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Dressed in tattered Blackthorn colors that were coated in sand and blood, An’Thaya fairly fell through the portal that led to the jungle. She had missed the cottage by some distance in her haste … or maybe it was the sheer weariness weighing her down. The gravity of her home planet hit her like a rock, the humidity soaking into her skin as she stumbled a few steps, then leaned heavily against the trunk of a tree.
What bravado and strength she had maintained on the sands of the Arena were gone now. Her little performance for Callan taking the last of what she had. Despite the healing Salem had performed, she was still drained, and in need of her homeland that still lay a continent away. Why hadn’t she portaled there instead? She doubted she could manage another one right at the moment. “Gods … Agaru … I’m such an idiot.”
Well, I’m certainly not going to disagree, the Crimson rumbled in response. Perhaps we had better sit down a bit before you kill yourself.
Galain wasn't all that far behind Tay, tracing her location across their bond and opening a portal, surprised to find find himself in the wilds where his wife's tribe lived. Perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised. He breathed in hard, trying to deal with the dry heat he'd just escaped and the humid muck he was attempting to inhale now.
The elf saw movement not that far ahead of him and it was Tay's low voice that caught his ears. He stepped forward lightly, for once hating the heavy gravity of this place as he felt a strange lethargy weight down his limbs.
"Tay?" He called out, stepping up behind her and touching her shoulder.
The Amazon nearly leapt out of her skin, adrenaline coursing through her as she whipped around, grabbing at the arm belonging to the hand that touched her shoulder. Sheer terror lit the depths of her emerald greens for a moment until her soul and eyes revealed who it was. Her free hand dropped, the dagger glittering in the low light that filtered through the thick canopy. “Galain … what are you doing here?” Tay almost seemed to fade beneath his hand, the rapid beating of her heart making the redhead dizzy and lightheaded.
Galain's heart meanwhile had nearly leaped out of his mouth. It had been ages since he'd taken his wife by surprise and when she grabbed him and he saw the dagger he nearly died. He focused on Tay's eyes, saw her terror and almost cried out with grief that he was so strange to her that he'd receive such an expression now.
"I followed you. I was worried," he said, not at all liking how she shrank before him. For a moment he'd seen the woman he'd been mesmerized by and now? "Hell of day?" He ventured.
“You could say that,” Tay murmured, her heart constricting slightly as she read the emotion in his eyes. It wasn’t Galain himself that had brought on the reaction; it had been a lingering instinctual fear, triggered by Nargus. The Amazon hated being under someone else’s control; sheer terror gripped her at the thought of being forced into anything by anyone, never mind a brutal male. That; and the last thing she had expected was for Galain to follow. These days … well, it was best not to dwell on it. “I need … I need to go to S’Hea. I have no idea why I came here.”
An’Thaya couldn’t quite meet his eyes. Guilt burned her blood and stung her soul … gods … she was sure he knew. Why was he being so … calm? Why wasn’t he yelling?
“Where is Ghet?” The question diverted her train of thought, taking her attention off herself, off the fear and anxiety.
Galain bowed his head.
"Ghet's sticking with Brienne and the other healers. There are an awful lot of wounded to care for," he replied. "I... saw what you did to Callan. Quite a punch. I wanted to check on you. I -- should I take you to S'Hea? Can we go together? I promised to return to the Diirlathe, but... Tay, you're not okay."
He tilted his head and regarded her.
Shadowed eyes watched the by-play of emotion over her husband’s face. How she loved those lovely sea-greens that had so often gazed on her with a love that took her breath away. It still stung; deep down, that he could look upon another with that same complete adoration. Avoiding the topic of Callan completely, she nodded a weak gesture. “Please, could you? I’d like that I think.”
When was the last time it had just been the two of them, with nothing coming between? Yet, there was something between them now … again. A secret she was not ready to relinquish. Startled, she realized how many of those she kept from him now. Once, there had been nothing but truth between them. Yet … after Alcarinque, after all that had happened, there were still things left unsaid. He knew about Avathar, about Iavan … but she had kept her silence regarding Gareth. For some reason, that shamed her more than anything else did. Until now …
“No … I’m not ok.” She owed him some small bit of honesty, after all. “I’m tired and … and frightened.” Admitting it cost her, and an unwelcome tear spilled down her cheek. “I need … I don’t know what I need.”
