Of Masquerades and Misdirection [Lise]

[.:[Crim]:.]

Crim Harrowmont

Crim Stalked off and sat on a nearby outcropping of rock shortly after Tellen laid down, He was tempted to join her on the floor of the world and sleep the day's cares away. Yet someone had to guard their camp and as they were literally just off the road it would be grossly easy to find them. Unsheathing his bow and laying it across his lap he fiddled with the hawk feather fletching of his arrows. The cross-legged figure remained almost a stature except for his eyes. They had divided the moonlight vista into four quadrants and actively scanned all four in search of things that were amiss. Being half-elven had its benefits as Crim could see as if it was daylight and not moonlight that lit their encampment.

Crim watched with a curious eye as he noticed all the wildlife in the area, Several mice and snakes played their hilarious game of hide and seek in the twilight hours. The snakes seemed to win often as every fifteen minutes or so Crim would see the sudden strike out of the corner of his eye. He was fascinated with snakes, they were a delightful creature and he observed them closely during the night.

Several hours passed and it was into the early morning where the pink first reaches its feather soft touch to horizon. Deciding that Crim should get some sleep he silently stalked over to the open ground on the other side of the fire from Tellen. He threw himself on his stomach, laid his head against his forearm and entered his waking dreams. For some odd reason he had a dream that night that was dancing in a room filled with people wearing masks.

The next day started easily enough. Crim woke early, earlier than Tellen. It had only been an hour or so since he laid down but Crim felt rested and that was fine by him. Having no paper to leave a note Crim Quickly wrote a message in the dirt by his now vacant sleeping spot "went out hunting, please be here if you wake up before I return." he gathered his gear and donned his heavy cloak before moving silently to join the morning hunters in the scramble for food.

Hunting alongside this massive road, with a lake to one side and the mountains to the other was easy. Animals from all around came and gathered at Lake Woadark. Crim moved silently among the somewhat open plain in between the road and the lake. Several animals didn't even notice as Crim silently ghosted from shadow to hillock, from slight stand of grass to the nearby bush.

Crim suddenly made himself visible to the road when he stopped, slightly behind a birch tree. He had daybreak drawn and its massive figure was easily more noticeable then he. His target this time was a rather large fox. The meat might not taste as good as rabbit but Crim could smoke the meat and provide them with food for several days.

The white arrow released from the bow as if hungry for the sky, its fletching ruffled the wind as it flew towards its target. The shaft and arrowhead seemed to quiver with delight as they passed into the sky. The bone white coloring of the shaft was etched with just one word in the ancient language 'flauga' And fly it did.

The arrow passed many trees, coming within a hairsbreadth of striking against one, when suddenly the trip ended and it buried its razor sharp head into the eye of the fox, which had turned hearing a strange thrum. Crim moved quickly after the arrow and when he noticed the perfection of his shot he was pleased. It had been one of moderate difficultly. Using a broader arrowhead from his quiver he cleaned the animal and wrapped the new cuts of meat in the skin and proceeded to walk back to their encampment.


Crim was surprised when he looked at the distant horizon and found that his entire trip had taken him less than twenty minutes. Tellen was still asleep ((NOTE: feel free to have her be awake and gone I can modify accordingly)) and Crim drew some comfort at the fact that he had stopped and gathered a medium sized pile of walnuts while hunting.


And so it was that in the still wee hours of the morning that Crim drew out the container of oil and proceeded to painstakingly apply it to his gear. His bow was the hardest as he had to apply the oil a certain way, he did so expertly and it was only a matter of a half an hour before he was done with his bow. He then took every arrow he had and did them, mainly just the arrowheads. Yet Crim checked the shafts and fletching too. he noticed that only one of them was slightly bent and he decided he would just get rid of it instead of try to fix the thing. he carried plenty of arrows and probably wouldn't need to make more anytime soon.

Right before Crim tossed that arrow to the side he noticed it was one of his broad heads, somewhat oval in shape and insanely sharp. Crim decided he would use the new ligaments he had taken from the fox and fashion himself a crude dagger. He finished that project a few hours later and at last heard Tellen start to move around

"Good morning Mi'lady, Did you sleep well, I cooked you breakfast"

[Lisenet]

Tellen first heard it once, faintly,
As she was rolling her cloak up to use as a headrest to sleep on, glad that it was summer and she didn't have to choose between warmth and comfort. She'd made the choice readily enough before--discomfort never killed a man, but the cold surely would--but it was always a good night of rest when she didn't have to choose. But the sound....she'd heard it once before. A faint bleat off in the blue-green distance. It took several minutes of half-aware sleepiness to remember it. As soon as she did she groaned, rolling out of her warm spot in the grass, rubbing the muscle she hadn't realized she'd pulled, and started off into the hills without any more glance around herself than to recognize that Crim had ambled off too. Good for him. The morning was the best time of day. But since when did he get up before she did? Tellen scowled at this, liking the way she always got up before him, as it gave her a chance to think. She briefly entertained the thought of purposely rising even earlier than she already did just to maintain her status of being the first one up every day. But since she doubted that Crim would do anything she disapproved of while she was sleeping, she didn't have the ambition to bother.

There it came again, the petulant cry. It could have been a child and in a way she supposed it was. Finding the tiny fawn wasn't as difficult as she knew it could have been, but spots stood out in the waving stripes of grass. It stood on wobbling, spindly legs as soon as she got within reaching distance of it, and bleated again. Tellen crouched and wasted no time in running a gentle hand over the back of its skull. Fawns had fat deposits there and when they hadn't suckled recently they became depleted, showing dimples there instead of smooth fur. Noting the lack of deposits, the feces dried into the undersides of its tail, and the dry-looking eyes, Tellen deemed the dawn abandoned and scooped it under her arm and took it to the river.

Using a swatch of moss, Tellen scrubbed the poo off the irritated and slightly baffled creature, dried her (she had checked) with the hem of her cloak, squeezed some water down the fawn's throat, and brought it back to camp. There she wrapped it up in the dry part of the cloak and coaxed some soggy bread down its throat next, before acknowledging that she wasn't done with sleep and curling up around the bundle to finish doing so.

She didn't hear Crim come into camp, but the fawn did and began to squirm. Tellen hauled herself over next to the small fire, her new bundle in her lap, and rubbed at the back of her next. Crim wasn't likely to be pleased that she'd picked up a stray. He didn't seem the fostering type.

"Morning,"[\b] she agreed. "What did you catch?"[\b] The fawn squirmed in her lap at the smell of the cooked meat and Tellen reached into her cloak to loosen it but not let it wiggle free. "I found her east of here. You can tell they're abandoned when you can tell the back of their skull without feeling it."[\b] She looked up. "I promise she won't slow us down. I know you're eager to visit with all the puffed up lords and ladies."[\b]

[.:[Crim]:.]

Crim sighed as he walked into camp and saw that Tellen had found a fawn, it was not what he expected. It did prove for some amusement as he heard that it would not slow them down. Crim looked at Tellen and then the fawn. she looked happy to have found it, and he would not betray her happiness. deciding that saying nothing was the best answer he set himself about his usual ablutions.
And so it was that in the still wee hours of the morning that Crim drew out the container of oil and proceeded to painstakingly apply it to his gear. His bow was the hardest as he had to apply the oil a certain way, he did so expertly and it was only a matter of a half an hour before he was done with his bow. He then took every arrow he had and did them, mainly just the arrowheads. After that Crim checked the shafts and fletching too, he noticed that only one of them was slightly bent and he decided he would just get rid of it instead of try to fix the thing. he carried plenty of arrows and probably wouldn't need to make more anytime soon.

Right before Crim tossed that arrow to the side he noticed it was one of his broad heads, somewhat oval in shape and insanely sharp. Crim decided he would use the new ligaments he had taken from the fox and fashion himself a crude dagger. He finished that project a few hours later and at last decided to breech the silence.

"The fawn may slow us down, but I think the extra company will do us some good, besides if she is alert to my presence entering the camp we won't have to sleep in shifts anymore. Now then" he pointed to the pile of walnuts. "shall we dye my hair now, and let it really sink in and maybe do more as we progress north?"
Crim went and sat on his shins besides the pile of walnuts, obviously waiting for Tellen to instruct him on how to dye his hair.

[Lisenet]

Out of the corner of her eye, Tellen watched Crim work with interest. She preferred to do her small maintenance tasks--when she had any--at night so she could sleep knowing they were clean. But it was nice to wake up and watch them come to gleam under your hands as well. And no detail missed his steady gaze, either. He could probably glance into a bucket of ladybugs and tell you how many spots they boasted together. Perhaps she should ask him to sometime, just to see. She wondered if he would be able to. She wondered if he would try just because she'd asked.

"We won't have to sleep in shifts anymore."

Tellen whipped her head around to stare at him, scowling, the wide grass lump in her lap going still. "You've been staying up?" How dare he. "That's not fair." The fawn nibbled at her finger so she dug some bread out of her satchel, soaked it with water from her flask and held it out to her, consciously making the effort not to name it until she was firmly convinced that it would survive. The fawn suckled wetly at her thumb and Tellen patted its back absently. "Can't your fancy ears warn you if anyone's sneaking up on us? They've got a wonderful track record so far."

But she tied off her grass ends and beckoned for the walnuts, crumpled, black and wizened, the way she imagined an old man's face would look if he planted it in his garden, six months and a wet spring later. When he handed them over, she tossed them in the tightly woven basket along with the last of her water and nudged the basket into the hot coals left over from their fire. "We'll just let that stew a bit. Comb out your hair and take off anything you don't want to risk staining. Walnut will last for weeks in hair, months on skin and halfway to forever on cloth." She gave the basket a jiggle, watching the walnuts dissolve, and wondered how she would dye his hair without dying her hands.

She finally decided to wash her hands soon after the dying and hope for the best. The water and nuts had turned into a thin, dark sludge by the time she gestured for Crim to lie down so gravity would be in her favor, set the placid fawn aside, and scooted over to sit next to him with the basket. If his hair wasn't knotted all he would have to do would be not to move too much. "This only needs to set for about half an hour," she said, guessing that he wouldn't care for just lying there for an extended period of time. She cupped some of the goop in her hands and combed it loosely through his hair, trying to keep it off his scalp and hide all of his old man hair too. "Why do you keep your hair so long?" she wanted to know then. "It would be simpler to keep it short."

[.:[Crim]:.]

Crim smiled inwardly to himself and cast his eyes about while they talked. It really was a beautiful part of the country. The green permeated the land and brought with it the other colors of summer. Flowers grew in large wild blotches along the road. “You’ve been staying up?” Crim chuckled loudly, flashing a roguish grin he shot back “why do you think you’re the first one up every morning? Besides now we have the fawn, he can simply alert us if there is anything nearby, and yes my ears could alert us, but I do like my sleep.” He sighed as she asked him to take off everything he didn’t want stained by the walnut juice.

Crim stripped his shirt and tunic away from his chest revealing to the midsummer sky the figure of the bowman. The sun alighted on his skin and caressed him with its warm touch. Moving with purpose he moved to kneel beside Tellen and he felt her automatically start dying his hair. And thus he sat with his back to her while she worked on the rear of his head. She asked a question and Crim responded “If you must know I just like my hair long.” He winced as she yanked his hair back trying to get the underside of it

Crim sat and sang to himself a song while she worked, adjusting his position as she needed, her hands ran through his hair and he could tell that they were getting stained themselves. While crim was waiting patiently he began to notce that Tellen running her slender fingers through his hair was actually quite relaxing. His mind wandered and he felt it hard to concentrate on the occasional question that she asked him.

When the adventure of dying his hair was all done and it had dried Crim made to get up and stretch his legs around the small camp they had. He did so still bare-chested as he waved his arms to and fro and shook out his legs. Every time he walked by Tellen he noticed that she would usually look the other way from him.

But there was the once when having noticed some hawk in the sky Crim sighted upwards and mis-stepped. He just happened to come crashing down across poor Tellen. he knew he was fairly light and that he would not hurt her, yet he was still surprised when her brown orbs met his mismatched ones. they were close, as close as they had been when.... Crim's finger snaked forward and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear before he quickly righted himself and started pacing again. he was shouting mentally at himself the whole while

‘ah blast, she’s still mad about this whole thing, not only that but she has to introduce me to her parents. I wonder how she is really feeling right now. I could ask her but I don’t really feel like making her mad. Besides her emotions are her own, I will not demand to know them. I have not the right.’

Dusk fell shortly thereafter and it plunged the world in which the two traveled into semi darkness. The sun still sending streaks of rosy ready screaming over the hilltops, in the east the moon began to rise. Crim loved looking at the moon and he spent much of that night engaged in short talk with Tellen or gazing at the simple beauty. It was a lovely half circle, the blue white seemed the perfect color, not to harsh and not to bright. He stared at it for several minutes before asking Tellen over the fire which roasted the fox.

“Tellen, what do you think of the moon? And why do you think that” He asked in his melodic voice, it was even more mesmerizing than usual as he was engrossed in the moon. He waited for answer and was happy when he received it. Some hours later Tellen fell asleep and Crim also fell into his waking dreams.

Early the next morning, before Tellen rose, Crim was meandering through the plains that surrounded the camp looking for something to occupy his time. The fawn accompanied him with a wayward push from his mind. He did not mean the fawn harm, and it knew as such and followed him quietly. The two strolled around the countryside each taking some kind of comfort in each other’s presence.

When the entire party was up, fed and watered and ready to go they set out for the day. Crim hoped they could make at least a few leagues that day as he knew that the solstice was fast approaching. When they stopped for lunch Crim purposely placed himself closer to Tellen than usual, forcing her to look up to see him. “Now, about that dance...” his voice trailed off and his roguish smile flashed somewhat innocently.

