[This evening, Blayne has hosted an elaborate dinner party, where Linnell met -- among others -- the mysterious Vinash de Venaisser, a Templar of the deity Sh'aljien; Aeschere Scyld, a charming foreign nobleman; and Laurelyn Hillrover, a bard and storyteller. During the early part of this post, while Linnell is following Vinash, Laurelyn, and Aeschere, Blayne has been engaged in battle with a number of Refusers -- including the Politi mage, Kallin So.]
[Linnell]
After the guests from the dinner party had disbanded, Linnell changed as quickly as possible from the burgundy gown she had worn to the affair and pulled on a simpler, grey wool dress. She tried to make herself sit still -- she had had enough wine that evening to still feel more than a little musty-headed -- but she could not. Standing by her window, she saw Laurelyn Hillrover leave with Vinash -- Aeschere supported between them.
-He said we could go out,- Linnell thought to herself. Blayne had not forbidden them from going out. (She did not even consider that once, no one could forbid her anything, not even her Dominta, Lanaera). She just had to be careful, that was all.
The outer chambers of Blayne's apartments were empty, and she slipped down the halls silently, hidden in shadows. For a moment, she considered asking Kit along, but decided not to do so. -I just want to follow,- Linnell told herself, -to make sure they get back safely.- She forced herself to stop thinking what she would do once the three had returned to the Dragon's Inn, once Aeschere had returned to his room. Hopefully alone.
Ducking from shadow to shadow, fading into nothingness, Linnell followed the three to the Dragon's Inn, too far behind to hear their conversation. Trying so very hard to stay hidden.
[Vinash]
Vinash waved curtly to Laurelyn as she supported the stumbling Aeschere through the door of the Dragon's Inn. He noted the manner in which Aeschere's arms found maximum purchase on the woman's feminine body, taking advantage of the opportunity to pretend he needed the woman's support. Vinash headed off immediately for his own lodgings at The Loose Waitress at a quick pace.
[Linnell]
Across the street, Linnell almost shifted back into visibility when she saw Vinash turn from the Inn, and she frowned. Where was the man going? Wasn't he staying here? Then she remembered some vague scrap of conversation from the dinner, perhaps.... Blayne wanted to know where he was staying. Her brown eyes turned to the Inn door, and she chewed her bottom lip.
-Silly girl,- she told herself resolutely. -As if Lord Scyld would take any notice of you.- She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. No, rather than indulge her foolish infatuation with the handsome, charming young lord, she would do something useful. She would find out where Vinash was staying while in Montfort.
[Vinash]
He had sensed someone following them before they reached the Dragon's Inn, and his anger welled up within him that Blayne had deemed to send spies tracking after him. In the darkness of the night, he strode onwards, trying to slowly increase the distance between himself and his pursuer.
Finally, he found a shadowy alleyway, and darted around the corner. He pulled his hunting knife from his boot.
[Linnell]
Linnell cursed when the man disappeared -- cursed her unwariness, cursed the excess of wine earlier in the evening that had caused it. She stopped, looking around, and faded even further into visibility, a semi-solid shape. Linnell moved forward, continuing down the street.
[Vinash]
Footsteps approached slowly, carefully. His tracker had lost sight and was wary of a trap, the soft sound of loose gravel sliding underfoot the only indication of their presence.
His knife arm tensed - he decided to give the spy a lesson.
As the footsteps neared the corner, he lunged out, grabbing the spy by their shirt front and hurling them around the corner into the wall. He heard the air rush out of their lungs, and in the half light, he lunged with his knife, plunging it hilt deep in their midriff. With a growl he wrenched his arm left and then diagonally, skewing open flesh, and spilling blood and intestines on his forearm. He looked the cur in the eyes - recognition lit in his eyes - it was Linnell, the girl from Blayne's dinner party.
[Linnell]
She was snatched so suddenly, she had no time to reach for the threads, to pull them to her and raise them against her attacker. Colors surged around them both, colors of violence and blood, but she could not seize them. Something -- pain, oh gods the pain--
She reached
<out>
but the threads spun away from her, she could not hold them.