Galain opened another portal and slipped them both through, not at all comfortable with how his wife kept regarding his face. He was used to being unreadable, but she knew everything and it unsettled him. As a result they landed short of the cottages and along the shore of the Silver Lake.
"It's not quite home, but it's close," he said quietly. He'd wrapped himself around her, feeling her frailty and was alarmed. "You can rest here though. The sands are always so soft." He quickly kissed her ear and drew her down with him as he sat. He ignored the tear for the moment and just looked out across the lake.
"I bet you'd love a dip in the water," he said softly.
“It is home,” she murmured against his chest, breathing in the Elen’s familiar scent. The moment her feet touched on S’Hean soil a current of energy shot through the Elf, bringing an odd glow to her vibrant green eyes. “There is no other place that is more home than this.” Whether she meant the place, or Galain, was open to debate. A relieved sigh fell from Tay’s lips and she curled up in the shelter of his arm.
His mention of water brought a certain rigidity to her spine and unwelcome memories pressed in on her. Flashes of memory that she quickly buried. The sudden urge to dive in gripped her, to rinse herself clean of guilt as much as blood and sand. “I would at that,” she admitted, “I have sand in the most uncomfortable places. It’s grittier than the sand here. Why is that?” The inane question once again saved her from thoughts she didn’t want to entertain at the moment.
Galain sensed how she stiffened at the mention of water, but for the moment didn't connect anything. He was glad to provide her with some sort of comfort, distressed that he was causing discomfort. He drew away eventually and eyed her.
"I don't know. Different rock? Different circumstances creating it?" He shrugged. "Go ahead, feel the water. I'm not going anywhere."
Tay smiled slightly and trailed her fingers through the emerald green sand before slowly getting to her feet. She was safe here … no one could get through the wards that did not possess S’Hean blood. It was a comforting thought, one that soothed her stress-frazzled soul. Small fingers worked loose the straps on the Blackthorn breastplate she wore, internally cursing Agaru for her choice of attire. The last thing she wanted to have touching her body at the moment was anything belonging to Callan.
“I’m sorry … about what happened back there,” she half whispered. “He had Lianna, I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t … I … Gods, I haven’t been that frightened since … in a very long time.” Frustration finally won out and she drew a dagger, cutting at the leather straps that didn’t seem to want to let her go.
Galain watched Tay hack at the breastplate before he caught her hands and pried the dagger away.
"Let me do that, all right?" He murmured into her ear. He set about undoing the straps, silent for a moment before he spoke.
"You had no idea what would happen or who it was. Hells, most of us had no clue at all. You did the right thing and now Lianna's all right, you're all right and that's what matters." He kissed her shoulder. "I was frightened too though."
Fresh tears spilled down her face and Tay leaned her forehead into her husband’s chest, “I’m sorry … I don’t do frightened very well. I hate that … I hate being out of control. You know? It has happened way to many times in my life. I thought I was over … I thought maybe the Fates were finished tossing things like that at me.”
Wrapping her arms around his waist she clung to the familiar feel of his body for a moment, suddenly aware of how much she had missed his company of late. To go from the center of his attention for five hundred years, to barely seeing him at all … had been a quiet torture for her that she had kept to herself. Nothing had ever mattered more to her than Galain’s happiness. Even at the expense of her own. The one time she had reached out for some small comfort of her own, she had hurt him … badly. Even though Tay had argued with him, fought with him, deep down she had yet to forgive herself.
Now … she had done it again. And this time more people than Galain would be hurt. The guilty thought struck her that his pain would be the most agonizing of all. Adarin, the love was there, but not the all-consuming fire that had held her to the Elen Prince all these years. Nothing could match that, there was no one, ever, that would take his place, or overshadow all they had shared. So much time, so much love so many children.
“Aminmela lle Verno,” she murmured softly.
"Aminmela, ile, vesse," Galain replied just as softly. "Being frightened means losing control. Nobody likes that. At all. And the Fates? They're never finished. Not as long as we live and breathe," he said. The breastplate was undone and he was embracing her tightly. "Ready for that swim? I can feel your body shake. Go on, it'll do you more than good," he urged, kissing her.
An’Thaya managed a smile after his kiss and stepped back a little, shrugging off the breastplate and stripping out of the rest of her clothing. The usual clatter of weaponry disturbed the relatively quiet shore of the lake before she was finished, and the Amazon cast one last glance up at the Elf before making her way to the water’s edge.
