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Sereina purses her lips, nose flared angrily as she watches Samuel and Anibell talk behind some sort of barrier. When she was able to hear again, her knuckles turned white against her arms as they gripped her wrists tightly, almost cutting off the circulation within her hands.
Samuel walks towards Sereina, eyes welling with tears. As he draws even with her, he opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. His expression is almost a perfect mirror of the pain he is so obviously feeling. Slowly he closes his mouth and turns in the direction of the barracks, blinking to clear his eyes as he holds out his right hand towards his wife.
Sereina sniffs loudly, blatantly keeping her arms crossed as they walk back towards the cabin. She opens the door on her own and steps inside, taking her customary seat at the foot of the bed, legs crossed.
Samuel lowers his hand, a stricken look on his face, and follows Sereina back to the cabin. He enters after her and closes the door behind him. The second the door shuts, he wipes his coatsleeve across his eyes and sniffles loudly. He swallows a few times, looking at nothing. After a long moment, he turns to face Sereina and says softly,'I can ward the cabin if you want to scream at me.' There is a sense of resignation about him as he says it.
Sereina purses her lips, crossing her arms. 'If you think that is what will be needed, go right ahead. Or perhaps we shall learn how to mask the bond? You wouldn't want me to know what you're feeling, after all,' she says softly, voice far too calm for the expression on her face.
Samuel's expression does not even flicker as Saidin pours into him, a torrent of fire and filth. The air shimmers as he deftly weaves a warding against eavesdropping and ties it off. As he pushes Saidin away, he says in a very tired voice,'The Cone of Silence is in place. Feel free to yell, scream, curse, throw things, whatever you like.' He slowly lowers himself into one of the cabin's two chairs and adds in that same resigned voice,'If you want to learn to mask the bond, Mother can teach you how. I will not attempt to learn. It is, after all, your only way of striking back at me.' As he speaks, his gaze slowly wanders to his feet, an expression of abject dejection apparent on his face and through the bond.
Sereina combs her fingers through her hair. 'I'm asking you. Not like I have anything to hide in this matter.' She squints, nose flaring as she sighs deeply. 'You know...it's not even worth saying. I just....OOOH I'm so angry I could just..' Sereina takes another deep breath, shaking from head to toe. Nothing but anger and jealousy could be felt through the bond, all else is swamped.
Samuel winces slightly at Sereina's eruption. Slowly, he raises his gaze from the floor and looks at her. He shakes his head slowly from side to side, too slowly to disturb the bells in his braids. Letting out a sigh, he stands and walks over to the corner and picks up the broom leaning there, then turns around and walks back to Sereina. 'Here,' he says as he holds the handle out towards here,'if you think it would make you feel better, go ahead and hit me with it.'
Sereina grabs the broom and heaves it at the window with a scream. 'You know, I want to scream so badly that you should have left me, but it's too late for that. Not only must I deal with having you in my head, I have to deal with that damned guilt, which makes ME feel guilty and then whenever you talk to...to that -woman- I have to feel your heart of your bloody sleeve just about to wretch out. It makes me nearly vomit having to feel all that. I'm stuck in this situation and finding myself feeling things I have sworn that I'd never, -ever- feel for you and it angers me even more than when I know that you love another. I am not -supposed- to like you, on any terms and it PISSES me OFF.'
Samuel braces himself for the blow that never comes, then watches as the broom sails across the room and clatters silently against the window, just outside the warding. He turns back just in time to catch the first word of her tirade, slowly seeming to wilt under the barrage of words, collapsing gradually to his knees. By the time she finishes, he is kneeling in front of her, tears streaming freely down his face. Without looking up, he mutters softly,'I thought you hating me was bad, but this is worse.' From the stricken look on his face and the feeling that flares through the bond, it is apparent that he did not intend to give voice to that thought.
Sereina raises both of her hands in the air, clutching at her temples and lets out an ear piercing shriek. 'Don't start, don't -even- start with that. I already know it's worse. You should have bloody left me in the broken down shop, but noo....you have to do your duty. But now, all you ever -do- is lie!' Sereina throws herself back on the bed, hard, fists falling to her sides. 'Why.....why couldn't I have had a normal life before this?' she asks faintly. 'I might have been happy. I would have been home, like any other sixteen year old. But no, I'm stuck in the Dark One's Love Triangle.'
Samuel winces at Sereina's high-pitched scream, then shifts around to sit on the floor at the foot of the bed in front of her. He crosses his legs and folds his hands in his lap before he finally raises his tear-streaked face to look at her. In sharp contrast to her ranting, he says very softly,'She will be gone soon, returned to Caemlyn to face the Lord Dragon's justice. That is if she does not.. I think she just might attack her guards and get herself killed. Either way you will be free of her, possibly me, too.' He breathes in a ragged breath before continuing,'As for lying, I have not knowingly lied to you about anything. If you want.. if you ask it, I will avoid her until she leaves. I ..' His voice trails off as he lowers his face again, sobbing quietly.