[Vinash]
He gritted his teeth and pulled his knife from her gut with a sickly sucking sound. The blood on his arm was cooling quickly. He still held Linnell up by her dress front, and her breath snaked from between her lips raggedly, a thin gasping sound followed by a deep gurgling of blood filled lungs. He let go, and she slid limply to the ground.
[Selene]
Selene hung back, watching Linnell watch Vinash. She had wanted Vinash for herself, but it seemed Linnell wanted something, too. Except the stupid girl had gone the wrong way. She had seen Vinash disappear down a different street, but Linnell continued along this one. She wondered what the girl wanted, was it only chance she had followed Vinash a short time.
Her curiosity won out, and she decided to continue following Linnell. Vinash could wait, she would enjoy the anticipation.
Then she saw Linnell dart around a corner, as if she had been pulled. The sound which came next was one she had heard many a time, and never wanted to hear again.
Nothing could disguise the sound of a blade being pulled out of a stomach, nor the wheezing gasp of blood filling lungs.
Forgetting stealth, she ran, heading for the alley a few blocks ahead, where Linnell had vanished.
[Vinash]
He estimated she would be dead in minutes - that wasn't good enough.
If she had come after him to find out where he was staying, she was _probably_ under Blayne's orders... but Blayne would not have chosen to send _her_ instead of a professional. So she was here against orders. Best to kill her before anyone found out.
[Linnell]
Linnell sat slumped against the wall, her head down, distantly seeing the blood pumping from her body, the massive wound in her abdomen. The colors were draining away with her blood, every beat of her heart pushed more of them away.
<cold>
She shivered, or she thought it might have been a shiver.
[Vinash]
A snarl on his face, his black hair hanging down like a deathmask, he pulled her head back with his free hand to expose her neck, and prepared the knife for a killing slash.
[Linnell]
Her brown eyes stared up without seeing him. The threads were spinning away, the colors were fading, she could not move.
[Vinash]
Loud footsteps came from around the corner at a breakneck pace. Cursing, he lunged down the back way, and into darkness. He could do nothing but return to The Loose Waitress and wash up.
[Selene]
Dashing around the corner, she had a brief glimpse of a man ahead, before he disappeared into the street again. Then her attention was drawn to a crumpled shape on the floor .... a crumpled wheezing shape. The smell of blood was emanating from it, almost clouding another ... alien ... scent in the air.
"God no," she whispered in horror, as she lifted the thing's head, and was confronted with Linnell's features, conveying agony.
[Linnell]
A small part of her mind registered Selene's presence, the touch of her glittering warm colors on her face. The other woman's hands were slick with blood. -My blood,- Linnell thought. -How did that get there?- She tried to speak, but coughed up more blood, a rush of warm crimson over her chin.
[Selene]
Lifting Linnell, she quickly licked closed the outer wounds, but could do nothing for the internal bleeding. Blayne was the only one who could help now.
She ran, ran like she had never run before. Using all her vampiric speed, she ran through the streets, bumping the odd person in her way, leaving them cursing an empty street.
"Don't you die on me, damnit," she cursed.
[Linnell]
Linnell's head rested against Selene's chest. The colors had stopped fading so quickly, but they still seeped away. Into the darkness, disappearing into the stone around them, untouchable. ::I'm sorry,:: she sent to the other woman, focusing on Selene's heartbeat, a weak, despairing send.
She fell into the grey --
[Selene]
As she approached the church, she had no time to stop and chat with the guards. They raised their spears, and she slipped between, snapping one, and pushing a guard aside.
"A matter of life and death, for Grand Inquisitor Blayne" she gasped, as she ran past. They wouldn't catch her anyway. Not until it was too late.
Careering up the stairs, pushing aside the occasional servant, she reached Blayne's quarters.
"Blayne" she called, pushing open the door.
"Blayne, help me!" she almost screamed.
[Grand Inquisitor]
Blayne staggered to a chair with Smith and Dalmanae helping him. The decanter of Bloodwine on his desk gleamed softly in the room and flooded the room with its sweet scent. Blayne's eyes were drawn to it immediately, the burning inside, the pain that never stopped, "I need..." he gasped between breaths. Dalmanae was too close, too full of Blood, he pushed her away before he did something he might regret.