Her entire body was thrumming with the power of S’Hea now, the currents of Aethyr causing her hair to billow up around her face and giving her body a glowing silouhette. The instant the lake touched her skin instinct took over and the Elf drew in a gasp of pleasure before darting out deeper into its welcoming depths. Within moments she was submerged, twirling beneath the surface, washing away the grit and blood. Memory had no place here, there was only the moment, the feral reaction that sent the blood pounding in her veins and brought utter peace.
It was funny, but not in the comical way, that his wife would feel so much peace here and he didn't. Galain, despite the blood he shared with Tay, ached for his own lake on Berelath. But he felt a great measure of peace as he watched the Amazon dive into the waters and slough off the filth of the day. Her form was pure and beautiful as he stared into the water's depths. She was just Tay again, just sweet Tay.
Breaking the surface An’Thaya drew a slow breath of air, her eyes closed for the moment, face turned up into the warmth of the Whispin suns. She could feel Galain watching her, a reassuring and welcome sensation that tripped along her skin like fingertips. Crimson lashed eyelids flickered open and Tay looked back at him, wondering what he was thinking. It was a question often on her mind these days … in those rare times spent alone. When he was away, she kept her thoughts and soul from him, while she loved Ghetsuhm like a sister she had no wish to feel what Galain felt for his other wife, no wish to hear his thoughts about her. It was creating a chasm between them … one that, for the Amazon at least, seemed to grow larger with each passing day.
After a moment or two, Tay swam back to the shore, wading in through the shallows until she felt the burn of emerald sands beneath her feet. “What are you thinking?” The memory of another time she had asked those words ghosted through her mind … his answer then, had been more pleasing that the current one was bound to be.
His answer was slow in coming as Galain drank in the beauty of Tay's naked form. He watched rivulets of waters fall down her body, catapulting from the sweetest of junctions and setting his heart and passoin afire. He wanted to avoid talk and just take her right then and there, but her question forced its self into his mind and he gave her a poleaxed look at first.
"I'm thinking that I miss you," he said at first. "I'm thinking that I miss you a lot. And I am wondering why we've drifted so far apart. And then I think I know the answer. But I refuse to give it voice. I am thinking... Tay... where did those marks come from?"
He hadn't meant to ask.
An’Thaya had never outright lied to Galain, and it wasn’t something she intended on starting now. His words startled her and a chill passed through her despite the heat. “You know why? I’d certainly like to hear that answer,” she began in a tremulous voice. “I’d like to hear the whys and hows and trace the path that has brought us here. I’d like to know when I stopped being the most important thing in your life, and don’t tell me it was Adarin, because we both know your head turned away from me long before that. I became a wife; a responsibility … and you have always responded better to a challenge I think. Ghetsuhm … how I’ve come to love and despise that name all at the same time.”
Her smile was sad, wistful … “Do you love me still? Or am I just a fixture on the wall of your life that you don’t want to take down.”
The question she asked had Galain gasping. That was not an answer. It was a response to other things voiced in his statements, but not an answer to his last question. He managed to form the towels needed and offered them to Tay before he sat back.
His head had turned away? Before Adarin? She was a responsibility? Galain gaped at her and shrank. He hated hearing what she was saying. It made him sick inside.
"I do. I do love you. You're... not a fixture."
“Then why,” she asked, finally diving right in to the questions that had haunted her for years now. “Why wasn’t I enough? And why … don’t I see you anymore?” Numb fingers closed around the towels, but she merely held them, the night they had first met flashing through her mind. She had been frightened of him then, clutching the towels reflexively to her chest and staring up at him from beneath rain drenched curls.
Now … now there was no fear. Just … pain. “I … I hurt inside when you are gone. That is most of the time these days. You don’t notice, you don’t feel it. Not like you once did. There use to be this fierce passion about you every time you looked at me, now I feel lucky if you DO look at me. I see it, I see it when you look at her. You call her your soul, and me … what DO you call me? Oh damn … I’m sorry! I don’t mean to…” Frustration darkened her eyes and she turned her head slightly. “Tell me why, you said you knew. Tell me.”
Galain turned away. She was asking impossible questions he couldn't begin to answer so immediately.
"You're my wife. My Tay. You are my life," he said quietly, each breath hurting him. Others of his race, others outside his race could take multiple wives, but what did they feel? Did they have such exceptional women as Tay and Ghet?