[Lisenet]

Tellen wanted to chew her own tongue off when Crim did as she’d recommended and in a ridiculously short amount of time—considering all those buckles and straps—had stripped down to his trousers. She had always been an honest admirer of muscle, and her new ‘husband’ didn’t disappoint. She disappointed her own, more ‘natural’ desires, by erring on the side of caution and being careful not to look at him for too long. As soon as he sat himself down in front of her she shook her fingers through his pale hair once or twice to rid it of the last couple tangles, then began the tedious process of dying all of his hair and none of his skin. She couldn’t help lightly touching the back of his oddly-shaped ear, just once, when she found it. She hadn’t ever seen them clearly before, just briefly, like shy fish creeping out of seaweed. In the most clinical and objective of ways she wanted to look at him longer, but the drier half of her common sense reminded her that men saw fondling in a very different way than did women, possibly this one in particular.

”You may have a few white ones left I haven’t gotten,” she mused, using a bit of tough grass to knot his hair neatly at the back of his head where it would dry without resting on his well-formed back, in the depression between a pair of shoulder blades shaped like wings. He got up, and she rubbed her hands into some turned soil next to her seat, grimacing at the red-green color embedding itself into her skin. With some surprise she found that the dirt soaked up the dye quite well, and she scrubbed at them all the merrier. Attending so enthusiastically to her brown hands made it easier not to attend enthusiastically to the way the muscle on Crim’s bones slid smoothly underneath his skin. Crim paced like she’d kept him sitting for hours, craning to watch the sky for who-knew-what—impending doom, possibly. He was certainly the more wary of the two of them. Watchful as Tellen may be—at times—she preferred being casually cautious to worrisomely wary, so if Crim wanted to be the wary one, she welcomed him to it.

When she heard his stride slip, she glanced up just in time to watch him tumbling into her. She threw her hands up with a yelp, but not quickly enough to stop his shoulders from pushing hers back until she was flattened on the grass, his elbows on either side of her.

Tellen rolled her eyes at him. ”I thought elves were supposed to be graceful?” she demanded, squirming, adamantly thinking more about the hard ground at her back than the hard chest at her front. It was the only way she maintained any coherency at all, and she would not become one of those blibbering nitwits who lost complete control over themselves in the presence of a well-shaped man, species regardless.

He seemed to find amusement with her declaration, and he nudged a stray lock of knotted hair—she almost never bothered to brush it when she traveled—back into its respective place out of her eyes. Before she had a chance to scowl at him as she felt she should have, he had bounded lightly back to his feet and resumed his restive pacing while he waited for his hair to dry.

Eventually Tellen scraped the majority of the juice off her hands and prayed the rest would fade quickly, Crim washed out the excess dye from his hair—now a handsome, dark brownish-red—and they settled down into evening. Tellen periodically poked at the roasting fox meat with her knees drawn up, toes warming at the fire’s edge, and Crim watched the moon rise with an avid eye. ”What do you think of the moon?” She lifted her gaze, observing it for several minutes. It was only a half-moon, waxing slowly and growing each evening, but it glowed a lovely pale blue. She thought it looked almost like a dewdrop poised on the edge of the evening, ready to slip off and shatter at any moment on the indiscernible horizon. Briefly her thoughts took a sideways turn as she wondered if anyone had ever thought the stars were the pieces of the moons who had shattered before, and a new one just bloomed each month, but she knew better, and that ruined the fantasy of it.

Resting her chin on one knee, she said, ”It looks like it’s waiting for something.”

”Why do you think that?”

”Oh,” she sighed, ”it just looks a little like a drop of water to me, sitting on a leaf or something, waiting for the wind to blow just right or the conditions to turn favorable before it slips down and falls. It’s only a half, so maybe it’s waiting for another piece. Maybe it lost that piece or maybe it’s never had it. I don’t know. It’s just….on the edge of something. It’s not ready yet.” She tucked her forehead into her knees, faintly embarrassed by her ludicrous explanation.

It wasn’t until the next day that she felt embarrassed again—twice in one full day, how awful. Embarrassment was not a condition with which she was familiar. But Crim stepped just a little closer to her than he usually did and she took a step back and was instantly irritated with herself. She should have stood her ground, but she’d retreated like a frightened animal. Tellen had taught herself better.

”Now, about that dance.” He grinned.

”What?” She remembered, and she groaned. ”Damn. You’ve got to learn at least a few before we get there. Thank goodness you’re not the woman in this relationship, or you’d have to learn them all.” Men were rarely asked by women to dance, and therefore could control how much they wanted to do it. At the risk of causing offense, many women had to dance every time they were asked, especially by a stranger. And the only person in Carvalla to whom Crim wouldn’t be a stranger was herself. ”Well,” she began briskly, ”what do you want to begin with? Fast, slow, or in between?” She hadn’t practiced them in years, but her mother had drilled them into her so frequently Tellen thought she could do the man’s part as well if she had to. ”All right, for most dances your hands will remain about the same.” She stepped back into the space he had taken and she had left, and lifted each of his hands. ”Here, and here,” she said, placing one each on her waist and in her own hand, planting her free one on his shoulder. ”This arrangement generally won’t change.”

Then she began to hum a few bars, so he could hear the pace, and explained the simpler step of this particular dance, nudging his feet around with light pushes of her toes on his ankles, and explaining as best she could how each step went. Turns had been her least favorite part when she’d learned all of these parts. She could never remember which way to do it. But Mother had flicked icy water droplets into her face every time she turned the wrong way, and finally she’d learned. Alternately humming, snapping her fingers, and giving instructions, they fumbled their way through the first dance while the fawn—which she had half carried and half let walk, as fawns didn’t walk much until they were older and stronger—watched them with large, liquid brown eyes. Lucky deer. It didn’t have the right number of feet for dancing lessons.

[.:[Crim]:.]

Crim danced and twirled at Tellen’s cue, as if a show pony being put through their paces. He laughed talked comfortably with her as she instructed him. He noticed several times where exactly his hands were and his face would flush and he would look away from those brown orbs. Those darn orbs seemed like magnets however as the duo turned slowly in the light of moon and fire. As the tune Tellen was humming started getting slower and slower Crim could hardly stop looking into them and gathering what courage he had he spun her all the more slowly then gently yanked on her arm, pulling her towards him. Caught in mid spin she crashed to him with her back supported by his tall frame. Looking down with mismatched eyes and now black hair he kissed the brow of her head and whispered “Thank you”

[/i] in the ancient language.

Disengaging himself after a few long moments of holding her there he returned to the campfire and quickly banked the fire so that they may go to sleep. Sleep did not come easy for either of them with their dance lesson still fresh in both of their minds, or at least Crim thought as much, images and feelings swirled through Crim’s head and he lost himself in thought staring half the time at the moon and half the time at the figure across the fire with her back to him.

It was a few hours later when the moon had fully risen and he heard Tellen’s deep breathing fill the campsite that he stirred from his spot on the long prairie grass. Ghosting into the night he wandered aimlessly thinking of things and what they had become since he had left his home. Unbidden images of his father and mother leapt to the forefront of his mind and the anguish he still felt for it suddenly weighted his consciousness. His eyes watered suddenly and he kicked rather angrily at a shrub that dared grow where he was walking.

So it was that night upon the endless plain, cloaked in the silvery blue of the moon that Crim for the first time since leaving openly wept for his parents. All of his memories of them came flooding into him as he tried to quell the sea of emotion. He wasn’t quite sure in his anguish but he could have sworn thinking about it later that the new ‘urge’ had been aching with his mind as well. He hoped it hadn’t woken or hurt Tellen in some way. Looking back towards camp Crim was surprised to see how far he had walked and how quickly. He was somewhat used to traveling at human speed now and was aware that he must have been tearing across the countryside. The fire was no more than a pinprick in the distance.

Sighing Crim took a more wandering route back to camp and found himself thinking of now his parents, his journey, and that one person who lay across the fire. The stars and the crescent moon twinkled down at him and unbidden Tellen’s words flew to his mind
”it just looks a little like a drop of water to me, sitting on a leaf or something, waiting for the wind to blow just right or the conditions to turn favorable before it slips down and falls. It’s only a half, so maybe it’s waiting for another piece. Maybe it lost that piece or maybe it’s never had it. I don’t know. It’s just….on the edge of something. It’s not ready yet.”

Crim smiled inwardly as he thought this was perhaps one of the most beautiful ways he had ever heard someone describe the moon. As he looked at it now he could see perfectly what she had mentioned. It was in doing this that something clicked deep inside of him and the last grief of his parents was washed away, even if it was just for now.

Having arrived back at camp well before sunup Crim decided to get some sleep and not mention his little excursion. One of the last things he saw before falling asleep was the fawn looking at him with interested eyes. Nudging the creatures mind with his he imparted one line ‘our little secret’ and then promptly closed his eyes and fell asleep.

A few hours passed and the sun soon shone weakly in the pre morning mist. Crim was already up and running. He had decided to exercise in the wee hours of the morning and get it done before Tellen arose. His boots softly made a rapid thud on the ground as he practically soared across the countryside in a white black blur. His tunic and all its straps served little purpose other than to clank and creak as his legs pounded and sweat started to shine on his tawny skin. Running as he had not in such a long time was exhilarating and his mind reveled in the physical activity. Deciding that he had gone far enough he turned back so that the half distance mark was the perfect work out. When he got back to camp he quickly dropped to his hands and did a good number of push-ups. It had been so long since his last work out he started to lose himself in it. Unbeknownst to him he had awaken Tellen doing the second half of his routine, and when she pointed out this fact her hurriedly stopped what he was doing and was embarrassed.

Tellen cooked them a fine breakfast using the fox from the night before and a few eggs that she had found while going through the shrubs nearby. They stopped and each took their turn as they dipped themselves in the nearby river, thankful for its cold and that they could get clean. Shortly after that they set north and the leagues melted before them as if some unknown force was propelling them. The trail flew from underneath them as they laughed, and joked, and talked warmly with one another. They soon realized it was already time for dinner and stopped for the night.

As Tellen set the fire and started on dinner Crim was hastily looking through the folds of his tunic. Exclaiming slightly he handed Tellen something that when she opened her small hand found to be the puzzle ring he had once teased her with. Chuckling and laughing slightly he spoke softly saying “let’s see if you can solve it before Caravalla shall we?” However before she could truly enjoy the gift Crim stepped over to where she was sitting atop a stump near the fire and pulled her up to stand with him. One hand on her waist and one hand on hers He quickly led them through the dance she had drilled into him previously. He was surprised that he remembered it all and he did occasionally make a mistake. That night ended the same way, with an awkward slow down in tempo and a few long stares, although this time there was no physical contact as Crim felt he may have overstepped his bounds on that one.

Again they slept into the night. Crim was actually fast asleep in his waking dreams when he woke groggily. Noticing that his ‘urge’ felt as if it was aching. Crim glanced to the other side of the stoked and dying fire to see a figure wrapped somewhat tightly in a blanket and he sighed. Maybe she was just having a bad dream. He contented himself with this answer and rolled over, asleep before his shoulder hit the ground.

Early the next morning Crim awoke before Tellen and again set to his calisthenics routine. This time he was careful to not wake Tellen as he did crunches and pushups in camp. Breakfast was cold this morning as the fire had gone truly out and neither of them felt like finding more fuel for just breakfast. They set off into the north once again and this time the conversation was somewhat warmer between them. Although he now noticed that Tellen was sometimes more terse with him than usual. She also snapped at him once when he asked what he thought was a simple question. Playing it off somewhat contentedly Crim was sure that it was due to the fact that they were fast approaching a city that she did not want to be at.

The next week and two days passed in a style similar to this and on the eve of that final day Crim heard a sudden exclamation and looked to the figure across the fire. It was the puzzle ring, she had solved it and was showing it off, pleased with herself. Congratulating her Crim joined in her small triumph before dancing with her. This time however as the tunes slowed down and Crim reflected that he had not made a mistake he went farther than he had the previous nights. Pulling her tightly to him after that last twirl he caught her in his arms, her facing towards him. The moon which was their silent sentinel shone lightly down upon her small form as it looked upwards for his eyes. Gripping her a bit tighter he flashed a comforting smile. "Tellen, I pretty much gather that you don’t want to be in this accursed place but please just know that I am here for you. I know you may still think this is the curse, but the curse was to find misery. I do not know how you feel for sure, but this time traveling with you has been, well the happiest time I’ve had in many years" as if it was a closing statement he slowly lowered his head to hers so that she may pull away if she wished and kissed her softly. Again as before the urge within his chest suddenly flowed through his body and he felt hers do the same.

After that dance they had both slept through the night and Crim woke and was doing his usual morning calisthenics when he noticed something off in the horizon, closer than he thought he quickly did the math in his head and was somewhat surprised. Caravalla. It dominated his sightlines now that he saw it and he was quick to notice things with his half-elven eyes that he was amazed at. The city was massive and nestled itself into the valley between the mighty spine and the nearby sea. He was astounded to see a tower on the very apex of a mountain as well, he assumed that it must belong to riders as only dragons would be able to reach those heights. It was clear to him now that the long and arduous climb up a very narrow very steep track had led them to this spot.

They camped just once more and noticing that Tellen was in a particularly bad mood Crim suggested that they skipped the dance lessons that night. They both slept on their respective sides of the fire and the dawn found them sooner than it should have. Awaking before Tellen Crim set himself to cleaning up camp as quietly as possible. When Tellen woke they set off quickly and it was soon apparent that they traveled on busy roads and people were also heading their direction. Tellen stepped in front of Crim when the road became an official cobblestone road and not a dirt path and led him through the surrounding countryside. Estates of all sizes adorned the flanks of this long and winding road and suddenly as if stopping unbidden Tellen motioned for him to come closer. Opening the gate with one had as Crim had taken the other to offer her support Tellen stepped into her family’s estate for the first time in what Crim was sure must have felt like ages.