"Smith..." Blayne gritted his teeth against a building wave of searing torment that wracked his entire body. Selene's screams for his attention penetrated the fog closing in on him.
[Smith]
"What do you need, my friend? I don't know much about how to help you. Would some blood help?"
[Grand Inquisitor]
"Yes... I need..." He clutched at his side trying to still the pain inside him that clamored for release.
Blood. The room was awash in it now. He grasped that Linnell was in Selene's arms, covered in her own vitae. "What..."
Blayne levered himself from the chair to stagger towards Linnell as Selene laid her on Blayne's huge tapestried bed. Auspex flashed into his mind, and he knew that Linnell was dying. Blayne touched her neck to feel for her pulse, calling the Healing magics he knew into the front of his mind. Useless now.
Blayne pulled Selene down to the edge of the bed with him. His hands on her arms were leaving purple marks that would take days to fade. Blayne's touch and his eyes both burned with fading energy. "Selene, I need you to drink." He bared his arm and waited, hoping. He dared not drink from her, binding himself to her unless she was Bound to him.
[Selene]
Several thoughts flashed through Selene's head, how the third drink would be binding, that they had each drunk twice of the other, how weak Blayne looked, needing blood. How near Linnell lay to death. She couldn't let Linnell die.
With a quick glare to the two strangers in the room, Blayne would make them swear secrecy, or they would die, Selene let her fangs show, then slicing his wrist, she drank briefly. She knew how much it took to bond, she had fed a couple of servants herself.
As soon as she had drunk enough, she licked his wrist healed. Without even stopping to think, her mind still avoided thinking about it, she moved, pressing her neck against Blayne's mouth.
[Grand Inquisitor]
Blayne did not wait even that long. His fangs closed around her neck like one starving, knowing he hurt her but there was no time for gentleness. He sliced through her pale skin and sucked the blood from her throat, not waiting for it to well out on its own. His pale eyes focused on hers, watching her with Auspex to know when she was weakened.
[Selene]
Initially it took all her will power to keep her neck there, as her blood drained. Then as Blayne's strength returned, and he held her head, she could no longer pull away.
[Dalmanae]
In the doorway to the outer room Dalmanae watched the process. "Smith, he's going to need to feed. And badly from the looks of him. So is she."
[Smith]
Dalmanae's reply was all Smith needed. If feeding was the problem, he could fix that! He turned to Dalmanae and said "I could use some help..."
[Dalmanae]
"Of course, melindo." She left the door slightly ajar and walked to Smith.
[Smith]
He opened a portal to Pas de Mer and stepped quickly through. It was evening, and the streets weren't at all crowded; but a busy tavern was nearby. Smith grinned and said "Looks like the herd needs to be pruned." He lifted his hands and dragon fire roared over the front of the building, effectively blocking the front door and the two windows while panicking those inside. A watchman came up, his mouth gaped open, and he turned to run...Smith lifted a hand, and life draining lightning enveloped the man, leaving a lifeless, dessicated corpse.
Smith shimmered, and reappeared with Dalmanae at the back door of the tavern just as the patrons started to come out. It was simple to open a portal underneath them, and a dozen fell through..to reappear in Blayne's chambers. Being unprepared for such matters, the already terrified folk suffered more than their share of broken ankles, ruined knees, and fractured ribs...worse, they didn't have the manners to be quiet about it. Another burst of dragon fire sealed the remaining folk in, and more importantly stopped the flow of blood donors.
By now, the fire brigade had been called, along with the city watch and a variety of soldiers. A lightning bolt seared through the air, and missed the two by the barest of margins. Smith grinned and said "Is that any way to treat visitors? Just see if I come back to this tavern!" And with that, he dodged into an alley, opened a portal back to Blayne's room, and said to Dalmanae "After you..."
[Dalmanae]
Dalmanae shook her head as she leapt through. Positively amazing.
[Smith]
Stepping through himself, he closed the portal, pausing just long enough to wave to an attacking watchman. Turning, he commented "I invited these people over for a bite; they couldn't refuse." He couldn't help chuckling at his own joke...it had been a good day.
[Dalmanae]
Dalmanae chuckled at the joke, and then one of the victims staggered towards her. Dalmanae backhanded the man with her surprising strength and, annoyed by the clamor, cast a spell over the remaining sheeple to cause them to sleep in their tracks.
