someone of yours is trying to get me in trouble Finn. I don't know why, but how else does my junk go from one side of the dungeons to the complete opposite?" i ask him, putting a hand on my hip. "Sorry, it doesn't just get kicked around." I shake my head.
"I'll get to the bottom of it." He assures me.
"Yeah." I grumble. I crawl back into my bed, pulling the covers up over me and up to my chin.
"You don't believe I will?" He questions, raising his eyebrows at me.
"I don't understand why you came in here, guns blazing about this dungeons stuff when you should have come in here, calmly and asked me nicely about my hair pins. You just assumed I was down there." I tell him frustrated.
"Can you blame me for my assumption?" He smirks.
"No..." I mutter.
"Ok." He replies softly. He crawls up the bed next to me and lays down. "What are we watching?" He asks, nuzzling my ear.
"Hemlock Grove." I answer. He replies with 'hmmm?' which was his way of saying, 'what'? "It's a science fiction TV series with werewolves and vampire things." I shrug.
"Science fiction." He chuckles. "There's no such thing." He murmurs.
"In my world there is." I rebut. "I like this show." I grumble at him.
"Ok." I hear the smile in his voice and let out a little chuckle.
***...***...***
"Doll...?" I hear Solomon's voice call into my kitchen from the sliding glass door.
"Doll?" That voice was Finn's, actually that was more of a growl.
"Be nice!" I call from upstairs. I bounce down the steps and walk into the kitchen where both guys were having a stare down. "I'm so proud of both of you. You've been in the same space for 30 seconds and no one is bleeding or dead." I smile between them. "Hey Sol." I greet him.
"Anymore bruises I should see?" Solomon asks with a hint of arrogance in his voice.
"Watch your fucking mouth." Finn rumbles.
"Stop it." I point a finger at Finn, and back him up a step or two. "And you, knock it off. Does your visit have a purpose?" I ask Solomon.
"Nah, not really. Just felt like dropping in and saying 'hi'." He shrugs in response. He glances behind me to Finn, then back to me. "So, hey." He grins.
"Hey." I chuckle. Part of me was glad that Solomon had came by when Finn was here, because I kinda wanted Finn to see him and see that I was friends with him. Icing on the cake would be Baron though. I"m not sure that Finn realizes how close I've gotten with him, he was basically like a brother to me now.
"You're busy with your boyfriend, I won't stay." He tells me.
"Good." Finn mumbles, rolling his eyes behind me.
"If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." I glance back at my demon, who again, rolled his eyes at me but turned on his heel and walked off into the living room. "See you later?" I ask Sol.
"Of course, doll." He nods, already backed out my door a few steps. "Later." He winks before walking off in the backyard.
"I really hate him." I hear Finn say from the living room.
"I know you do." I sigh, leaning against the door frame and looking at him. "So... Are you going to let some creatures go here soon?" I ask him, crossing my arms over my chest.
"I'll have you know, that I let out 3 yesterday." He shoots back at me. I raise my eyebrows, impressed.
"How do I know that you're not lying to me?" I ask him, this time biting my lip.
"You can come with me for the next round." He shrugs simply.
"I'm holding you to that, and the next round better be soon." I add. I wasn't going to give up on this, letting go creatures that didn't need to be in the dungeon was a deal breaker for me.
"Why did he just show up like that?" He grumbles. He was clearly upset with the fact that Solomon had basically walked in through my back door without so much as a knock.
"Because I said he could, Baron is also allowed to show up at the house. Not like they can freaking call." I explain, "I let you show up at my house." I rebut.
"I'm your man." He states, unimpressed.
"Still." I shrug. "You also showed up in my dreams uninvited for months." I add with a smirk. "They're just my friends, can I be friends with them and you not make a bitch fit out of it?" I sigh, sitting on the couch next to him.
"Fine." Was his short response. "You know I could just get you a snake and you could name it Solomon." He suggests in a playful tone.
"You're such a dick." I laugh, shoving his shoulder.
"You love me anyway." He smiles.
"Ugh. I do." I agree.
A/N: Literally the most boring chapter I've written for this story. Lol I apologize. Bare with me, it'll get better!