Then he was truly lost for several moments. Knew? Knew what? And then he realized she meant the question about the distance between them and he felt hugely foolish. Panic gripped him.
"I let the distance happen." He turned away as he whispered the words.
“Why?” The word seemed to be becoming overused in Tay’s opinion, but she had to know. “Why did you let it?” Her head turned, fierce emerald greens trained on him. Blood pounded so hard in her veins it shook her small frame and somehow she wasn’t sure what the emotion was that claimed her. Anger? Desperation? Hurt? Some mix of all?
“Dammit Galain! You knew you loved Ghet before you married me! You KNEW when you told me you wished it was just you and I again. Did you ever think, for one moment, how any of this made me feel? There were always so many other Gods Damn WOMEN! Yet I only spoke out once. Your happiness was always so important to me that I ignored my own! But you know they hurt a hell of a lot less, because you didn’t love them. But you love Ghet, and that hurts, and what hurts worse, is that you love her more. Don’t try to deny it, it seems to be obvious to everyone BUT you. I’ve become some sort of shadow, a third wheel. Gods! Do you think Adarin would have had a chance in hell if there had been no Ghet?"
At this point Galain was flattened -- literally. He fell backward and covered his eyes, shocked, distraught and beyond anyone's touch. All he heard and felt were Tay's word and what she shared over their bond. He'd come here to comfort and he was feeling panic and pain and so much self-doubt he was ready to jump into oblivion if he could.
"I don't know!" He cried out. " Idon't know! I love her! I love her so much! She IS my soul! I love her! I love you! I ache for you! I would and will do anything for you.... I have done anything for you." He went quiet and then agony overtook him again. "I want YOUR happiness! My gods. I love her, I love you, I don't want you to be a third wheel. I never saw you that way. I... The hells with Adarin. I'd kill him so fast. But you bonded to him... you gods-damned bonded to him."
“And you gods-damned bonded to GHET!” She was screaming, in hysterics, the pressure of the day, the guilt, and the questions snapping her tentative grip on sanity. “I was being passed around like some unwilling whore from your Father, to Avathar to Iavan, and you were sleeping with someone else! Did you wait for five bloody minute’s even?! Did you even bother to make SURE I was dead?” Tears flooded her eyes, stinging, but her countenance was one of pure rage. “You never asked where Agaru came from. Not once, you owe her my life! The only reason you found me alive at all was because of her! And now, now I’m not so sure I should thank her! If I had died, I would have been saved all the heartache living since has brought. I would have died in our happiness!”
Galain wasn't just laying back now, he was thrown back. He was flattened. He couldn't breathe. And while he struggled for breath he listened to all that Tay had to say. Visions of his wife being passes from his father to his half-brother... to yet another... Fury fueled him and he sat back upward.
"I did NOT just sleep around! You have no idea what I felt! What I thought I knew! What I though I was fighting! How the hell long did it take you with Elyen?? He spat out. "How damn long? And I was there! I saw it!" He turned away, hating himself. He had no fair argument. He should have been groveling at her elegant bare feet and begging forgiveness.
"You weren't attached to me. The pain was so there. How final does it have to be?" He cried out at last. He was silent again for a while. Agaru? He'd truly never questioned that creature's existence.
"No, I never questioned her existence. Agaru's. I have never wanted to know where she came from. She's hateful. I hate her." He spat it out. Then he shriveled.
"But I thank her."
“Of course you saw it! You told me you hated me! I found you in bed with your Gangrel Mistress! Elyen was a Gods damn mistake, he and I both knew it. Do you know what the last thing he said to me was? Do you know how much I hate you. After five hundred years, that is all he had to say. And you know what, I deserved it! I destroyed him! Its my fault he’s dead! I let you take me from him twice! I would let you take me from anyone because I belong to you! If you asked me to give up Adarin, I would!”
Tay didn’t bother to brush away the tears, and she couldn’t stop the shaking. Inside, everything was falling apart, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. “Of course she is hateful,” she snarled, “She is part of Avathar! He tried to force a child on me and my conduit stopped him. It made me this … this … thing!”
Galain hissed back, half-'Lain and half Galain before he forced the dragon back. This was not the dragon's argument.