Seeing no need to delay, she picked up the Bloodwine and followed Smith into the bedroom, a glass in one hand, the decanter in the other. She had not known before this eve what Blayne's secret was, but she knew something of Kindred. His pale eyes, silver in the slanting bars of moonlight, locked on hers and drew her across the room as he turned from Selene to Linnell.
[Grand Inquisitor]
Blayne took the decanter and drank from it until empty. Wine dripped from around his mouth, to his armored chest and slid down the oiled breastplate. The temporary surge helped.
He had heard the voices and bared his fangs in a smile at Smith before he focused on Linnell, laying beside them in the bed, aware of what was happening despite the pain. He brushed the blood from around her mouth, smearing it into that across her face. "Linnell, it has to be this way. I am sorry it had to be done like this..."
[Linnell]
-One thread,- she thought, -all I need is one.- Her own pulse, weakening, the only line she could hold, its fragility terrified her. Distantly, she could feel Blayne, somewhere around him hot colors surged, teasing her with their strength. What had he and Selene done? What was that knot that bound them together?
::Blayne...:
[Grand Inquisitor]
Picking her up, he put her in his lap and touched her head to turn it towards him. As gently as he could he kissed her, his mind blanketing hers to take away the fear and horror of this. He remembered his own Embrace, and knew hers would be no better despite his efforts. Someone would pay.
[Selene]
Not having much energy left, Selene crawled to one of the sleeping victims, not seeing anything besides its neck. Her fangs sliced the jugular, and she drank, not caring about anything else, just to drink.
Partially sated, she moved to another, and repeated the process, this time though, as she drank, here eyes locked with Smith's then Dalmanae's. She wondered what they knew ... what they would do.
Draining that person as well, she stood, licking the last of the blood from her lips. With a simle at the two, she then withdrew her fangs, and turned back to the bed.
She stumbled over the corpse of her second victim, and only then realised what she had done. She stared in horror at the two bodies, the two people she had killed.
[Linnell]
"No," she moaned, or tried to, more blood oozing slowly from between her lips. -Blayne, it's Blayne, he will not hurt me,- but still the heavy silence he pressed over her mind disturbed her. If she could have moved, she would have tried to twist away. Or turn to him.
[Grand Inquisitor]
She barely felt the razor's edge of his fangs slicing into her neck, the onset of darkness was too close.
[Linnell]
::Oh, gods,:: she closed her eyes and arched. All the colors were going now, everything in a rush flooding away from her, into him.
<coldsocold>
Her hands, covered in the blood that had poured out as her intestines had spilled into her lap in that alleyway, lifted. She meant to push him away or to pull him to her, she did not know which, the greyness was there, opening up, waiting, hungry.
The last thread she held quivered, and twisted in her grasp. Something dark and heavy turned inside her, opened its mouth and seized her, tore her apart. Linnell would have screamed if she could have.
The line <snapped> and slid away from her
spiralling
broken
<lost>
The flat grey covered her.
[Grand Inquisitor]
Blayne closed his eyes as he pulled away from her, not wanting to see that <gone> expression in her, as he'd seen it so many times before. Not to one of the special ones...
He grew black claws in a split second and slashed his wrist over her slack mouth. "Linnell..." he whispered, "You must...."
The dark blood flowed onto her tongue, he felt her try dazedly to spit out the taste of it, but his wrist was wedged into her mouth, she had to drink. Blayne looked up from her to Selene, it had been so long since he had created Progeny, Linnell was not ready for the change. It might well destroy the parts of her that he cherished. He could not ask for help, it was not a thing Dark guards did.
[Linnell]
<no>
Somewhere in the widening space between heartbeats, she could still hear the murmuring
<no>
Linnell wanted to turn her head away, clamp her lips shut, wait out the growing gap in her pulse, fall into the grey and let it wrap her up in cold. But the taste of him in her mouth was hot, sweeter than any wine, thick and vibrant --
-- the empty space between heartbeats grew --
No thinking now, the hunger was hers, and with a sob Linnell wrapped one hand around his wrist and pulled it closer, pulled the blood in, pulled the colors from him and into her--
<no>
-- molten silver in her throat, spreading through her, burning, the pain almost unbearable. When he pulled away, she turned in his arms, gasping with the agony of it, screaming from the wrenching inside --
<one pulse>
Linnell rolled away from Blayne on the bed and opened her eyes. ::So many colors,:: the shades danced around the room, into and out of her, the floor crawled with the colors of blood, the walls <breathed> ...