Crim quickly set his eyes around the lavish yet quaint estate and saw that it was both fancy and not at the same time. It was not nearly as large as some of the ones they had passed but it was still fairly intricate and the arcs and lines of the building and her supports pleased crim. Tellen guided them through the sunlight drive and stopped at the nearby stable and bedded the fawn there. Making small talk and asking questions Crim accompanied her as he felt her shoulders getting more and more tense by the second.

Wanting to put her at least somewhat at ease he suggested they go visit her goslings, she agreed and he soon traversed the small path to the pond and was attacked by the handful of geese. They were affectionate animals and Crim could see plainly by the way she played with them that this had been a good suggestion. The afternoon quickly found them with its warmer sun and more amber light and they made their way to her front door. Crim offered his hand in support and they stepped forward.[/blockquote][/blockquote]

[Lisenet]

gShe hadn’t expected him to do anything more than listen to her instructions, so Tellen was both slightly shamed with herself for never thinking he might be having thoughts of his own, and pleasantly surprised to see where his led. She hadn’t expected him to pull her back into him, and when she twisted to look back at him, waiting for an explanation, he lightly kissed her forehead. ”Thank you.” Even if she wasn’t already fluent she would have understood the gratitude behind his words. But what was he thanking her for? Teaching him the ways of her family’s people would save him from humiliation at the ball, but in doing that she also saved herself. No woman wanted a fool for a husband, or even a man who was perceived as one even if she knew entirely better.

But now he just held her there, his hands at her waist and chest at her back, warming her against the cooled evening air. If she was supposed to say something after him she didn’t know what it would be. Just leaning there together seemed to function equally well without words, though she couldn’t speak for Crim. Soon enough he had gone to the fire and she stood alone, one hand cupping her waist where the fabric was already turning cold.

Sleep that night came easily, but by the early hours of morning she would have preferred to spend the night awake. She didn’t remember any of her dreams, but when she finally woke she was left with the nasty, slick feeling left by nightmares. The invisible slug trails of dreams that had rotted from the inside before letting their prisoner go. Coming from the bitter dreams and waking to see Crim working himself into a lather was shockingly enjoyable and she chuckled, then immediately wished he hadn’t when his dark skin darkened further under a flush of awkwardness. Resigning herself to the fact that Crim seemed determined to beat her to the morning these days, she settled herself into preparations for breakfast, since he seemed otherwise occupied.

That afternoon was delightfully sunny, so when they crossed a narrow stream Tellen suggested they clean themselves up while they had the chance. Her dress dried as she wore it, rather quickly since she was moving and keeping it warm, and she was glad that the lack of rain had given Crim a chance to keep his own cloak for a couple of days. Conversation came more and more easily with him, too, once she gave herself a stern talking to about the fact that if it wasn’t for her new and unwanted jewelry, she wouldn’t be so reserved for him. That settled, she allowed herself to ease back into the more lighthearted person she was more accustomed to being.

Tellen was shredding leaves as she supervised the frying of small chunks of whatever Crim had caught during their sojourn through the hilly grasslands when he found something small in his bizarre tunic and pressed it into her palm. Grinning she saw that it was the ring-puzzle he’d shown her…was it the days he met him? She couldn’t remember. ”What do I get if I do?” she teased before she could stall herself, in regards to his challenge to solve it. She was just in the process of settling into its glittering, shining challenge of its own when Crim snatched her hand again and drew her into the first steps of the dance she had shown him the night before, or at least one of them. She delighted to find that he was a quick learner—certainly quicker than she had been—and that in the few missteps he made he corrected himself without needing any guidance from her. That night, when their dancing lessons were finished, and Crim’s hands slipped out of hers and away from her waist, she found that she missed them. She was getting accustomed to having him near. His company was a luxury she had allowed herself to begin to value before she could teach herself not to. Damn him.

That was the night she slid slowly out of the depression she’d made in the long grasses and, after tipping the stump on its side, draped and tucked her cloak over it in such a way as it looked like she was just lying curled on her side. Tellen rarely slept that way, but she didn’t expect Crim to have accrued that sort of knowledge yet, so she was confident that her ruse would not be discovered.

The fawn didn’t like her getting up and leaving, even though it seemed to like Crim just as well as Tellen, so she didn’t complain when the skinny mammal wobbled to its needle-thin legs and stepped silently after her. There was a small spring nearby, with several moss-covered rocks guarding its beds like massive sea turtles that had fallen asleep and lost track of the centuries. Tellen settled onto a rock and the fawn settled next to her. Watching the moon and stars glitter on the dark, slick surface of the stream, she explained, ”I wasn’t supposed to get married. I left when I did so I wouldn’t have to. Mother had found a suitable match and she promised she wouldn’t force me, but she could certainly twist the situation so I’d be glad to marry out of the house just so I could have one of my own where she couldn’t tell the servants to only serve me cold food until I did as she said. She was clever, really.”

Tellen sighed, propping her chin on her knees. ”I never wanted this. But….I’m sure there are a lot of things I don’t want now that I might want if I’d known about them. Just because I don’t plan for something doesn’t mean I can’t accept it, does it? I didn’t expect to find you, either.” She lightly stroked the fawn’s knobby head. She understood the logic of what she was telling herself, but she still hadn’t decided if she wanted what she’d gotten, regardless of what she’d wanted before it arrived. Crim was….so different. She was used to people she could easily predict. He had gotten easier, now that she knew him better, but…. But. Was he interesting enough that she no longer wanted to fight the magic that bound them together? There was no way of telling how long it would last. It could last for the rest of their lives. What if they grew to hate each other?

Eventually she decided that she did like Crim, she just didn’t know how much. Since he seemed to know what he wanted, she decided that she would let him have it, as so far she hadn’t minded giving it to him. With that in mind, she trod slowly back to the camp, evicted the stump and wrapped herself back into her cloak to finish her sleep

It was just over a week of walking, jogging, hunting, cooking, talking, laughing and dancing later when Tellen finally wedged together a few golden turns she hadn’t noticed before, finally twisting the mass of rings into a single piece. She held it up with a shout of triumph, and Crim laughed with her in congratulations. She stuffed it into the only pocket of his that she could see—though she expected he had many more hidden on his many-pieced tunic, and pulled him to his feet to dance. She had just corrected him on a slightly more involved spin when he caught her closer, her chest pressed against his this time. His hand resting in the curve of her spine kept her from pulling away, but it wasn’t a restraint. For once, she wasn’t going anywhere. When he found that she wasn’t resisting, as she had tried to before, he smiled. His smiles were never as dry as hers, as tired. Each one was a new star being formed.

”Tellen….please just know that I am here for you.” Well of course he was, wasn’t he? He’d come this far. She wasn’t sure what that said about his soundness of mind, but whatever the state of his mind it had suited her so far. ”….this time traveling with you has been, well, the happiest time I’ve had in many years.” Her brows pulled together in consternation even as her lips twitched upward at the compliment. Surely his last years with his parents hadn’t been that boring, had they? Tellen readily admitted that she was not a common companion, but her eccentricities were sources of irritation to most people, not joy.

Perhaps he was crazy after all.

But she didn’t mind. Especially not when his cheek pressed warmly against hers, and she turned her face up to accept the kiss he wanted to give. She still didn’t reach for him, or to him—she was afraid for some reason that if she did he’d disappear, and she found she’d come to like him—but she tilted up to catch his mouth and kept it. Over their shoulders she might have sword the moon—three-quarters full now—was smirking. Maybe this was what it had been waiting for. If it was, it needed a new hobby.
*
As Carvala spread like a flat-looking weed on the horizon, Tellen’s scowl deepened. She led Crim through the polished cobbled streets, circling the market to avoid the traffic, and through the wrought-iron gates at the head of the drive leading to the front doors, then around to the stables. She headed to the stables, smiling and waving at the servants she recognized, and tucked the fawn into a stall in the back after a brief word with the stablemaster. He eyed Crim warily, and she recognized that his presence was the reason none of the other servants she knew had approached. Any other time they would have. Most of them were good friends of hers.

She was glad for Crim’s hand as she debated hiding in the stables a little longer, and for his suggestion to see the flock of geese they kept. Whatever goslings they might have hatched that spring would all have grown up by this time in the summer, and they wouldn’t know her, but the older birds would. Geese were smarter than anyone ever gave them credit for. She showed him to the freshwater pond on the lawn behind the house, adjacent to the stables, and held down both hands so the older ones could nibble on them in greeting. The shiny buckles on Crim’s clothes fascinated them, and they spent a good deal of time biting at them to see if they were edible.

”There’s nothing more for it,” she finally sighed, dusting goose spit off her hands and taking Crim’s once more. ”If my mother’s already spotted us she’ll be demanding to see us.” Around to the dark-painted front doors she went, pushing the gold handle down and stepping inside.

The tile floors in the large entryway had been redone since she’d last been home, and were now large, checkered black and white marble. It was a very striking look, especially with the pale green walls and gray trim. ”Mother!” she called through the house. ”I hope you haven’t written me out of your will yet!”

”Well don’t you look quite the heathen,” her mother greeted, stepping through the door from the kitchen in the back to the wide hall. Her mother smiled fondly at her wayward daughter and came to embrace her. ”Don’t you ever brush your hair?”

Tellen’s mouth twitched. ”I forget when I’m traveling. Leonie will be able to get the knots out, I’m sure.”

Her mother stepped back, arranging her slender hands on her fists. ”And who is this?”

”Mother, this is Crim Harrowmont.” Here came the fun part. She held up her left hand. ”My husband.”

Lady Valaician looked sharply from Tellen’s wedding band to her clearly unoccupied stomach, then to Crim’s face. ”Just how and when did this happen?”

Tellen took a deep breath. ”Well, Crim and I met about six months ago when he helped me push a beached porpoise back into the ocean. I saw a notice for one of the gentry looking for a lost family heirloom and since we got along so well and he seemed to think I’d get kidnapped if I traveled alone, we went looking for it. Unfortunately said heirloom had a curse on it that when we touched it, it caused us to be legally married. Even the local magistrate, whom I’d never met, confirmed it. We tried getting rid of the magic, but after spending so much time together we decided not to keep looking for the fix because, well, we came to like each other anyway.” Tellen adjusted to settle an arm around Crim’s waist and smiled up at him. They had discussed this version of events on their way here, and she was convinced her family would believe it, even after their initial astonishment. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d gotten herself into some highly improbable situation.

After the proper introductions and pleasantries had been made, feeling rather quivery on the inside and anxious and very desirous of quiet, Tellen begged leave to go take a hot bath before meeting anybody else who had arrived before the event the next night—mostly it would be family, since their estate didn’t have the room to house too many additional people—and Lady Valaician granted it, promising to have the maids ready two of the tubs shortly. Tellen gave Crim a brief tour of the house while they waited, avoiding other people as much as possible, then finally led him up the carpeted stairs to her rooms on the third floor.

They were modest, her rooms. A drawing room for all of the maidenly projects she was supposed to have immersed herself in—there were a few painted canvases hanging on the walls, and one long, unfinished one sitting underneath the window next to a few jars of paints—and a round bedroom full of windows. The drapes had been pulled back, and the dustcovers recently tugged away to reveal all of the furniture, such as an armchair, her desk, and two wardrobes. A steaming bathtub sat beneath the window, next to the empty fireplace, and another just like it had been set out in the drawing room, both with silk screens to pull around them. While distracted by the thought of an actual, hot bath, Tellen spent a moment looking around the bedroom she hadn’t used in years instead, remembering it. Cobalt blue, patterned rugs, lavender hangings in the windows, pale stone floors, pale blue walls, dark cherry furnishings. It was certainly much cleaner than she had left it, but other than that entirely undisturbed. She sighed. ”Welcome home,” she murmured quietly to herself.

Turning to Crim, she said, "You're welcome to the bath in the drawing room. Leonie will drop off some tunics I had made for you." When he was gone, Tellen scratched at the stiff laces at her back until they loosened, finally cutting the knot with her dagger because it wouldn't come loose, and shucked the dress gladly before dropping into the hot water. It stung; she wasn't used to hot water anymore, or even warm. The last warm water she'd had had been only a basin-ful. She hunched forward to scrub the sweat and dirt out of her hair. It was still a snarled mess, but at least it was clean.

"Your mother was right, you do look like a heathen." As soon as Tellen was dressed Leonie let herself in from the drawing room, with her fists on her hips. "Your hair's a right mess, don't you ever brush it?"

Tellen snorted. "You know I forget when I'm traveling. What's the point when it'll be all nasty again as soon as I get up?" She wrapped herself in a thin robe and dutifully sat before her small, mirrored vanity. "Think you can handle it?"

Leonie chortled and took up a brush, starting with the last inch of knotted hair. "Your new man is handsome."

Tellen rolled her eyes, toying with a few goose feathers the maid had pulled out of her hair. "You make it sound like I have one every month."

"Smart woman like you, you ought to. What happened since the last one?"

"I haven't seen Todd in two years, as I told you in my last letter. He's married now, remember?"

"Yes, what did you do to chase him away?"

"I turned him in to the local magistrate for unlawful carnal knowledge." She winced as Leonie yanked on a particularly solid tangle.

"Meaning you caught him visiting a whorehouse."

Tellen shrugged. "He was nice until then." Their conversation was as light and as amused as it always has been. The years hadn't changed that.

"So how'd you meet this one?"

Still toying idly with the gray-spattered feather, she rolled her eyes. "We shared a porpoise rescue."

"Aww, he helped you save a sea creature. How adorable." Finished with the untangling of Tellen's kinked hair, she began turning Tellen's hair up into a simple coif at the back of her head.

Tellen hummed agreement.

"He doesn't talk like he's from around here."

"He isn't."

"Where is he from?"

"The east."

"That's specific."

"Oh I know."

"I hear you're married."

"You hear correctly."

"So is he as handsome beneath the bathwater as he is above it?"

"Leonie! I--we haven't--our marriage wasn't what you would call traditional."