"I saw it... I saw it... It was one of the first things to hit my eyes," Galain replied, old emotions ripped raw. The dormant Gangrel laughed gleefully, but the elf slapped him down with ease. "But Elyen..." He went quiet, sobs heaping upon him. "Gods, Elyen..." He'd struck the killing physical blow, but he'd not dealt with the emotional blows the other elf had struck back before he'd died.
"You don't deserve the pain," Galain said suddenly in a gulp. He hated to hear how easily she could give up others like his uncle. And yet he rejoiced.
But where would that lead them ultimately? He cried out with frustration.
He focused on Agaru then. Wondered at her creation. At Tay's force of will.
"That happened?" He sat up, staring at Tay, surprised and yet not. She'd had to survive somehow.
The Amazon stepped forward and grabbed her husband’s hand, quick and lithe, acting before she thought. The bond flared open, feeding him the images. Tay was too far gone to think what it might do to him, she only knew what it had done to her. Avathar had nearly destroyed her.
He had used Galain’s face to try to seduce her, luring her in with the false comfort of the man she loved. Flashes of pain, terror, realizing the truth of who he was, and what he was doing, through to the agonizing pain of transformation. “Of course it happened,” she gasped through tears, “So did this, and this.” The images kept forming, flashing, Gareth … Gareth’s blood as An’Thaya drove the dagger into his shoulder. A gift from Galain … Iavan … She gave it all to him, all the hidden truths she had harbored in her soul.
Save one.
Galain yelled when she grabbed hold of him. He arched back and let the images toss over him. He wouddn't have done anything else if he could. Comforting Tay was far gone and now he was trying to assimilate what she was giving him. He saw Avathar, saw his own face superimposed over the other's face and yelled. He felt everything his wife had felt and when it stopped he was crying. He was surprised his own shoulder wasn't bleeding, yet he was certain he felt the wound.
"Gods, stop!" He cried out, trying to twist away. But he couldn't escape and when he realized Gareth had touched his wife he screamed.
Galain’s yell of protest snapped her out of it and Tay wrenched her hand back, the blood draining out of her face as she realized what she had done. “Oh gods! I’m sorry!” Stumbling back she tripped and fell, going down in a mass of red locks. Tears burst forth again and her soul pulled in on itself.
“Elyen told me your tears killed me,” she whispered, “I don’t think he realized the truth of that.” Her fingers touched the emerald that graced her throat before she buried her face into her hands. The world started spinning and she felt everything start to shut down. The events of the past century were just too much for her to take; too much had happened to tear her mind and soul apart.
Galain hissed. He didn't care what a dying man had told his wife. The man had been dying for hells' sake. He'd have said anything. He dashed away his tears nevertheless, superstition gripping him.
"You're not sorry. It's been in you. For a long time. I've been stupid." Galain somehow tottered to his feet and stared at Tay, torn between grief, guilt and fear. "Too long a time." He staggered away, stumbling and falling to the ground, his hands over his head.
There was nothing more forthcoming from An’Thaya. She simply lay there, weeping, on the land that had given her race life and power. Emerald eyes closed and she willed the pain away, willed everything away. What she wouldn’t give for silence … for peace … for the happiness her soul had once known. But none of that was within her grasp anymore.
How had her life become this horrid mess? She was stretched too thin while in her heart, Tay desired only the one thing denied to her. Suddenly, as if she had died, the bonds connecting to the Amazon soul started to break. It started with Mystical, the tie to the Abjurer coming away with a painful snap.
Galain felt that first snap and whirled around, horror in his eyes as he realized what was happening.
"Tay! No! Tay!" He scrambled back to her, brushing her hair away. "Tay!"
This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't why he'd come after her. Was it? The elf's hands over Tay's body, panic seizing him.
A fissure lanced through An’Thaya’s soul, an ugly black void that laced across the expanse of emerald green. It was an old wound; a ragged edged tear inflicted by Elyen, patched by Railen, and somehow reopened as the first traumatic severing shook her spirit. The Amazon’s body jerked beneath Galain’s hands and she screamed, unable to prevent what even she had not chosen. The pain, the grief, the shame, was all too much. The great emerald galaxy began to collapse upon itself, rejecting anything it did not recognize as its own.
Writhing in agony Tay stared up at the Elen with empty eyes as the next bond dissolved. She felt Adarin suddenly spin away, the connection shattering and hitting her like a massive backlash.