<another>
Linnell, her dress crimson with her own blood, continued to scream between gasping breaths and slipped to the floor, scurrying on hands and knees for the nearest corner where she sat huddled, mewling. ::No.::
<another>
The patterns had been unmade. She had been unmade, and reformed again.
<another>
Behind her fear and her pain, the hunger grew.
[Grand Inquisitor]
Blayne stood and looked across the expanse of his bed to where Linnell cowered. "Linnell, you are not dead. You are alive in a different way, but you are alive. There is nothing to fear." His voice was overlaid with calming influences, she would reject a rapport were it offered so he made do with the voice.
[Linnell]
She was down to deep gasping sobs now, her throat raw with her screaming and the heat of his blood, and his voice reached her, just barely, through the pounding heaviness of her heartbeat. The gentleness of his tones started to smooth the roughest edges of her fear ... but then Linnell opened her eyes again, and was blinded by the colors pouring off him, Selene, and the two strangers in the room. She could smell them all, and she hungered.
The wall behind her <moved>, the floor beneath her <twisted>, and she curled up on one side, doubling herself over the blade still turning inside her. ::Too much,:: a wrenching whisper, as she squeezed her eyes shut. The patterns were unmade and she could not reweave them, she could not shut out the storms. ::What have you made me?:: The grey coldness would be better than this searing wash of colors.
She flinched as someone touched her, softly, and flinched again as she fought the almost overpowering urge to reach out and feed. Linnell thought if her heart pounded any harder, it would burst. ::Blayne.:: Just that, she could manage only his name, a despairing plea for him to make the pain go away, to shut out the colors, to make the floor stop <moving>
[Grand Inquisitor]
He dimly began to understand that there was something wrong with her physically, overloaded. "You are Kindred now," he said soothingly, coming forward warily, as one might approach a lynx kitten. "What you see is the world around you in all its glory. Turn off your Auspex, Linnell, and things will look normal to you again."
As normal as a Politi could without threads. He realized too late that Linnell was particularly sensitive to the Blood. It was rare, but some did have it.
"Look at me," he gently lifted her into his arms and returned her to the bed.
[Selene]
Selene was jolted out of her reverie by
the realisation something was wrong. Very wrong.
Her embrace had not been that bad, there
had been hardly any pain at all.
Rushing over to the bedside, she sat, and grabbed Linnell's hands in her own, just holding them, and whispering reassuring words to her.
[Grand Inquisitor]
Blayne brushed Selene's mouth briefly with a kiss, licking the blood from her lips. ::You taste delicious, and I will need to feed again before the night is over.::
[Linnell]
Linnell shook as he lifted her, keeping her eyes squeezed tightly shut and still seeing the colors seeping through, crawling across the backs of her eyelids. Turn off Auspex? She hadn't even realized she was using it, it was just <there>. Linnell curled against Blayne, shaking, and forced Auspex away from her. At Blayne's gentle insistence, she opened her eyes and <looked> at him --
<bright>
like staring into the sun directly. ::Make it stop,:: she begged, barely realizing she was asking him to take the threads away, close her off from them. But they lashed at her so, and curled <in> and she could not control them. Something <inside> her had awakened and shifted her center, and she could not find the balance necessary for weaving.
Linnell clutched at Selene's hand and gripped it so hard her knuckles turned white and her fingertips went numb. All she knew was Blayne had stepped away, but the bright colors still moved in the room, living flames, the murmuring pressed in, topped only by the ever-increasing pounding of her heartbeat.
Then, silence, and the colors were gone. Blayne had done something to dam the flood and give her peace. Linnell shuddered and went limp. ::I'm sorry,:: she sent. "I am so sorry." Her voice and breath were ragged.
And she hungered.