"It's a simple question, love. No need to get all hot under the collar for it."

Leonie finished with her hair and helped Tellen button herself into a simple orange dress, light, but with long sleeves. "See you after dinner?" she asked.

Tellen glanced over her shoulder to see her friend waiting with an expectant smile. "Of course."

A few minutes later she knocked on the door between her bedroom and the drawing room where Crim probably waited for her. When he called for her to come in she did so, then leaned on the doorframe with her arms crossed. "It's nice to have hot water again. Ready for dinner?"

He held something out to her, and Tellen took it curiously. It was the puzzle ring she had spent over a week solving. "Are you sure?" she asked. She smiled faintly as she slipped it onto her middle finger. Now she had two gold rings. "Thank you." She hesitated, then stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. His hand rested on her waist and she let it, standing so much closer to him than she usually did, hesitating again before she stepped briskly around him. The bell rang downstairs. "And there's the bell," she sighed, opening the door and slipping into the hall.

Her mother, father, aunt, uncle and grandmother were already there waiting for them--Adhemar wouldn't arrive until tomorrow, if he came at all--and Tellen sat across from her mother with Crim at her side. He pulled out her chair, as instructed, and she flashed him a small smile.

Her mother sipped at her glass of wine as her father stood to shake Crim's hand before he sat. "Tellen, have you been eating? You're thinner." It was true that the dress didn't fit her quite as closely as it used to.

Tellen took a healthy swallow of her own wine. "Of course, Mother. Just not on weekdays."

"So, Crim," her father began cordially. "What do you do for a living?" And that was only the beginning of the awkward questions, some of which Tellen answered, and some for which Crim had ready replies. Why are your eyebrows white? Where did you find such a unique tunic as you were wearing upon your arrival? That's an impressive bow you carry--what is the drawing weight? Where did you acquire it? May I see it again--it is quite astounding. Some of the questions weren't terribly terrifying.

And yet, others were. Her mother was the one who asked some of the most observant, and therefore horrifying, questions of all. "So Tellen, if your first wedding--pardon my bluntness--was a bit of a farce, and you have no inclination of attaining an annulment or a divorce, when will the real ceremony be?"

Tellen's tongue seemed to unravel like cut lace. "Well, Mother, that has yet to be arranged," she finally said, voice steady. It was humiliatingly clear that whatever her mother thought of the fact that Tellen had abandoned the man her mother had picked out for her, she still would sleep more satisfied when her only daughter was married. Clearly, she had little faith that Tellen could take care of herself. It was truly endearing.

"Did Tellen ever tell you she's musical?" This was from her aunt. Two red spots brought on by the wine had risen on her cheeks. "She plays four instruments. Pity she doesn't sing."

Tellen sighed, lifting a single hand to rub her temples as Crim informed them of Tellen's recent job as a music teacher. The story was half true. "Would you play, Tellen?" he asked her.

She sighed again. She couldn't resist the gentle, questioning look on his face. Folding her napkin, she settled over the seat of her chair and rose, striding carefully to the engraved, maple piano behind the head of the table. It took a little effort to remind herself not to walk like a commoner, and to walk like a lady again. The smell of the pine resin polish on the lid of the piano was both sweet and tart, a lovely green smell. She lightly touched the keys, tapping lightly through a couple of quiet scales before laying them more firmly against the slick keys.

Tellen couldn't help smiling to herself as she began an easy, straightforward, optimistic tune. These were the tunes she had learned the instrument with, and they would always have a soft spot with her fingers, but they weren't her favorites. Those were always the faster ones. As her conversation with the pale and shadowed piano keys grew closer, that of the people behind her distanced itself. She switched hands going up and down the keys swiftly, the tempo climbing, glad to have the opportunity to play again. She'd been using others' instruments for her lessons, as carrying a violin or a piano around as she traveled simply wasn't efficient. But she found herself grinning as she brought the song up from a requiem to a fast waltz, her insides feeling like laughter.

When the song abruptly finished, slowing unexpectedly just before the end, and she sat back with a small smile still on her lips. The room was quiet behind her, and uncertainly she turned.

"Well, darling," her father said with a chuckle, "you never did care for doing things slowly."

Tellen rose fluidly and kissed his cheek when she passed him. "But I learn my patience from you."

[.:[Crim]:.]

Crim did not mind being led through the pleasantries that involved Tellen’s family. He found it slightly ridiculous that her mother upon first hearing that Crim was her husband blatantly looked at Tellen’s stomach. As if he would ever try something like that. After the brief but informative introductions Crim was led around the house by a more at ease Tellen, he enjoyed her hand around his waist and he settled one around her shoulders. The house was ornate and incredibly colorful. The dining room was adorned with one long and slightly low oak table. The kitchens were vast and filled with all sorts of utensils. The tour ended in Tellen’s bedroom. She slowly undid her hand from his waist and he from her shoulders. Stepping closer he wrapped his arms around her small figure and crushed her lightly against his chest. His hands moved slowly lower to the small of her back and he looked down at her. Lowering his head slowly they shared a passionate kiss before Crim suddenly left her standing there and retreated to take a bath, a new concept for him.

Stripping quickly crim lowered himself into the scalding water and nearly cried out in slight pain. Never again would he do this. He hated it. The water was far too warm and it felt weird after being accustomed to the ice cold rivers and ponds that he normally bathed in. He scrubbed himself clean and had just washed his head for the last time when he heard a faint knock at the door. Embarrassed he called out “come in?”

A maid entered the room slowly, and even though there was a screen in between them crim felt his face go red. “mi’lord? I have the tunics that Tellen ordered for you, I’m just going to leave them here.” Calling back over the screen Crim answered “ thank mi’lday, I was going to get out shortly. Once i am done is there anything i can help you with?”
“no, just ring the bell if you need help with the tunics.”

Standing slightly crim poked his torso around the screen. Thankign the maid he then stepped out of the tub dripping onto the carpet, grabbing a nearby towel he dried himself and then dressed himself in the rather black tunic. Donning it and then deciding to leave Daybreak in the drawing room he looked around at Tellens various projects, he lost himself in her art for a while and was pleasantly happy with how talented she was. Hearing voices he leaned in closer to the door that separated him from Tellen.

“he doesnt talk like hes from around here.”
“he’s not”

He listened to their conversation for a while and wondered just how long it was goign to take Tellen to get ready for dinner, it’s not like tonight was the ball. Finally Tellen knocked on the door and presented herself to him. He was momentairly floored, dressed in a light orange dress hair done in some kind of weird knot on the back of her head. All in all he was never more painfully aware of how close they were.

Hearing that the dinner bell had just started he took her hand and they made their way to dinner. It was a slightly uneventful affair, the questions that Tellen’s parents asked were all stuff Tellen and crim had talked about on the way up here. However when Tellen played the piano and was walking back to sit in her chair, Crim scooted his chair out slightly, caught her wrist and pulled her to sit on his lap. Dinner was all but done and he was sure she wouldn’t mind.

“thanks Tellen, that really was quite wonderful.” He said to the brown mass of hair at his eye level. Dinner ended shortly after that and Crim paid his regards to Tellen’s family before they both made their way back to Tellen’s rooms. Standing in front of the windows they both just kind of stood there for a while, locked in each other’s arms. Once sunset fell Crim wandered off to the drawing room to fall asleep.

That night there was a massive storm and a particularly loud thunderclap tore Crim from his sleep, looking out the window he saw something that he rather whished he hadn’t. The stable doors were open, and nothing was inside.
Bursting through the door into Tellen’s room he roused her from her sleep, she sat up slightly and he explained what was going on.

[Lisenet]

As she strode back to her chair Crim thrust his own backward just enough to get in her way, snatching her by the wrist and tugging her to sit across his lap. Her neck flushed and she suppressed a smile and a laugh as he wrapped his arms around her waist, effectively trapping her there. ”Thanks, Tellen,” he said with that sly grin of his. ”That was really quite wonderful.”

Tellen rolled her eyes down at his cheerful face, half-hidden behind her shoulder. ”Well I’m glad you enjoyed it, love. My tutor was a nutcase.”

”Tellenani!” her aunt objected. ”She wasn’t that bad!”

”Was too,” Tellen muttered, patting Crim’s hands so he’d let her up. She stood, and her father did as well.

”I’m afraid I have to go chase one of the squires, he’s probably broken something by now.” He patted her on the shoulder, and even Crim—though he lifted an inquisitive eyebrow at him when he did—before ambling out. After that she and Crim wandered back up to her rooms. The housekeeper had caught them on the way up and regretfully informed her that with the family coming in, and other guests, they didn’t have any extra rooms to spare for her husband. Crim didn’t seem to mind, saying he would sleep in her drawing room.

He drew her over to the wide windows, which Leonie had thrown open to let in the gentle breeze. When he wrapped an arm around her waist, she responded by slipping hers around his. It was nice resting against him, her head in the depression inside her shoulder, just missing his hard collarbone. His skin was a layer of softness over the firmness of muscle, nothing like the lotioned skin of the noblemen whose bloodlines made them such better political matches for her than Crim did. One in particular—Marcus—seemed to think she was a particularly good match for him, on account of her father and grandfather’s positions with the military. Unfortunately, his head was bigger than his ass, which was especially too bad considering his ass was a better place for it than on top of his neck. Marcus may have been the better power play, but Crim was a better person. And he felt better when he hugged her. She would put her money on Crim for the kissing, too, but she’d never permitted Marcus to land one. He looked like the kind of man who would slobber.

The sunset turned the horizon a wash of teal and orange-crimson, and when she could no longer see the windowsill but for the light of the moon, nearly full now, she sighed and unwound her arms from his narrow waist, squeezing his hand once. ”I’m going to sleep. I’ll need all my wits about me for that damned party tomorrow night.” She smiled at him once, one half of her mouth twitching up, the other half still thinking about it, and shut the door to her room behind her. Leonie, who probably listened at keyholes, arrived in moments to help Tellen with the buttons up the back from her waist to her neck. ”You’re blushing,” the maid noted with a smirk, finding her nightgown and tossing it at her.

Tellen caught it and yanked it over her head before throwing herself on top of her coverlet. It was too warm to sleep between the covers. ”Am not.”

”Am too. So why’d you decide not to fix the curse? The housekeeper told me what she heard.” Leonie sat herself on the side of the bed.

Tellen sighed, scratching at the back of her head, a rather unladylike habit she’d picked up in her years abroad. ”I don’t know. He’s….different. He’s kind without being oppressive, he listens when I talk. He asks smart questions. He doesn’t tell me I’m weird.”

”You are weird.”

”But he’s nice enough not to say it directly,” Tellen admitted with a smile. ”And he’s a little weird too, so that makes it nice.”

Leonie left soon after that, and Tellen fell into dreams of sailing and rain, and a ship that always managed to stay afloat even though it felt like it was spinning and twirling, so perhaps it was actually floating on clouds and not on the sea. Tellen did love the sea.

A sea monster reached out of the writhing sky or ocean, then, and hurriedly said her name. She lashed out and caught the arm of the sea creature and it caught her by the wrist before she could hit it in the face. ”What? What?” she cried out, astonished, as Crim’s face took the place of the sea creature’s and she realized she was awake.

”Your stable is open.” Tellen shot up. ”It looks empty.”

She twisted to look over her shoulder at the pouring rain. ”Shit! She threw herself out of bed and scrambled to yank open the bottom, largest drawer of her personally painted desk, and scooped out a canvas drawstring bag of rocks ranging between fist-sized and the width of a coin. Beneath it was a leather sling her grandfather had made her when he saw how good her aim was.

Tellen burst out the front door of her house in her nightgown with Crim at her shoulder only a few seconds later, readying the sling with one of the smaller rocks. As soon as she came abreast of the stable's closest corner, she saw that most of their horses were waiting behind it, tossing their heads in the thrashing rain and thunder, with the men who had removed them from their sleep to steal them. ”Hey!” she shouted, lifting her arm. Those closest to her turned. From thirty feet away she wound her swing and released the third strap at the length of the arc, spinning it toward him.

The rock hit him solidly in the side of the head, and he dropped in an instant. The next man tried to mount one of their saddleless horses and when the mare threw him, she dropped him too. She was upon them now, and she grabbed the next man by his suspenders and dragged him to the ground, where she pounded the next rock into his head just hard enough to knock him out. A man not Crim grabbed her around the waist and threw her away from his downed fellow, until someone—probably Crim—got rid of him. She got to her feet, muddy to her knees and her elbows, and turned to find the horses now milling anxiously around her, heads down and ears flat against the rain, and two men running for them from the house. She pushed her soaked hair out of her face and got mud all through it—that meant another bath in the morning, but she certainly didn’t mind—as they splashed up to her. It was her father and uncle.

”Tellen!” her father shouted, grabbing her by the shoulders and giving a quick examination to be sure she was all right. ”What the hell were you doing, running out here by yourself?”

”I had Crim!” she insisted, waving a hand in his general direction, and shoving her hair irritably away again.

"So you decided to run out half-naked?" At that, Crim settled part of his peculiar tunic over her soaked shoulders, and she briefly clasped his hand in thanks.

”Yes, because stopping to get dressed and put my hair up is going to help when people are out there stealing all of our —“

”Tellen, why don’t you ever ask for help?” he demanded. His sword was buckled unevenly around his waist, and his brother had one unsheathed in his hand.

”Because I don’t need it!” she shouted over the thunder, suddenly furious with him. ”I am doing just fine by myself! And this wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t trust people so damned much! Why don’t you lock the damned doors to the stalls? You of all people know I love commonfolk but dear gods above, everybody wants what they don’t have and most of them don’t have the same gorgeous bloody horses as you do!” The horses nosed at her sides, one flipping her elbow, and she rubbed their ears in comfort. It helped both of them to feel better.

Her father's voice was much calmer than hers. "I don't lock my doors because I don't want to blatantly advertise a distrust for the people," he returned, voice hard.