Sereina's frown deepens but she doesn't look down, still staring at the ceiling. 'I am tired of you asking my permission for things that you are trying to avoid. If you bloody well want to see her, see her. You're going to do it anyway. If you bloody want to avoid her, fine, avoid her. I don't care. If she kills herself, fine, she kills herself. -I don't care.- But if you bring me down in your lover's spat, I will make your living life the Pit of Dhoom. You had said before you were sorry for whatever you had done to me, and yet, you purposely hurt me every singly flaming time you do anything. Thank you for caring. I don't want your promises.'
Samuel's weeping and pain slowly turns to anger under the barrage of words. His hands slowly clench into fists so tight that his nails dig into his palms. In a voice full of cold fury, he says,'That is not true. I do not purposely hurt you. You -know- it is not true.' His teeth grind together audibly and painfully, his breath coming through his nose in angry huffs for several long moments before he forces himself to calm. He slowly unclenches his fists and says in a soft tone,'I can't do anything about the way I feel, but I can control what I do. As long as you are my wife, I will be faithful to you. You can feel that I am telling the truth. Choose to believe it or not. That is up to you. I'll even gate us to Arafel and have someone really marry us, if you want. But I will not have you saying that I purposely hurt you when we both know it is not true.'
Sereina turns on her side and curls into a ball. 'I don't know what's true anymore. Do I love you? Do I hate you? Do you even want to be bonded to me? I mean, if you really don't want to be, just say it. Tell someone, anyone, that it was too much to bear and ask them how to undo it. I can't stand this limbo.'
Samuel goes very, very still, a mixture of guilt and confusion flaring very briefly through the bond before a sense of calm settles over him again. Hesitantly, he says,'Do you want me to do that? I ... I will tell you very honestly exactly what I feel about the bond. When I am through, will you return the favor?'
Sereina nods, head tucked between her arms. 'I just want to know where I stand.' she says softly, moving her left arm so that he could hear her.
Samuel takes in a deep breath and lets it out very slowly, then swallows hard. With a soft sigh, he says,'I... be patient, please. This is not easy for me to talk about.' He takes another slow breath and then says,'Most of the time, I.. I like being bonded to you.' His eyes begin to water again, tears slowly streaming down his cheeks,'Even right now, I think I would miss you. I know how bad that sounds.. It's a big part of why I feel guilty all the time. I -do- care about you, Sereina.. I may even .. love you. I'm just not sure. My mind spins whenever I try to think about it.' He shakes his head slowly and adds very softly,'It doesn't matter what I feel, though. You're right. If you want me to let you go, I'll ask Gedwyn.' For some reason, a tremor of fear runs through him at that name.
Sereina holds still on the bed, breath caught in her throat. 'I...I like being bonded as well..now. It's just that...I can feel when you are thinking about Anibelle, and it makes me want to scream. Before..the first few days...I would have welcomed her. Light, I would have begged her to take you so that I may live my life. But now...' Sereina shrugs lamely, face still somewhat hidden. 'I don't want to be rid of the bond. Not really, anyway. But I don't want to feel this way either.'
Samuel let's out a long, sighing breath and says,'What do we do, though? I'm out of answers, Sereina. If you want me to decide, then things will just stay like they are because I am too weak to do anything one way or the other...' His voice trails off for a moment, a sense of contemplation coming over him, then he asks,'What would you do, though? Where would you go if you decide that I should unbond you?'
Sereina shrugs again. 'Where can I go? I mean, I can't go to your mother, since she would be teaching me as a favor to you, and she would have no obligation to me. I can't go to -my- mother..she'd probably kill me. Or I'd kill her...' the huddled mass of cloth rises and falls with Sereina's sigh. 'It would be back on the streets for me.'
Samuel's head snaps up and he says sharply,'No! You are not going back to the streets. We've gone through.. -you- have gone through too much to go back to starving and hiding.' He shakes his head sharply back and forth, bells jingling discordantly. He stops suddenly and lets out a soft snort,'Well, I guess that settles it. I may feel like my world is upside down and inside out, but I do know clearly that I care too much about you to let you starve on the streets.'
Sereina winces against the bed and sighs. 'So all in all you're stuck with the "wife", right?' she says softly. 'It's good to know that you care though. Not sure whether it helps either of us in the long run.'
Samuel shakes his head slowly again and climbs to his feet, then sits on the bed next to Sereina. He snorts softly and says,'I am not stuck with you. You are stuck with me. Any good man would be proud to have you as a wife. Tis your bad luck to have been stumbled upon by me instead of a good man.'
Sereina shrugs and finally sits up from the bed, wrinkles from the covers pressed against her cheek. 'I'm not a prize. I'm just another farm girl who has a short temper.'