[Grand Inquisitor]
Blayne looked awful, and the herd awaiting in the next room was tempting him greatly. "Thank you Smith." He wanted to say more but could not bring himself to rely on anyone.
"You are welcome to stay, and drink wine or order food of your preference. You... do understand that what you have seen is not to be repeated to anyone?"
[Selene]
Selene glanced up from where she was tending Linnell, and looked at Smith and Dalmanae. Their answer would be critical.
[Smith]
Smith grinned and replied "My pleasure! Anyway, you were one up on me after our contest with the bandits. And of course I didn't see anything here, since Dalmanae and I are still in Varna."
Turning to Dalmanae, he said "I'd enjoy a meal; care to join me?"
[Dalmanae]
Dalmanae ran a hand through her hair to untangle it, "Yes, I'd like that."
[Grand Inquisitor]
Blayne returned to the bedside and sat down. Lifting her into his lap like a child, he stroked her hair and gestured for Selene to help him. A technical explanation might help Linnell to calm down, he did not know what else to do with her yet. "Linnell, I never meant for your Embrace to be this way. I wanted it to be a good thing, and to happen when you understood."
"Selene and I are Kindred, what is known as vampires. You are now Kindred as well. Everything I have been teaching you through the Blood is the magic of the Kindred."
[Linnell]
Part of her mind tried to cringe away from what he was telling her, she knew what Kindred were, she knew they *fed.* Oh, gods, but she wanted to feed herself, that meant blood, it meant killing people. But as he held her and spoke to her, and stroked her hair, the shivering from her fear diminished. She shook now from hunger, the hunger was the only thing she could think about.
[Grand Inquisitor]
"The transition is often painful, but we are effectively immortal. We have the time to achieve things, everything you ever desired, Linnell. Do you understand? It is not a curse, it is an opportunity."
[Linnell]
::Hungry,:: Linnell sent, and whispered aloud, "I am so hungry." Time to think later on what he had said, time to process it and pick it over and find the patterns again, all she knew was that she needed to feed, she needed to feed *now,* if she did not, she thought she would go mad. It was a need greater than her need for the threads had ever been, a thirst stronger than her thirst for the mosaic. "Please ..."
Thus when they brought the first to her, she closed her eyes and fixed her fangs in the woman's neck and *fed,* pulling the blood into herself and swallowing. And the same with the second, smearing herself with yet more blood in her clumsiness to sate the hunger, leaving the bodies drained. And afterwards, she let Selene help her wash the blood away; Linnell slipped into her own bed, knowing only that Blayne and Selene were with her until she fell into the sleep of the exhausted.
Linnell slept, her dreams shaded with the colors of blood.
[The next day is a cataclysmic one for Montfort, though Linnell spends it sheltered in Blayne's chambers in the Church tower. While she passes the day recovering from her Embrace, Blayne holds a festival, culminating in the Cleansing of Wyland Koltke (a Politi journeyman, grandson of Linnell's Dominta, Lanaera) and Uralia Felder (a Montfort native and non-mage weaver's apprentice). The Politi mages, led by Kallin So and assisted by a number of unexpected allies, attempt to rescue Wyland and Uralia from the pyre, but fail, barely escaping with their lives. Riots ensue, and various factions battle one another, destroying most of the city in the process.
Linnell, still adjusting to her existence as a vampire, remains ignorant of Wyland's and Uralia's fate, and of the fact that Blayne hunts the remaining members of her household.]
[Blayne]
The Church had quieted for the evening. In the church Geod held later services for the populace. Blayne sent his staff on their way, tired of the company of the living, wanting his own kind, but not wanting the opiate that Selene provided with her distractions and moods, nor the games and maneuvering for control of Shaena and her ilk.
The problem that was the Resistance festered in Montfort, and seemingly could not be removed without destroying the entire populace. It was not that they were powerful, or organized. They were not, and Blayne was beginning to actively hate them all. Rather than waste his energy in wild searches, he was climbing the stone steps to the tower and waiting, waiting for word from one of his spies or Geod's mageguards. Waiting to crush them into a bloody pulp.
He knocked lightly on Linnell's door, listening within for any sound that the room was occupied.