"Either tell them you don't trust them or tell them you're foolish enough to think you'll catch them every time they try," she snapped back. "Because that's how they'll see it."

"And you would know this how?"

"You know full well how I've spent the last couple of years. And you know full well that the average man can't be trusted, and average men are what the world is made of." She lightly tugged on the bridles of two of the horses who had come up to nuzzle her and the other four that had been loosed followed without instruction.

"Tellen--" he called after her.

"I have other things to attend to," she shouted back over the rain. Looking back over her shoulder, she added, "Do what you will with the thieves, but don't you dare take out your anger at me on them."

[.:[Crim]:.]

Having startled his wife awake by merely saying her name a few times he was surprised when she rebounded off the bed, grabbed a sling from who knows where in that desk and then bounded down the stairs two at a time. Crim, thankfully had slept in his tunic and was well adept to the rain by the time they threw the door front doors open.

Tellen was already in motion, toppling a would be horse thief. Sliding another rock home into her sling Crim wondered why she had never mentioned that she was proficient with it before now. He noticed that Tellen had gotten ahead of him when some vagrant got his hands around her waist. Crim roared loudly, startling the man and then shoving him off of her. Crim landed atop the man’s chest and gave him a solid two count to put the man down. Standing he noticed Tellen looking rather triumphant, at least until her father descended upon them toting her uncle behind him.

Their garb was fresh, it was clear that they had taken the time to at least throw on clean clothes. Crim wondered why but before he could get far into that line of thought before Orson exclaimed loudly. He was quite upset and very vocal about how he thought it was wrong of Tellen to rush outside barely clothed. Crim fixed this by stripping and wrapping his tunic around her chest, he still wore the bottom most layer, and thus was relatively dry.

After a few more moments of Tellen saying that she had all the help she needed and her father standing there mutely Tellen stomped into the rain to secure the horses and locate the fawn. Crim, Orson and Tellen’s uncle remained slightly huddled around the fallen would be criminals. Glancing at Orson Crim spoke loudly over the rain.

“Look, I cannot say for sure but I don’t think these men meant you any personal harm. If anything it’s my fault, I noticed the stables were empty after a particularly bad round of thunder. I rather not see these men killed here for this petty attempt at a crime, please milord turn them over to the magistrate.”

Orson while still angry at first agreed heartedly after Crim elaborated further that these men were human and probably had families. Knowing that the two men would take care of the task Crim set himself in motion to go find his now soaked wife, who he noticed had already stabled the horses and found the fawn.

Up the grand carpeted staircase and into the purple room he strode, pausing only slightly to knock on the door. When he opened the door he was greeted with a site pleasing, embarrassing, and somewhat sobering, Tellen sat at the foot of her bed, knees drawn to her chest. Her entire outfit was soaked to the bone and his tunic did little to help keep her warm.

She had probably heard him come in, but regardless he cleared his throat and plopped down onto the bed next to her, his arm reaching around to her shoulder. She was soaked, so soaked that Crim felt it seeping into the layer of his tunic. He pulled her head onto his chest and crooned agreement as she ranted and somewhat rambled about how unfair it was that her father viewed her as fragile and unable to do what she knew she could do. She grumbled and complained for a short length of time before it grew into a comfortable silence in the room, broken by occasional warm sentances to one another. She was still soaked, Crim made up his mind and said softly accompanying his words with a kiss upon her lips.

“unless you plan to turn blue and not wake in the morning, I’m staying here. You are so wet you’ve almost soaked the sheets. At least your clothes are dry now.” Laying down onto the bed he gently pulled Tellen slightly on top of his chest, and after a few more words, and a bit of a silence the two fell asleep. It was different her laying so close to him. The gently sound of her breathing was mesmerizing and he thought he could listen to it forever. The two of them lay there tangled into each other. Immune to the world.

The next morning the sun shone brightly as Crim repeated his morning exercises in the tellens lucrative yard. He had woken early and not disturbed Tellen as he climbed out of her bed. The thought of being that close to her still sent his mind racing. He dropped into a series of push-ups and began counting off to one hundred. It was late enough that Tellen was probably up by now.

His thoughts of going to check this were suddenly dashed when a calamity of horse hooves sounded on the cobblestone drive. A man, bore entirely in the darkest of black leather outfits was riding a equally dark horse. His wild and untamed long black hair was queued onto his back. The man dismounted and strode purposefully towards the front door of the house. Sensing something out of place Crim followed warily, The front door was thrown open by this stranger revealing a shocked Tellen. The words “so I heard my betrothed ran away and got married” were the last he heard before glancing quickly at Tellen

[Lisenet]

Tellen tucked the slowly calming horses into their respective stalls, gave each of them a last pat or scratch to comfort them, and finally peeked over the gate of the last stall, glad to see that the fawn—while awake and wary—hadn’t budged in all of the ruckus the storm, the men and the horses had caused. They had good instincts, deer. Then, since Crim had decided not to follow, she sloshed barefoot through the wet grass and mud and back up to her bedroom. She paused at each of the windows to wind them most of the way shut, then closed the drapes so the lightning wouldn’t be quite so harsh. Tellen spent several long seconds lying facedown in her rumpled covers, deciding whether she felt ambitious enough to roll over and sort out her unhappy thoughts before sleeping, or just to go straight back to her dreams. She always woke in a similar mood to the one she had fallen asleep in, however, and the next day was certain to be irksome enough without her being crotchety on top it.

So she sat up, knees to her chest, wet hair straggling down her back, forehead knocking gently against her knees until the door knocked too. She switched her forehead for her cheek and watched Crim as he entered, then came to sit beside her. He rested a warm arm around her shoulders and she shifted to sit closer to him. ”I’m sorry I lost my temper,” she mumbled, not sorry at all that she had lost her temper, just that Crim had been around to witness it. She just wished her father didn’t feel so strong a need to protect her. She was a grown woman, who had lived on her own for years now, and was well capable of taking care of herself. She didn’t need telling she was being indecent—she was well aware of that—she just didn’t consider the state of her dress or undress to be particularly important when faced with an expensive and sentimental loss of all of their horses.

After several minutes warming under Crim’s arm, he shifted, bringing his face into hers. His lips barely touching, he announced his own opinion of her state of dress, and his intentions of not returning to his own bed in the other room. Tellen opened her mouth to protest but found she preferred kissing him to throwing him out, and didn’t object when he tugged her back onto the sheets. ”You’re rather pushy, you know,” she informed him before tucking her face against his chest where he couldn’t see it. She didn’t want him to see how much she enjoyed the warmth that he provided, since she hadn’t realized until he arrived that she had been cold.

Crim was gone when she rolled over to sunlight the next morning, and she suppressed a grumble about that fact and tugged the bellpull beside the bed that told Leonie she was awake. Tellen hurried to put herself as much together as she could before the maid arrived so her friend wouldn’t have to do it, and when Leonie arrived she laughed, took Tellen’s hair apart to do it properly, and buttoned the last of the tiny buttons up the back of her bright green dress. The dress was short-sleeved, thankfully, with bronze embroidery at the hems, and fitted to the waist, then falling in graceful folds from her hips to her toes. When Leonie found the shoes that matched, Tellen shook her head with a wrinkle of her nose. She would only wear shoes when she had to. However, she did consent to a pair of simple, orange-yellow citrine earrings.

Tellen spent a half hour in the kitchen catching up with the cook and kitchen workers while her favorite poppyseed muffins finished baking, then took one for herself and another for Crim as she wandered the house looking for him. She finally caught sight of him through one of the tall windows, smiled, and trotted for the front door.

The door flew open before she even touched the gold handle, and she jumped back in surprise, then disgust when she recognized their newest guest. Marcus. ”So I heard my betrothed ran away and got married,” he crowed, reaching to grab her around the waist.

Tellen skirted the arm and hurried outside to find Crim watching her, baffled. She pressed his muffin into his hand and spun to face Marcus, the man her mother most believed would benefit their house in marriage. ”I am not yours, and we were never betrothed. My parents spoke out of turn if they said I would ever consent to marrying you.”

”Well,” he drawled, approaching with a saunter. ”One can hardly call it ‘consent’ if the woman is simply swept off her feet, can he?”

Tellen resisted the urge to growl. So much for the lovely, warm, pleasant feeling she had woken with that morning. ”Crim, allow me to introduce you to Ass. Ass, this is my husband.”

”But not the one you want, is he?” He smirked widely, showing all of his teeth.

As reserved as her temper usually was, nobody could breach it like family and men who treated her like she had no thoughts of her own. Drawing back her arm, she chucked the uneaten half of her muffin at him, where it burst against his chest. ”If you’ll remember, Ass, I always take what I want, and I typically run from you.” To prove her point, she turned and jogged off toward the back of the house. Crim could take care of himself, if he had any interest in staying, though she did feel a bit guilty about running off on him again. She hadn’t even had the chance to say good morning to him.

When he did catch up with her, she was sitting, well concealed, in the top of a gnarled apple tree at the back of the property. How he’d found her was beyond her guess, but since she’d been hiding from Marcus and not from him, she was glad that the right man had. ”I stole his dessert at one of these events when we were children,” she explained when he asked about her departing statement. ”He was too busy sucking up to the adults to give it the proper attention and I wanted it, so I took it.” She smiled crookedly. ”By the way, good morning.”

[.:[Crim]:.]

Crim stood flabbergasted as the man declared what sounded to be like idiocy. Spotting Tellen dodge the man’s outstretched arm and came half prancing into his. He caught her round the waist and offered his chest for her to lean on. Crim listened to the very heated exchange with a wide smile. Tellen really was amazing when she was angry. He glimpsed down and knew that he was caught. He would probably pay for that smile later.

After a very un-lady like tossing of the muffin Tellen stormed off to the back of the house. Still somewhat bemused Crim stared as she went, her dress was nice today he thought before berating himself that he didn’t necessarily only observe the dress. Turning back to the man clad in back Crim strode forward purposefully. “Since I know that ass is not your first name, nor probably your house name, let me just tell you this. Tellen and I are married. What man do you think---“ Crim got no further when suddenly Mr. Ass interrupted him. The man stepped forward into Crim’s space and jabbed him with a firm finger on the chest.
“No! You see here boy. Tellen is my woman, she will belong to me and no one else. No one else would appreciate having a wife like her belong to them. It was decided by our parents that Her and I shall repopulate Caravala with my young. She will wait on my sons and I and we shall grow old and fat...” Deciding that this had gone on long enough crim nodded a few times before suddenly snatching the hand with his right wrist and bending it backwards as far as the bones would allow. The main groaned in the sudden pain, especially when Crim locked the bent hand around the back and pushed ever so gently up.
“right then, My name is Crim Harrowmont, and if you Ever refer to Tellen, or any other woman as property again it won’t be this bad” he pressed firmly upwards. The man gave a strange yelp as Crim heard a tendon snap. “It will be far far worse”
Dropping the man’s arm and leaving him bent over in the driveway crim Ambled off in search of Tellen. Crim walked the surprisingly spacious grounds in search of his red haired wife. Not seeing her in either the garden or near the stables Crim wandered further into the property. When he actually thought about how nice it would be to see her and make sure she was calmed down it was like a flip switched in his chest and his new “urge” pointed like a north seeker to Tellen. Following this urge for only a few minutes led him to the base of a mighty apple tree. Gazing skyward he discerned his wife amongst the branches.
“Tellenani, love? If you want you can jump... I will catch you.” Crim’s voiced carried robustly in the almost noon air yet it was still some while before the red headed lass launched herself from the tree. Catching her in both arms then transferring her to a bridal style hold he gazed down at her slightly flustered face. Bowing his head for a kiss he mumbled into her mouth
“Mi’lord Ass won’t be joining us anytime soon, any ideas on what we can do?”
Upon hearing that there was a private pond nearby Crim refused her struggles to get down and carried her to the pond, ignoring the heated gaze he got when he finally lowered her to the ground. The lake looked beautiful, and after verbally confirming that they were not going to get in he sat on the bank with his feet in the cool water. After several moments of this Crim laid out on his back and soon found Tellen nested in his shoulder.

Conversation was always friendly with Tellen, yet he wasn’t sure what it was when he determined there was another ‘edge’ to her voice today. They spent until mid evening at the pond. Before they knew it, it was time for dinner. Tellen had a hold of Crim’s hand as she guided him to his seat.

Lord Marcus abruptly swung open the dinning room doors and before Crim could even sit down plopped himself in the pulled out char that had been Crim’s the night before. Not only that but then lord Marcus tugged on Tellen’s wrist and she was somewhat forced to sit in the chair next to him. Crim said nothing, just walked around to the other side of the well laden table and sit with eyes most observant.

[Lisenet]

”Tellenani, love? If you want you can jump. I will catch you.”

Tellen stuck her head out from behind a particularly leafy branch and grinned. ”Since when do you call me Tellenani? I didn’t think you’d even heard me when I told you that was my full name.” She climbed out on one of the narrower branches so it would bend, then eased over the side so she was dangling, her toes not much farther above the ground than Crim’s lifted hands. He twitched his fingers, beckoning, and she sighed. She wouldn’t jump from this high on her own, preferring her knees and ankles fully functional, but Crim was probably very capable of catching her. Half-elves were strong, weren’t they?

She dropped, resisting the urge to kick and windmill her arms, and soon his solid arms wrapped around her middle. She grinned again and shifted to put her feet on the ground, but he was having none of that. He shifted quicker, and soon he had an arm behind her knees and supporting her back. Tellen rolled her eyes. ”Always have to have the last word, don’t you?”

He dipped his head in and she lifted her face to catch the kiss he offered. ”Milord Ass won’t be joining us anytime soon….” His lips tickled when he spoke against hers.

”Well,” she replied, contemplative. She rested her hand at the back of his neck and touched his smooth hair. She wished her hair could be smooth like his was. ”There’s a small lake not far from here.”