Samuel shakes his head, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips, eyes red from crying. His hands twitch in his lap as he struggles to not reach out to her as he mutters softly,'When have you ever lost your temper with me that you did not have good reason?'
Sereina's shoulders slump and she looks down at her lap, hands resting on either side of her thighs. 'Whenever I blamed you for my throwing a fit the first time we met. I could have just went along with it.'
Samuel shrugs his shoulders slightly and says,'I don't know. If i were a young girl, starving and cold and alone, I doubt I would be very trusting of some black-coated madman. It doesn't matter, either way. I did something I was not supposed to do.' He sighs and raises his arm to slip it around her shoulder, but catches himself about halfway through the motion and pauses to ask,'May I?'
Sereina stiffens for just a moment before nodding. She takes a deep breath and rests her head on his shoulder. 'I still feel alone sometimes....especially when we're asleep and your dreams invade mine, somehow.'
Samuel hugs Sereina gently against him and shakes his head, a slight sense of embarrassment flooding through the bond again,'Um.. you invaded a couple of mine, too, but I'm not sure if that was through the bond or not.'
Sereina laughs softly, muscles finally relaxing after all those moments of tension. 'I'm not sure whether I want to know...' she says softly. 'Um....what happened the other day, anyway?'
Samuel tenses for a moment, then gives her another gentle squeeze. Hesitantly, nervously, he asks,'You mean when..' He clears his through, obviously embarrassed before continuing,'When something almost happened but didn't?'
Sereina nods, blushing. 'Yeah...' she says softly. She uses her right hand to rub her face, smoothing away the blanket imprints.
Panic slowly wells up through the bond from Samuel. He does not look away, though. Swallowing hard several times while looking straight into her eyes, he finally stammers out,'I..I.. I felt guilty about what might happen to you if.. ' He swallows hard again and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. When he continues his voice is more steady,'If, for whatever reason, I have to unbond you..' He suddenly growls, obviously frustrated at himself and his reaction. He snaps out,'If we do that, there is no going back. I'm not sure if you know that. You really would be stuck with me, then. Right now, if you grow weary enough of me, you can still give the word and I will talk to whoever I need to and find out how to undo this. You may end up in the White Tower if that happens, or Mother might teach you anyway, just to keep someone who knows me so well from being in the Tower. But.. if we.. do that, it will be too late for you to decide you are tired of me.'
Sereina nods and looks away from Samuel's eyes. 'True, I suppose...but...Oh, I don't know. It didn't feel wrong, I guess...'
Samuel slips his other arm around her as well and hugs her tightly to him. He presses his cheek to her hair and mutters softly,'No, it did not. This would be so much easier if it had felt wrong.' He sighs softly, just rocking her against him as he whispers,'No, it did not feel wrong at all. If we could just stay in this cabin and let nothing outside of it ever interfere with us, we could be happy forever, I think. But the world just doesn't work that way. Regardless of whether a magistrate or a wisdom or whatnot was involved, regardless that it was just a cover story, unless you decide otherwise, I guess you really are my wife.'
Sereina rests her arms around him and sighs. 'It looks to be that way...' she murmurs, head resting on his shoulder. 'It's not as bad as I had envisioned at first. I had thought for sure that the big giant man in black would...well..you know. But it's not like that at all. And I can actually say that I feel...happy.'
Samuel rocks her gently against him and presses a soft kiss to her forehead. He chuckles softly and whispers,'We must care about each other. The way we fight and argue, one of us would surely have killed the other by now if we didn't.' A sudden warmth floods through him causing him to begin softly humming as he rocks her gently against him.
Sereina nods against his shoulder and then starts laughing softly. 'Well...you would have killed me, at least. I still can't do anything against you.' she looks up and smiles faintly, the dimple in her left cheek barely showing. 'Though..with my temper, I wouldn't want you revoking that just yet...give me some time.'
Samuel kisses her softly on the forehead again, the grins broadly, holding her against him. In a tone of mock arrogance, he says,'I'm a big boy. If you don't come after me in my sleep, I can take care of myself.' Then he brings up his right hand and begins to softly stroke her hair.
Sereina raises her head to look sideways at Samuel, a doubtful look on her face. 'Of course you're a big boy. My, look at how much you've grown!' she raises her hand and pats him on his head and giggles, hiding her face in the curve of his throat.
Samuel shakes his head, still grinning and stroking her hair. He leans back slightly to look down into her face and says softly,'Next time.. let's just skip the whole arguing part and move straight on to the not fighting or screaming part?' He raises his eyebrow questioningly at her as he reaches out to brush a stray strand of hair from her face.
Sereina looks up and nods. 'That would be very nice..' she says softly, one of her hands gently wrapping the end of his braid around her index finger.
Nervousness flashes briefly through the bond, then gets pushed aside. Pulse racing, Samuel slowly tilts his head down, eyes drifting closed, to kiss Sereina gently on the lips, his hand slipping from her hair to the small of her back, gently caressing.
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