Galain could almost see what was happening in his wife's soul. It was like a monstrous cyclone that raced through her, running rampant and smashing her psyche and bonds like so much glass. He reeled backward when the bond to Adarin was severed and he cried out in grief, not understanding how this happening. He reached out to her again, frantically tracing his connection to her, reaching along their bond in a crazed attempt to stave off the darkness. Bile rose in his mouth as he mouthed Tay's name over and over.
Tay felt him in her soul, felt his presence, and for a moment it gave her strength. Grappling internally she latched onto the bond to him, sacrificing her connection to Jaiden in the process. A cry of anguish wrenched from her as the connection to her wife snapped, leaving her reeling, clinging to the one bond left to her.
In her mind, it felt as if she were falling from a cliff, hanging on to Galain’s fingertips with her own, the only thing keeping her from the fall. One by one, the threads began to break and she felt herself slipping further.
Please Gods … don’t let go!
The final thread began to unravel, and for a brief moment, Tay met his gaze with everything that had ever been in her heart and soul. Aminmela lle …
He felt her lose her bond with Jaiden and Galain let out a low moan.
"I won't let go," he whispered aloud, feeling Tay slip away from despite their best efforts. He couldn't believe this was happening, didn't want to understand the why of it all. He just didn't want this to happen. He stared into her eyes and felt everything that was within her and he let out a hoarse cry of pain as he felt himself shoved out of her soul. Vertigo overcame him and he slumped over Tay's body as he was forcibly returned to his own soul.
"I love you, Tay," he said aloud, staring sightlessly out toward the lake, sucking in his breath suddenly and willing himself not to breathe anymore. It all came out in a ragged exhalation though. He forced himself back to his knees and gathered Tay to him and began to mindlessly rock back and forth.
And then … there were tears, blinding, stinging tears that did nothing to assuage her grief, her agony, and her emptiness. The silence was deafening, even the web deadly quiet, leaving her alone in her head. Tay didn’t have the strength to scream, it stayed bottled somewhere within as she lay deathly still in Galain’s arms. Her soul throbbed with unimaginable pain, bleeding Aethyr that gave false light to her eyes.
The tattoo on her bicep gave one last feeble attempt, searching out those it had been connected to for so long, then faded. The brilliant white rose curled in on itself, the petals turning black. A choked sob wracked the Amazon’s body and she closed her eyes, Galain’s familiar scent suddenly breaking her heart. For a moment, she struggled to think, to make sense of what had happened, to reach out to her husband. Some part of her soul took mercy on her ravaged psyche, and shut it down. Her head fell back, crimson locks spilling across the Elen’s arms.
It hurt -- inside and outside. There was at least one thing he shared with Tay at the moment and it was immense pain. Galain finally stopped rocking and witnessed the tattoo's metamorphosis, looked into Tay's eyes again and then felt her go limp in his arms.
"I'll take you home," he whispered, not at all sure he had the strength to even get to his feet let alone carry the Amazon to the cottage. At least it wasn't too far away, but then what? What could he do? Would she want him there when she awakened? What could they say to each other? He didn't know and for the moment concentrated entirely on just holding Tay in his arms. The heat was unbearable and at some point the elf realized he truly did need to get An'Thaya home and sheltered.
When he got to his feet, his wife in his arms the elf nearly walked directly into the lake before he corrected himself and tottered along the lakeshore, kicking at the breastplate he'd loosened for her what seemed millennia ago. He moved ploddingly as he gained his bearings, his eyes curiously dry for the moment.
Eventually Galain had gathered most of his wits together enought to cast a portal and step through it, leaving the heat and emeralds sands of the lake behind them. He wasn't sure he would ever want to return to that place.
The cottage was refreshingly cool in contrast to where they had just come from though the humidity was ever present. The elf didn't feel it or care and made a direct path to the bedroom where he gently placed Tay on the bed. He found a loose shift and dressed her in it, then drew the covers over her, anxious to make her as comfortable physically as he could before he slid bonelessly to the floor beside the bed and stared at his wife's unconscious form.
My gods, Tay. Where have you gone? He asked silently.
After awhile, An’Thaya stirred. But the eyes that opened to look back at the Elen did not belong to the Amazon. Glittering faceted emerald greens eyed Galain warily through slightly opened lids, the soul of Agaru regarding him with cool detachment. The Crimson was terrified by what was happening to her Skinwalker, and the fact that Callan was deliberately keeping her at arms length, but the last person she was going to show weakness to, was Galain Alcarin.