And so they found themselves at the lakeside. Tellen was tempted to pinch him for insisting that he carry her all the way there—she was partly afraid that he would toss her in—but she resisted, for the sake of the fact that she had now abandoned him both to her father and to her least favorite person in Alagaesia. Crim stepped up to the edge of the water and glanced back at her. She shook her head wryly. ”My mother will have my hair if I ruin another dress, and I’m not taking it off.” She wasn’t sure how he would receive the latter half of that statement, men were always strange about that sort of declaration, not that she had much experience with it, but she thought there was use in saying it anyway. Instead she lifted her dress to her knees and sat with her feet submerged, wondering if the minnows would dare approach the edge now that there were people crowding it. Crim sat beside her and observed the trees ringing the lake for a short while, and finally stretched out on his back to better absorb the sun. After a moment Tellen laid back too, resting as close to him as she could get without draping herself over him like a bedsheet. It had been very pleasant sleeping with him the night before. Sleeping, and nothing else. No strings, no expectations but what others assumed on their own. It was nice just to be held again. As an adult, she had missed the light attentions that children received without thought.

They sat and chatted quietly, comfortably, like that for the rest of the day. One or the other always had a question or observation to pose to the other, and most of the time they had answers. Eventually Tellen sighed and noted that they’d best get back or they would miss supper. She would gladly miss any event with Marcus infecting it, but she rather depended on having her inheritance available to her later in life, and her mother was nothing if not true to her word.

Tellen stood to speak with her uncle before sitting down at the long dinner table. He was fascinated by Crim’s bow, so he spoke rather more to Crim than to her, but she liked to listen. Conversation she couldn’t participate in always contained things for her to learn so she could participate next time. The door behind them lurched inward and Tellen recognized Marcus’s heavy tread with distaste. Surely he would have the class to take his presumed seat.

Unfortunately, the only thing Marcus could ever be relied upon for was his tendency toward self-motivated crassness, and he didn’t disappoint this time. He wrapped hard fingers around her wrist and yanked her into her chair while taking Crim’s in the same motion, forcing her poor husband to sit opposite her instead. Well, at least she had an excuse not to look at Marcus, but then he now had an excuse to find reasons to reach out to her. Tellen quelled her fury as he pecked her on the cheek and pretended to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear, despite the fact that Leonie had so skillfully arranged it that none of it had so much as budged throughout the day. She sustained herself by fantasizing about sticking a fork in his thigh and twisting.

”Mother, you said you were thinking of fostering one of the Winchester’s daughters this year,” Tellen said to her mother, taking care to find something to talk about that would distract her from the fact that Marcus was putting his arm along the back of her chair. The way he moved it was stiff, like there was bandaging around the elbow or shoulder under his clothes, and she frowned. Her eyes darted up to meet Crim’s, inquisitive, and she lifted a single brow. Just what had happened after she left that morning? Oh well. Whatever it was, he’d had it coming to him for years. And it pleased her, in some obscure way, that if she couldn’t have been the one to damage him, Crim at least got to enjoy the privilege.

Halfway through the supper Marcus slipped his hand under the tablecloth and rested it on her leg. Feeling the heat rise from her neck in waves, she slid her chair back an inch. Primarily the adjustment was to encourage him to lower or remove the offending hand. Secondarily, it was so she could drop a scorching morsel of beef onto the back of his hand. She did so. Marcus flinched, suppressing a yowl, and retracted the hand. Tellen’s mother and father paused in their conversation to stare curiously at him, and Tellen shared a smirk with Crim. Marcus should realize by now that those who put their hands on her without permission always received pain for it later, if not immediately. Whatever gentleness Lady Tellenani had been raised to exude had long worn out in her travels as Mistress Tellen.

Later, when Marcus moved as though to drop his hand under the tablecloth again, Tellen made a point to sharply jostle his stiff arm. He clenched his teeth and returned the hand to her line of sight.

Regretfully, Tellen barely had time to speak with Crim to ask him what he’d done to Marcus’s arm before Leonie appeared to hastily remind her that women took much longer to prepare themselves than men, and hauled her off to change.

”There isn’t that much you have to do!” Tellen insisted as Leonie’s hands scrabbled at her back to undo the buttons of the green dress.

Leonie laughed. ”I suppose not, but I’m in the habit of you leaving me no time.”

Tellen’s gown was lavender, with darker shadows slipping between the voluminous folds belling out from her hips, and swirling silver embroideries at the hems and all up and down the fitted bodice. The dress was strapless, the neckline cupping just below her collarbones, and diving below her shoulder blades. Leonie had worked blue and silver sapphires into the elegant curls and twists of her hair, raised high on her head, and had even unearthed a necklace that had once been her grandmother’s. It was unique in that there was a single large, cobalt gem hanging in the front, a smaller one below it, and a net of the delicate silver chains supported a dozen smaller sapphires over the backs of her shoulders and down her spine. Tellen sighed when Leonie handed over the fragile heeled shoes she was intended to wear, and reluctantly shoved them on.

Crim wasn’t in the drawing room, so she presumed he’d gotten bored and gone down already to people-watch. She stomped her way through the mostly deserted upper halls until she reached the gleaming staircase. She could hear the light tenor of Crim’s voice echoing up from below her, so with relief she began descending inelegantly down the stairs, trying very hard not to frown.

[.:[Crim]:.]

Marcus sighed inwardly to himself as he prowled the grounds looking for either Crim-fellow or his soon to be wife. Fury and contempt was all that was needed to describe how he felt towards that black haired bastard that had married his Tellen. ‘She is mine and mine alone, No one else has the thoughts about her the way I do’ Marcus said under his breath. The short conversation with Tellen he had had in the yard was disappointing. Marcus had thrown open the door expectant to see Tellen waiting for him in one of those new short style dresses from Rivan. Instead he got a ring on her finger and some thrice blasted minor noble boy with her as his wife.

‘That blasted Crim-fellow. What’s his deal anyway, no man has ever dared touch me for fear of what my father would do to them. Either he is very powerful, or very stupid.’ Deciding that it was the latter he gingerly wrapped his elbow and wrist in a spare bit of cloth and then proceeded to head inside the Valerian residence. Grabbing some blonde servant girl. Yanking back his sleeve he yelled at her “Girl, Fix this arm of mine and I do mean now!”
“I can’t milord, I have to prepare Tellenani's dress for tonight’s ball” was all he got in reply before she shoved off his grasp and retreated upstairs. Fuming Marcus went to speak with Tellenani’s father. Yet after a few hours of cursing, threatening and even bribing nothing he could do would bring the old man to see reason. ‘Some old bastard that old man is, not giving the woman that is properly mine.’ His mood soured and Marcus spent the rest of the day skulking until dinner.

Seeing Crim-fellow and Telemann enter the room together with pleasant smiles on their hyped up little faces Marcus decided to get back at this noble boy from the east. As Tellen went to sit down Marcus snatched her wrist and forced her to sit. Marcus then quickly plopped himself into the chair that was reserved for her current husband. Marcus turned his head expectantly towards the fellow and expected to see fury in his eyes. He was somewhat taken aback when he found calm. Glancing to his right into Tellen’s eyes however he saw naught but fury as he kissed her cheek. ‘that’s right Tellen, your at my side where you belong.’
The meal was poorly done and Marcus complained loudly to all who would hear him as such. On top of that only minutes into the meal he thought to himself ‘Finally able to do this....’ Calmly placing his hand on Tellen’s leg, Thinking of all the things he could have her do when they were married he did not see her drop a piece of hot beef. His eyes narrowed. ‘you’ll pay for that woman’ he thought to himself.

Marcus tried to get his hand on her leg, and twice under her skirt throughout the remainder of dinner. Each time his advances were foiled in some way. He grew increasingly irritated before storming off.

Several hours later as Marcus sat at his appointed table, he wondered why Tellen and Crim were somewhat late to the ball. Seating was almost over and the first dance would be soon. Spotting the black haired good for nothing chatting up Tellen’s father Marcus listened in. “Why yes Mr. Valerian, as I told you before my bow is of a wood known as Feather wood, or the name Angel wood. It is incredibly rare and the draw strength is well past that of even a crossbow.” ‘So the fool owned a bow did he?’ Marcus was quite skilled with a crossbow and he hunted birds and other mammals quite often.

Quite suddenly as the crowd and noise drew to one of their usual roars a piano made its grand sound heard. As Marcus looked for the source he noticed Crim had moved to Tellen’s side and proffered his arm. The piano finally found the tune and a deafening bridal marched filled the room while Mrs. Valerian tapped her wine glass and made an announcement.

“Ladies and lords! It is with pleasure that I give you for the first time in public Mr. and Mrs. Harrowmont! Please clear the floor, as they will have first dance!” the crowd complied and took their seats while the two on the stairs seemed to be caught in bewilderment...

‘Blasted fools’ Marcus thought to himself before grabbing the wine bottle and downing a third.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Crim met his wife at the bottom of the third level stairs and turned to the now overflowing crowd. He studied her dress and was amazed that such beauty could exist. The purple hue of her dress accented the pale white skin in a mesmerizing effect and Crim was somewhat slow to proffer his arm. When he did he suddenly heard a sharp female voice command.

“Ladies and lords! It is with pleasure that I give you for the first time in public Mr. and Mrs. Harrowmont! Please clear the floor, as they will have first dance!”

Crim looked at Tellen on one hand embarrassed and on the other somewhat terrified. “She is throwing us to the sharks already?” he asked quietly so that none but Tellen would hear. Tellen however merely tuttered in disgust and tugged Crim’s arm as they made their way to the center of the dance floor. Some kind of musical tune was wafting through the air, and it seemed to give Tellen an inordinate amount of flushed skin.

Hand on her waist and the other in his own Crim led Tellen through the most complicated dance he had learned. He stepped wrong once but quickly corrected the mistake. The dance lasted for several long stare filled minutes and when it was finally over and Crim dipped Tellen towards the floor a strange tinkling filled the air. Glancing sideways as he righted Tellen he saw that everyone was tapping their wineglasses with their forks.

He stood in wonderment for only a few seconds before Aunt Valacian shouted “Kiss her you idiot!” Crim smiled and looked back into Tellen’s face. Several choice emotions played themselves across Tellen’s face as he complied with the audience’s wishes. For some idiotic reason Crim couldn’t bear to tear his lips away from hers and only after quite a few coughs from the audience did he notice that he had a crowd.

Seating themselves at the Valacian table they were launched into congratulations on such a fine first dance. Almost an hour passed with warm conversation and steady wine before Aunt Valacian shouted with rosy cheeks

“So, Tellenani! Your mother will simply not stop gossiping about when her grandbabies are coming, Tell us! Are you two trying often enough. Dashing man like Crim you can’t Tell me you aren’t cause we heard you two snuck into each others' rooms last night”
Crim shot a look at Tellen, interested in her response.

[Lisenet]

Mr. and Mrs. Harrowmont. Tellen had never really thought about it that way before. In her mind, she was Tellen Valaician, she would always be Tellen Valaician. For some reason, the thought of marriage had always felt distant to her, out of focus, unimportant. And then here she was married already. She hadn’t even had to drag her feet through all of the pomp and ceremony that usually accompanied such an event. To her marriage had always felt it would be more of a phenomenon—she devoted too much of her energies and passions to her country and her companions to have enough left over for a husband to live on—and she supposed this one had turned out to be quite a phenomenon of its own, hadn’t it?

She snorted, then turned to smile up at him. ”She’s the type to get things done with quickly and move on. Would you rather get hit with it right off the bat or watch it stalk up behind you and bite?” Truly, this was preferable. She would have avoided the announcement if she could, either way, but at least her mother’s habits were efficient.

The full, symphony orchestra lifted a harmony right from the beginning, and Crim drew her closer, into the first step of the dance. Fully aware that every pair of eyes in that room—save the musicians—was watching them intently, Tellen was rather glad to have the combination of the light, celebratory music and Crim’s arms to hold her upright. She only enjoyed the attention she brought on herself. That brought by others was always uncomfortable. Their feet moved almost soundlessly through the spacious, glittering ballroom, and when Crim at last dipped her low, she could even hear the faint chime from her long necklace tapping the tile floor. He righted her, grinning, to the sound of wineglasses ringing.

Tellen flushed. She couldn’t help it. ”Oh, tradition,” she sighed. It could be such a bother. At least Aunt Patricia was there to make sure Crim didn’t misunderstand the gesture.

Crim looked down into her face and she rolled her eyes, lips lifting into a wry, but unruffled smile. ”Bring it in,” she murmured, and he was glad to do as she asked. Tellen brought her hand up to cup the back of his neck, keeping him there, even if she already knew she didn’t have to make the effort to know he wasn’t going anywhere.

Finally they took their seats next to her parents, and the winebottles were passed around. Spiced apple and raspberry wines were in abundance, and they were her favorite, so she sipped a glass of each. Not nearly enough to impair her, but enough to give her steps a lift when a small handful of her cousins and childhood friends asked her to dance. When next she returned to the table, she was just seating herself when Aunt Patricia spoke up again. Aunt Patricia always had interesting things to say.

And she didn’t let them down. ”Are you two trying often enough?” she demanded, pointing at them.

Ah. How to delicately go about this. Deciding quickly, Tellen was aware that giving their suddenly enraptured audience the answer they wanted to hear would be the swiftest way to assure that they wouldn’t be similarly harassed in the future. ”Well, Aunt, the middle of a ballroom really isn’t the place to put forth the effort, but I won’t deny the gossip. I am just not ready to be a mother yet.” Her eyes twinkled as she found those of her own mother. ”I suppose mine did such a wonderful job I’m not sure I’m up to the challenge.” Finding Crim’s hand under the table, she squeezed it apologetically. She had no idea how he might have answered such a question, but hopefully he wouldn’t be too abashed by it. She hadn’t even admitted to anything, really. She had told the truth, and in such a way that not one of them didn’t misunderstand it.