[Linnell]
Linnell again sat curled up in the armchair near the windows, the drapes drawn back so that she could look out into the night. She wore one of her simple dresses, in light blue cotton. No grey, nothing even vaguely Politi. The single silver loop that she had worn for four years in her left earlobe still lay on the mantel where she had left it early that morning.
Linnell watched the night sky and considered her day. Things kept changing so quickly, she felt that the ground beneath her feet could shift without any notice. Just within the last twenty-four hours -- first, that attack in the alleyway (thinking of it made her cringe in fear), then becoming Kindred. Then Selene ... And at the end of the day, when all of them had gathered again in Blayne's chambers, all his "coterie" as he called the women -- For a moment, thinking on what had followed with the four of them, Linnell allowed herself to smile.
Yet, afterwards now, sitting alone in her room, the gladness the three had given her settled into a darker mood. And when she heard his knock at the door, she felt relief. And uncertainty. She had held him in her arms earlier that evening, and yet there were so many things she had not shared with him. Nothing to be gained by avoiding that, though, Linnell told herself. "Come in," she called softly.
[Blayne]
The door opened under the palm of his hand. Linnell unerringly drew his eyes towards her. He relaxed a little as the door closed, sealing them from outside concerns for now.
He walked to the window to stand behind her and look out at the stars he loved. Different than the northern stars, but he felt at peace tracing the celestial images.
Blayne touched her cheek with his fingertips, tracing the line of them towards her hairline and slipping down to her shoulders. Quietly he said, "I have always loved the stars and the nightime. There are many things I want to show you, cara mia. Things that I hope you will enjoy as I enjoy you."
[Linnell]
She turned her cheek into his palm, and caught one hand where it rested on her shoulder with her own. But she did not look back at him. Even after what had happened, she was not been prepared for the gentleness of his voice. For that note of tenderness said he had seen her continued pain despite the pleasure they had shared. "I have to learn to enjoy them, don't I?" Linnell responded, wincing at the faint note of -- what? anger? bitterness? -- in her voice. "I'm sorry," she added, softly, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She did not look back at him, she could not have born knowing that she had hurt him.
"I'm never going to be able to go back, am I?" she asked. "Even if any of them are still alive, even if I can find them. I'm never going to be able to go back."
[Blayne]
"We want you to enjoy being with us, Linnell. And to be happy."
"Do you *want* to go back? To leave us? It can be done, but is the price worth it to you, to lose so much here, as Kindred?"
[Linnell]
Linnell still did not look up at him, though that last question hurt her more than she wanted to admit. "I don't want to leave you," she told him, nothing but certainty in her tones. "But I can't pretend I don't --" Her voice caught, and she paused until she could steady it. "I can't pretend I haven't lost everything and everyone that mattered to me. I can't just turn away from that and ignore it. No matter what you say or do, you can't fill that chasm up." She spoke levelly, never raising her voice, never altering her tone. But he could hear the pain behind her words, and read it in the way she held her shoulders.
[Blayne]
"If they love you, they will still accept you, Linnell, as we do."
[Linnell]
"It is not a matter of accepting what I have become. I will if I have to in order to survive." She heard him move around the chair to stand before her, and raised her brown eyes to his. She had not wept for hours, but her face was tired.
[Blayne]
"Come. You are upset, and need to think." He held out a hand to her and smiled. Blayne longed to see her without the anger and bitterness clouding her aura.
[Linnell]
Linnell considered his hand, and slid her fingers into it, letting him pull her from the chair and onto her feet. She did not speak as he led her away.
[Blayne]
Obfuscate and hide from prying eyes. Out the window, teleporting to a distant place Blayne knew from before.
An elven country retreat, now decaying and crumbling without an owner to keep it up. Blayne arrived with Linnell in the ballroom. Here there were no signs of neglect. A thousand candles burned brightly in sconces and chandeliers. It had been swept free of dust and leaves, and decorated with flowers. An orchestra played softly from behind a latticed, flower bedecked balcony high above.
The gilt work and gold edged mirrors reflected the pair of them. He in a formal doublet of black, edged in braided gold, she in a gown of gold such as a lady of reknown might wear. She wore the jewelry he had given her.