Well? Are you satisfied? The Dragon’s voice rumbled in his head, Was it worth the answers you sought?
Galain lifted his head when he felt Tay stir, but was horribly disappointed to find himself looking into Agaru's eyes instead. He stared dumbly at those eyes, startled by her words.
"Satisfied? What the hell do you mean?" The elf's hand shook as he ran it through his hair. "I did not want this," he answered. He stared intently at the dragon eyes and once again felt a distinct distaste for the way Agaru used An'Thaya's body. Memories of the ball rose unbidden in his mind and he looked away.
What IS it that you want Elf? Certainly you can’t pretend that she is your first concern. After all, it was me that kept her alive while you were enjoying the company of another. You didn’t even have the decency to try to find her body and see if it had gone cold yet before you were warming your own with someone else. Go home Elf, go take care of the one you have place above all others. Leave An’Thaya to me, I think past evidence proves who is the more capable between you and I when it comes to her welfare. Or were you just going to call for Adarin, like you usually do when caring for her becomes inconvenient?
Anger was apparent in the Dragon’s tone, in her eyes. There was no one else that felt An’Thaya’s pain, her insecurity, as acutely as Agaru did. She WAS An’Thaya, to a point, yet somehow separate.
Galain went rigid with anger as he jumped to his feet..
"So where were you when she gave herself to Callan? I know what she did. The marks are unmistakable. You didn't take care of her. How could you let it happen?" Galain spat the words out, turning his head back to glare angrily at... who the hell was this? Agaru. At this point despite the familiar form it was that blasted Crimson who was in control.
But her words stung, striking home as vicious bolts of truth. He'd placed Ghetsuhm first in everything of late, always calling for Adarin when he couldn't be there for Tay. He'd screwed up. It was hitting him hard suddenly, the initial shock and pain of the bond severing having died to a dull, constant pain. This new pain was searing and he let out a cry suddenly, meeting Agaru's implacable stare.
"I'm to blame," he said suddenly, his voice toneless. "I can't bring her comfort, can I. I just hurt her again and again." He spun away, clapping his hands to his head.
“You haven’t a clue,” Agaru snarled, “None! Don’t even think to guess at what happened, or judge her for it!” The Crimson was ferociously protective of her Skinwalker, and from her point of view, what An’Thaya had done wasn’t wrong. She didn’t see it, not as Tay did, she loved Callan and figured anyone that wasn’t Galain Alcarin, had to be better for her other self.
“No! You can’t give her comfort! Nobody can! Not now! Even I can’t reach her!” The Dragon had moved, sitting up, An’Thaya’s body tense with rage under her control. “I swear Elf! If she doesn’t come back, I’ll have you with a side of ‘Lain for breakfast! Get out! Get out before I do something I definitely will NOT regret!” But, unfortunately, An’Thaya would, which was the only thing keeping her from ripping the Elen apart.
Galain had turned back when Agaru spoke again and flinched backward with each verbal assault. Every word was a bullet and the elf let out a cry of impotent rage. He would have picked up the nearest item and tossed it at the dragon except for the body she wore. Enough damage had been inflicted today and he hissed at the Crimson.
"I won't be far away," he told her before he whirled back around and stalked out of the bedroom, murder in his heart against Agaru. Murder in his heart against anyone who might have approached him at this point as the Crimson drove him away with her words. He stopped in the memory room and stared around, not quite seeing the mementoes of a lifetime and more with An'Thaya. It was instinct that led him to the key to Callan's forge. It was grief and murder that motivated him. He'd leave now. He'd go back to Ghetsuhm at The Diirlathe. And then he would strike at Callan at his most vulnerable moment.
He turned back once more, knowing Agaru could still sense his presence in the cottage. And then he left, determined to stay strong until he was totally alone. And then he'd let grief and worry overcome him.
Agaru remained tense, on guard, until she was sure the Elen had left the cottage. She knew that An’Thaya would be furious at her for the harsh words and accusations … would hardly forgive her for driving her husband away. There would be no thanks for what the Crimson considered a tender mercy.
Worried, panicked, and missing her mate desperately, Agaru lay back on the bed and retreated again. Peace descended on the cottage, one that would not last, the only sound An’Thaya’s shallow breathing.
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