It was nearly midnight when Tellen enjoying a brief spell of quiet from all of the heartfelt, if curious, congratulations on her unexpected nuptials, she slipped out of the ballroom and down to the front steps, where she sat peaceably for several minutes, watching the fireflies, until she got up, nudging off her high-heeled shoes, and stepped out into the dewy grass to catch a few.

Crim probably thought he was being sneaky when he came up behind her, but since he always happened to find her whether she was expecting him or not, this time she had been listening for his quiet tread. She spun when he was close enough behind her that she could slip her arms around his waist and hug him. ”Oh, this is incredible,” she sighed. ”I am actually surviving. I hardly thought it possible.” A firefly landed on the rim of Crim’s mostly concealed ear and, grinning mischievously, she drew herself up to blow it off.

They spent nearly an hour outside with the fireflies like fairy lights sparkling warmly around them before Tellen admitted they should probably return to the festivities, or their guests would suspect the most untoward behavior of them. As if they didn’t already, what with Aunt Patricia’s input. ”You go on,” she coaxed, finding her shoes in the dark and sitting on the step. ”I’ve got to fix my hair and I’ll be right after you.” she made shooing motions, because he seemed disinclined to leave her alone in the dark, and smiled. ”Go on. The fireflies won’t eat me tonight. Perhaps tomorrow….” she mused, just to see what kind of expression she could elicit from him. She was laughing as he strode away.

It only took her a couple of minutes to rearrange the pins in her hair, so she would look less like she had been tumbling about in the grass—which she hadn’t—and more like she had simply walked through it demurely, as a lady should. Although most ladies probably didn’t discard their shoes at the first opportunity. And those shoes…. Tellen hadn’t worn high heels in so long that over the past several hours her feet had swelled just enough that the shoes would not comfortably return to them. Glad at the opportunity not to wear them, Tellen left them where they sat and climbed the stairs back up to the second level.

She was just passing through the wide hall that entirely encircled the ballroom when the smell of too much drink wafted out of a shadow behind her, closely followed by a hand with a bruising grip. Marcus yanked her away from the open ballroom doors and pushed her down the unlit hall away from them.

”Just who do you think you are,” he snarled into her face, still tightly gripping her by the arms, ”to run off like a whore with a boy nobody knows?”

Tellen kicked at him, furious, and he dodged, then pressed himself against her, the wall behind her preventing her escape. ”He’s the best person I’ve ever known,” she snarled back.

Pushing his face into hers, he snapped, ”Why wasn’t it me? In what way is that lowborn tick better than I am?” He guffawed. ”Even your maid thinks as well of herself as you do.”

Tellen squirmed. ”What did you do to Leonie?” she demanded, hating the helpless feeling that accompanied her imagination of what he might have done.

Marcus smiled slowly. ”Nothing like what I wanted to do to you.” He squashed his mouth down over hers.

Her position and his among the nobility had prevented her from announcing his viciousness before now, though he had more than once earned to lose his title for the things he had tried or insinuated. The trouble was that no one could ever catch him at it. He only ever showed the cruel side of himself around those he knew would never tell, for some reason or another.

But Tellen couldn’t continue to let him pass, not knowing he was preying on other girls and women, especially those she cared for. She slammed her heel down onto his foot, shoved him away to give herself more space, and lashed out with her foot twice more: once to the groin to soften him, and once to the inside of his knee to make him kneel.

Marcus dropped with a groan of pain, and Tellen slowly crouched beside him leaning close enough that not even a nearby bystander could have heard her speak. ”Does it chafe you to know I would never have come to you willingly?” she quietly asked. ”Do you hate knowing that what you think you most wanted, someone else got to first?” She knew what he would assume—the same that Patricia’s audience had—and let him think that way. She needed him angry. She needed him to be furious enough that he would be caught in the act.

Marcus twisted toward her, mouth open, only to find the flat of a blade only the length of her thumb resting between his lips and hers. Not even Leonie had seen Tellen put it on. She’d known Marcus was becoming more unstable, and knew that it was partly her fault. ”Do you hate knowing I’ll give it to anyone but you?” He would believe her, too. Rage made people so very gullible.

The drunk threw himself at her, and Tellen let herself be carried backward by his charging weight. She managed to keep her head from bouncing off the hard, flagged stone floors, but at the cost of letting him get a hard grip on the hand that held the knife. He couldn’t force her fingers open, so he forced it toward her face instead. ”You’ll never scream,” he hissed into her face, looming over her while they soundlessly struggled. ”You’re too proud.”

But pride had no place here. Tellen filled her lungs slowly, so he wouldn’t notice the sudden intake of air. ”That’s where you’re wrong,” she told him, and shrieked, listening to her own voice shatter off of the walls, where it would carry through the entire passage because of the stone.

Marcus jammed his hands down toward her to stop her, and the knife slashed shallowly just underneath her cheekbone. She could hear people running down the hall toward them, though the curve of the corridor prevented them from seeing people, and she dropped the knife. She ducked; it fell into her hair, where she retrieved it with the hand she wasn’t fending him off with, stuffing it back into the straps holding it just under her hip, where the swell of her skirts concealed it. Marcus’s eating knife had jostled free of his belt and lay just out of his reach—he would never convince them that his blade hadn’t been the one that had cut her.

Just as those who had heard her bounded around the last bend—men and women alike—Tellen wedged a foot under his hip and threw him backward, where he sprawled in a heap on his back in the hall. Tellen scrambled easily to her feet, running instantly to Crim’s side and tucking herself under his arm. Others would see it as a wish for a protective embrace when she brought his hand to her hip, where he would feel the handle of the knife where it rested safely against her skin, unseen, but really she just wanted him to know that she was not without her own protection. As the men in her family stepped forward, enraged, she closed her eyes, and sighed. For the sake of her pride, she would gladly let them all think she was helpless, if it meant she got to save those whom Marcus would otherwise have hurt.

[.:[Crim]:.]

Crim's hand found itself in sudden company as Tellen answered her aunt. Her answer amused him but also set him to thinking. Was it even possible? Tellen seemed like she would make a good mother, but would he make a good father? Quelling these troubling thoughts he turned back to the conversation. Asking Tellen’s father he said “Could you please tell me About Marcus? It is good to know what kind of man would presume to tell me my wife is not mine.”

“Well, I don’t think the man’s ever met an animal or man he couldn’t kill. He fought in Ilirea, and fighting elves and surviving gives a man a bit of pride in his abilities, not necessarily unwarranted. And the man hunts for bears on his own estate—a large one north of here, near the Spine—sometimes I think just to prove he can do it alone. I’ve heard rumors he makes a point to kill them with a sword to make very clear he’s not afraid of getting close to them. The man’s never been one to back down, it’s a family trait. It’s part of what helped get his family so high, though some people wonder if there weren’t other powers involved.”

To which Crim responded “he does sound rather influential” Noticing that Tellen had vacated her seat he glanced around the room. Tellen had escaped the hustle and bustle of the party it seemed. He excused himself from the table and made his way in this damned weird tunic to Tellen’s room. It did not hold the woman he sought but he looked around anyway. He did not go through any drawers but he still gleaned a bit into Tellen’s life, especially from the joined drawing room. He studied one painting in particular. It seemed to be of a bug, it was roughly oval in shape with a red head upon which sat to red dots. Its body then became long with two black wings parted in flight and a segmented tail. The way that Tellen had painted it the tail seemed to be glowing.

Crim took a break from the painting and looked out the window where he chanced to see Tellen catching floating yellow orbs in the midnight grass. The moon alit on her skin with such joy that it seemed as if she had been made to wander the moonlight. He watched from the window for some while before treading softly downstairs and to the big doors.

After the main doors were open Crim quietly touched the dew-soaked grass. His black tunic didn’t make him very visible so when he drew close to his wife and she spun around to slip her arms in between his, he was pleasantly surprised. When Crim asked what she was catching she explained they were fireflies and he asked if that was what the painting in her room was about.
After catching fireflies for some while the world found the two of them on the front steps of Tellen’s house where she stood suddenly, interrupting the light conversation. She said something about her going before him back to the ball and he agreed even if it was reluctantly. She always seemed to find trouble of some sort when he wasn’t with her.

He strode calmly through the empty halls and into the ballroom where he talked to Tellen’s mother. “So you really want grandchildren when Tellen and I are both this young,” he asked her innocently.

Her response saddened him as his thoughts again turned to if this was possible between the two of them, he was pleasantly surprised when Mrs. Valacian asked for his hand in a dance. Sensing that it was the right thing to do he led her to the middle of the tiled floor and danced one of the more elaborate dances that Tellen had showed him. The song had almost finished and Crim was in the middle of twirling Lady Valerian’s hand when he heard a scream.

He knew that voice

Things blurred as he dropped Lady Valacian's hand and turned towards the hall surrounding the ballroom. Half-jogging he easily headed the back of people that investigated the noise. When Crim thought more and more to himself that he knew who screamed he started bounding down the hall. When he rounded a curve his eyes were met with a scene that drew fire to his blood and rage to his thoughts.

Tellen lay on her back with the drooling fool Marcus positioned over her. He could tell just from a glance that his hands were nowhere they should be. Upon looking back up at him Tellen kicked Marcus away from her than ran to his side. She drew his arm around her and he gladly kept it on her right thigh were he felt... a knife handle, he smiled inwardly at least knowing that she had some defense of her own. Crim got a funny look from Lord Valacian about where his hand was but he didn’t care.

Lord Valacian stepped into the forefront of the crowd his face swollen with rage and yet somehow keeping respect for the scum. Speaking firmly he asked. “Lord Tabor, explain yourself.”
Marcus sat up with his back to the wall he had crashed into. Blood ran from his eye as he drunkenly slurred “I tripped.” To this Lord Valacian’s only response was laughter and then a posed question “And caught yourself on my married daughter’s bodice?”
Crim could see that Marcus was trying to cover his ass and be smart about it, he was however surprised when the man uttered something he knew would never happen “She came on to me!” Tellen spoke then, outraged. She cried “At which point I impaled my face on your dinner knife.”
Lord Valacian bent down to retrieve the knife and confronted Marcus with it. “Is this yours?”
“Of course it’s mine! Don’t see workmanship like that in this house.” Was the response from the figure on the far wall. A lone person against a sea of faces, all furious “And you used it against my daughter?”
Marcus saw a chance to redeem himself and ran with it “I never cut her with that knife! She has one she keeps under her loose skirts!”
Unbeknownst to the group but the families favorite blonde maid had heard the sound and came running as well, at this question she spoke up from the back of the group “There’s no room in that dress for a knife! The bodice is fitted and the skirts are too wide for her to get at one kept underneath.” Tellen sighed inwardly as if talk of a bodices might not be appropriate, Marcus came back with a nasty retort “I saw her shove it back up in a sheath the second she saw you all coming. And watch your tone you filthy lowlife”

Lord Valacian then peered around the room and stroked his beard. Looking to Crim and Tellen he broached a question “Tellenani?” Tellen’s voice went cold as she explained “I was about to reenter the ballroom when he grabbed me. He wanted something I wouldn’t give and I fought to keep it.” Her face sunk into Crim’s arm when she was done and he kissed the top of her head comfortingly. At this point Marcus said something disgusting to the whole crowd. Lifting a finger and pointing at Crim's wife Marcus swore and loudly said “A whore like you doesn’t have enough left to fight for, let alone reserve for a lowborn parasite like him.”

Crim was done, he had heard enough to not like this man already. Yet something inside him. The urge he felt occasionally maybe snapped and his rage poured forth like that of a mighty rushing wind. Striding calmly to the figure with its back to the wall Crim leaned over and picked the lord up by his fancy collar. He raised him to face level and then yelled in his face “Lord Tabor, you have tried to rape my wife and been an unpleasant ass to this household were they still are trying to treat you with respect. You have caused my family and I harm in such a way that I demand...” Crim’s voice cut off as Marcus interrupted him “Demand what you scum, you and your whore of a wife can demand nothing from me, What right do you have to claim against my noble status”
With Darkened eyes Crim shoved the man loudly and suddenly into the wall, causing Marcus’ eyes to glaze for a second a trickle of blood to stain the wall. “I am the Son of Amroth Harrowmont, As his sire I am first and last in line to the throne! I Challenge your life in Trial by Honor. Tomorrow at dawn you and I shall meet on the hunting grounds.” his voice raged in the small hallway and several members had to clap their hands against the noise Marcus peered through glazed eyes as he posed a question “what are we hunting?” his mind was already reeling with ways he could outperform the apparent prince.
“Each other”

Some hours later there was a knock on Tellen’s door. Normally it would have been from the main door but this was from the door to the drawing room. Responding to her cue the door opened and Crim stalked into the bedroom before seating himself on her bed. He wore his strange tunic again, thankful for its familiar feel. “I am sorry I did what I did. But the man brought to bear my rage and I am not skilled in the games of politics as your family is. I solved it knowing how I would do it”. Feeling nervous and somewhat uncertain of himself he told Tellen his feelings of the matter and after a while of talking and somewhat later embracing Tellen pulled him to the sheets and a warm hand wrapped around her waist as they slept forward into the dawn of the next day.

[Lisenet]

Tellen tucked her head against the inside of Crim’s shoulder, wishing she didn’t have to bear witness to this. She wanted to be as far from the drunk as possible. His very presence felt contaminating, and she’d had quite enough of his suggestions over the last couple of years. The years she had avoided her own home and thus managed to avoid Marcus. If she could just go to bed, or even back to the ball or back outside, she would feel like a new person again. Something about having to be near Marcus…. It made her think of all the worst things that humans did to each other, for all the worst reasons.