[Linnell]
Linnell turned slowly, her eyes wide at the shimmmering light, feeling the threads settle in around her, dancing around the chandeliers and curling around the candles. No damping field here, but the colors were muted; though they moved away from her when she reached for them, at least she did not feel the wrenching unbalanced churning that had so disturbed her before.
She caught sight of her reflection, and stopped, one hand rising to touch the stones in the necklace he had given her. And the earrings; no silver loop to clash with them now. "It's beautiful," she whispered, meeting his eyes in the mirror.
[Blayne]
He stood behind her in the mirror, touching her shoulder blades lightly. "No. *You* are beautiful."
He offered his hand to her, glad that with Selene's help his body temperature was seemingly normal now. For a little while. "This was once a part of my family's holdings, a very long time ago. The forest has encroached on it year after year. I nearly didn't find it at all."
"Would you join me in a dance?"
[Linnell]
Linnell shivered and closed her eyes when his touch swept over her shoulders, and turned to take his hand, hesitant. Still half stunned and grieving over what had happened to her recently, Linnell was unsure how to react to the rich setting. But at that moment, looking into his eyes and feeling his fingers caress her own, she wanted nothing more than to dance with him. To feel his arms around her again.
"I don't know how to dance," she almost whispered to him, moving awkwardly as he pulled her closer. At his direction, Linnell placed her left hand on his right arm; she shivered again as he slid his right hand onto her waist. With their other arms extended, fingers intertwined, he began to lead her around the floor.
Linnell was very conscious of the slow uncertainty of her movements, and glanced upwards to his eyes occasionally in unspoken apology at her missteps. This was not like dancing the mosaic, where the steps came almost instinctively.
[Blayne]
"Neither did I, at first."
Patiently he showed her the steps of a waltz, slowly whirling around the floor until she learned the simple steps. He smiled down at her accomplishment, saying little but smiling often and obviously enjoying himself, seeking for her to relax into the music and forget to be clumsy.
[Linnell]
Linnell could not help but respond to his smile, and in time her stiffness eased. As she become more comfortable with the steps, she mvoed more easily around the floor with him. Faster with every change in the music, and in each pass across the floor, acutely aware of how he drew her closer to him, 'til his arm had encircled her waist and she rested one cheek on his chest.
[Blayne]
The waltz drew to a close but Blayne did not release her. Instead he tipped her chin upwards with his thumb and forefinger, and kissed her.
His hand on her back held her still while he explored the slender curves beneath her gown.
[Linnell]
Linnell breathed into his kiss, trembling as his hands passed over her body, sliding one hand to the back of his neck and the other around his chest. He loosed her hair and let it fall around her shoulders, cradling the back of her head in his hand. -This time, without Selene and Kit,- she thought, savoring the realization that this time she had him to herself.
[Blayne]
Her thoughts were as her magic, quicksilver threads bubbling from her mind. He stroked his hand down her spine to her waist and then back to the fall of her hair.
::Linnell, love, you set the pace and do as you will.::
He heard her answer in his mind and smiled as his fingers traced little circles over the smooth, thin silk of her dress.
[Linnell]
She almost laughed, but her mouth was occupied with his, though the chuckle passed through their mental link. ::I still don't know quite what I want,:: Linnell said. She felt her blush spreading over her face again, and ducked her head, smiling. "I'm sorry, I keep blushing."
[Blayne]
Blayne smiled, "So you do." And undid the first button on the front of her gown, and the next, and the one after that.
[Linnell]
She kept her hands on his wrists and her eyes on his hands as he unbuttoned her gown, blushing even more with each button that came undone. Blushing even more as he slowly slid the top of the gown from the shoulders to bare her to the waist. Still just watching his hands, she placed her fingers lightly over his and guided them over her body. Trembling under his touch and feeling the sweet ache growing, she reached for his doublet, pushing it over his head.
[Blayne]
Blayne let the gown fall to the floor to puddle around her ankles. Beneath the silk she wore a chemise of elven lace, strapless and gathered Empire-style just below her breasts, then falling to the floor.
He drew her onto the balcony where a stone bench remained, and started to remove her long gloves while he whispered sweet nothings into her ear. Words of what he wanted to do to her, promises she knew he would keep.
And he did keep them.