Listening to her father run Marcus down was a pleasure—no threats, no extraneous words, no room to wiggle—but Tellen kept her eyes closed. She didn’t care to watch. Her mother made her way to her side and laid a quiet hand on her back in support. Despite Lady Valacian’s opinions of Tellen’s previous disregard for marriage and her mother’s opinions, she would still stand by her daughter’s word, at least when that daughter was showing signs of present sanity. And Crim’s arm helped. He kept her close, and for once she had absolutely no desire to be anywhere else, no anxiety or uncertainty. And he hadn’t asked her if she was all right yet, for which she was glad. It proved he believed in her enough not to ask a question to which he already knew the answer.

The comments about Tellen’s state of purity she had heard before, in a variety of different ways and shapes, and she had become desensitized to them. But apparently they were not to Crim’s liking, because he tugged his arm from around her waist and took long steps forward, slamming Marcus up against the wall. Tellen hid a faint, amused smile at his claim to princehood, thereby provoking Marcus even further. The thought of the two of them fighting each other turned her stomach into slime. But Crim could take care of himself. Even if Marcus was one of the most skilled fighters she had ever met. She’d seen him practicing in the yards once, and had endeavored never to see him again.

Tellen vanished up to her room as soon as Her father, her uncle and one of her older cousins marched him off to the single cell in the basement. Crim took a walk for a little while and Leonie silently helped Tellen out of her full gown, put a jar of cream for the cut on her cheek on the corner of her desk, and quietly left again, guessing that her friend didn’t want to talk. Crim came by later that night—closer to morning, considering how long the dancing had lasted even after their departure—and she let him in without comment, tugging him into bed beside her before curling up against him. He apologized, lightly touching the slice her own knife had left for her, and Tellen pressed herself closer to him. ”No need. If I were a man I would challenge him to a duel myself, but since I can’t, I suppose it’s perfectly all right with me for you to do it in my stead.” She laid her head on his chest, eyes closed. ”I would rather have you do well what you know how than to have to fumble where you don’t.” She sighed, and it was several minutes before she added, almost silently, ”Thank you.”

Tellen slept poorly despite her good company, and woke and was unable to go back to sleep only a few scant hours later. She lay in the shelter of Crim’s arms and wondered why she was so inexplicably miserable instead of wondering why she couldn’t sleep. Insomnia on nights when she wasn’t herself were common. When she got fidgety enough to have to leave so she wouldn’t wake him, she sighed, dressed herself, went out to the stables and sat with the fawn until the hour before the sun would make her first appearance, so she would be certain to catch Crim before he went out to meet with Marcus.

”Your husband goes about his duels in peculiar ways,” her father said, catching her on her way out.

Tellen smiled wanly. ”Well, he’s a bit of a peculiar fellow.”

”And what’s this about being the sole heir to a throne?”

Tellen showed her teeth this time when she grinned. ”Father, isn’t every man a king when he sits at the head of his own table?”

Her father laughed, and clapped her once on the shoulder. ”Looks like you got one as twisty with his words as you are.” He grew solemn, and drew her closer to run a thumb lightly over the line in her cheek. ”Are you well, Tellen?”

”I am well. Just….unhappy. I hate that people like him exist.”

”People like every kind have to exist, honey.” He drew her into a warm hug and rested his chin on top of her head. ”If not, think of how bored we would get. Those iron bars downstairs would think we don’t love them.”

Tellen chuckled into her father’s tunic. Her mother caught her as she was climbing the stairs to her room. ”Tellen, he didn’t hurt you did he? Aside from what we all could see.” Her eyes found the cut.

”No, Mother, don’t worry. I’m fine. Leonie gave me a cream in case it itches.”

Finally she slipped back into the room to find Crim just as he was sitting up. ”Sorry,” she wryly apologized. ”I know you’d rather know where I am.” She frowned. ”You’re not going to let him nick you with a poisoned blade and win your battle just to die on me a month later like in the bards’ stories, are you?”

He assured her he wasn’t, and she believed him, but that didn’t stop her worrying. She chewed the inside of her cheek until it was raw as she watched him walk into the forest at dawn. She would rather have watched him walk to the edge of a cliff blindfolded and promise not to fall—at least she would be able to see him and go after him—than watch him walk into the forest where she could do neither. Considering the look Marcus had given her as he walked past suggested that he wouldn’t mind if she followed them into the trees, so when his weaponry found her this time he would have an explanation instead of an excuse.

And there they stood, waiting in various reposes, for one or both of them to come back. ”It would be within his right,” her cousin reminded her. ”If Crim killed him. Considering what Tabor tried to do.”

Tellen shifted, fidgeting, arms crossed. ”I know.”

[.:[Crim]:.]

Dreams echoed throughout Crim’s waking sleep, they were a compilation of older dreams such as the oak and new dreams. The new dreams were frightful in some minor way. They involved many horrid images of Crim laying bruised broken and bloody. The dreams went on for some time before Crim woke with a start.

Glancing around the purple room he noticed first that his wife was no longer in bed. Could she have had bad dreams too? He wondered silently to himself as he swept his legs sideways and then stood up. Dawn shone it’s weary head through the window as Crim stretched serenely. Then as if suddenly the Challenge he had made last night hit his consciousness. Worry began to worm its way into Crim’s stomach, paying it no mind Crim grabbed daybreak from under Tellen’s bad and strapped it over his shoulder. Fetching his quiver from the drawing room he selected one dozen or so broad head arrows and then strapped the quiver to his right thigh. He already wore his tunic has he had fallen asleep in it.

The door opened and his wife entered the room. She wore a sundress of the darkest pink, the skirt had no pleats and was gathered at her waist instead of her bust. Accompany that with bare feet and a flower in her hair and she was the perfect image of what any man would want to see when they awoke. She sauntered over to the bed that Crim was standing in front of and pushed him back onto it. She collapsed next to him before saying

”You’re not going to let him nick you with a poisoned blade and win your battle just to die on me a month later like in the bards’ stories, are you?”

“I would be more worried about a poison bolt, he does use a crossbow. I don’t intend on letting him get close enough to use that sword of his”

Crim leaned over the prone form of Tellen and rain his hand up her side to cup her face before giving her a passionate kiss. As if trying to make her understand that he had no intent of dying today. The two laid together for a few minutes before making their way to the kitchen, arms around each other’s waist.

The kitchen was relatively empty besides Leonie and Lord Valacian, whom both paid there good mornings to Crim before he announced that he was going to be late if he did not hurry. Grabbing a muffin that his wife tossed at him he hurried out the door and down the wooden path towards the true woods. In a small clearing stood a group of people mainly just town officials or various nobles. Crim saw Marcus being lead to the front of the crowd by a chain-mail clad guard.

The two competitors turned to face each other when it was time for the spokesperson to make announcements and they listened. “We are here today to bear witness to an Honor Trial between Prince Crim Harrowmont and Lord Marcus Tabor, The victor shall stand as unchallenged. The other must relinquish all holdings that they own.” The spokesperson said this last with a long look into Marcus’ eyes. It was clear to Crim that Marcus would not want to sacrifice something that gave him power over other people. The two of them were shown to a game trail and told that they could not just instantly turn on one another. Marcus agreed and then disappeared into the wooded realm. Crim looked back towards his wife, gave a wry smile and he too ghosted into the wood.

Birch and pine trees blurred as Crim stealthed past them, the woods were serene and the sunlight broke through the canopy in great golden shafts. The trees seemed to creak and groan to their own haunting music as human and half elf played their clever game. As skilled as Crim was in tracking and hunting he respected Marcus for eluding him this long. Many false trails, misleading tells and even the odd broken branch were either fake or hard to tell if genuine. Finally finding what he seemed was the right trail he noticed that Marcus had headed towards a clearing that Crim had been past already.

Ghosting into the clearing Crim was greeted with the sight of Marcus crossbow slung over his shoulder and sword at his waist. Calling to Marcus Crim made it apparent that he was there. Marcus swore and the crossbow leveled at Crim. Crim sighed and drew Daybreak in a blur of motion. One bolt and one arrow were each trained on the other’s heart. The distance in the clearing was only around fifty yards. An easy shot for both parties.

“You lowborn scum, you couldn’t just let me Have Tellen could you! You took that woman away from me when she was rightfully mine! Tell me, was she a whore and unpure when you first got married!”

“You would do well to learn your place Marcus, men and women are equal in my eyes and I will not stand for slandering my wife’s name again.”

“Then what happens next? You know I won’t miss”

“Do I?”

As if on some unspoken cue an raven cawed in the faint morning sunlight. Marcus pulled the trigger on his wooden crossbow and the bolt tore the sky. Crim released the hold on the arrow and it raced towards the target. Both projectiles struck their target. Crim was dealt only a glancing cut to his right side, but yet it bled profusely as it was rather deep and had bruised or cracked a rib. Crim’s arrow however sailed true into the right shoulder of Marcus.

Crim heard a bone break and saw that the arm had come out of its socket. Deciding that he had probably dislocated the arm, broken the collarbone severely and the fact that Marcus was losing blood at a prodigious speed left Crim little choice.

Emerging from the forest with Marcus slung over his good side Crim strode somewhat tiredly towards the crowd that was waiting for him. Marcus had passed out on impact and it seemed that the fresh wind and crowd stirred him slightly. As Crim laid him to the soft ground Marcus looked and saw his bloody mess of a shoulder. Tellen chose this moment to make herself seen and attached herself to Crim’s good side.

“You have killed me then Crim.” Said Marcus in a discordant tone. Nearby healers were already trying to heal Marcus’ wound but it seemed destined to fail. “You killed yourself Marcus,I merely carried the arrow for a while. Besides you are not going to die. You will live but you will never again use your right arm. Also all of your Holdings and your Title now belong to me.”

Crim sighed wearily and leaned heavily against Tellen suddenly. Looking into her eyes he asked “Can we go?” When her bedroom door opened only minutes later she helped him get to the bed and he held a hand to his side. Tellen insisted on getting the tunic off of him. He sat up to take it off, then laid flat as blacked out from blood loss.

[Lisenet]

Tellen prided herself on her patience. She had once spent four hours watching a patch of sand on the beach while she waited for the turtles below to hatch and crawl up out of the pale sand and make for the ocean. Her patience had a habit of being rewarded, in some way or another, but not knowing for certain if she would be granted the same reward this time had her bones feeling cold. When Crim staggered out of the woods with her disappointed suitor slung over his shoulder, her mother sighed and kissed her cheek, and her father stood with a sigh of his own.

Tellen started toward him, relieved, and waited just long enough for Crim to dump Ass off his shoulder to wrap her arm around his waist. His gait was uneven, due to the blood leaking out of his ribcage. The family’s healer followed them up to the room to drop off the bandages and herbs she may need to help him, knowing somehow that Tellen wanted to do it herself. She helped him gingerly out of his mottled tunic, or at least the first couple pieces of it before he keeled over. Tellen sighed. ”Should have made you drink some water first,” she informed his prone person, and wrestled him out of the last couple shells of his tunic, shoving him bodily over on his side to get his weight off the last ones. ”You are one solid piece of manbeef,” she told him next. ”But less so than certain others, I suppose.” Finally yanking the last piece of tunic out from under his back, she tossed it into the wide bucket of cold water Leonie had brought up for his bloodstained clothes—Tellen hadn’t even heard her come in and leave it before slipping silently out—before alternately scraping and wiping dried and yet-wet blood off Crim’s laddered ribcage. She couldn’t help noticing, as she had before, the definition in his abs. But she wasn’t sitting at his side like this to admire his musculature.

As she cleaned away the blood, tipping him on his side with effort so she could clean the gouge left along his ribs that she couldn’t reach before, spread the skin to check the depth, and winced. But she used to follow the healer around, and she had spoken extensively with others in the years since she’d left, so as long as she kept it clean she was confident she wouldn’t accidentally kill him. ”You know, it was rather inconsiderate for you to go and get yourself injured just like I’d asked you not to.” Her hands were steady as she dabbed again at the wound and began stitching it back up. ”I suppose you probably didn’t manage to get yourself poisoned, but we’ll have to wait and see for that.” Smiling, she reached out and lightly brushed his hair back from his face. ”Though I’m glad you didn’t kill him. Outright, at least. Losing his title may well kill him, but then at least it was his own fault.”

Her stitches were slow, taking care to make them as even as possible in case he didn’t want a large, rippling scar over his side. She worked in silence for several minutes, taking her time so she wouldn’t make any mistakes out of her quieting worry. ”I wish you hadn’t had to fight him….though I’m glad he’s so thoroughly brought down. I just, I wish it wasn’t necessary. I wish he didn’t have to be the sort of person who required bringing down. But I….” Tellen tied off her thread and cut it, setting the thread and needle aside on the bedstand and sitting closer to him, clasping his warm hand in hers. ”But I am very glad you’ve come with me, Crim. Gods know that was the last thing I wanted after we got the curse slapped on us. I’m sorry I was so hard on you about that. I hope you understand how I….I hate my life taking turns I don’t approve of. Or….know how to deal with. I’m all right with strangers, friends, animals, broken bones, broken hearts…. It’s….I just….” She stopped, stroking her thumb over the back of his hand, admiring the calluses on his fingers. ”It’s not the people who hate you who hurt you the worst. They’re more likely to do it, but they’re not as good at it. The ones who love you hurt you without even trying, or even trying not to. My family I already have is safe enough, they can all take care of themselves and each other, and they’re mostly separate from what I do. But you, being so close to me, you’re more likely to get stuck, and so am I. People who love each other are so skilled at ruining each other while trying to save each other. And I….I don’t want that to happen, Crim. To either of us. We both deserve better.”

At last, neck beginning to ache, she laid down beside him, still keeping his hand safe in hers. ”I’d rather never see you again than find out I’m going to hurt you someday. But since that’s not soon in the coming, I suppose I can find the courage to enjoy the luck of having found you in the first place.” She smiled again, rested her head on his round shoulder, and waited for him to wake up.