– T A Y A H –
I took the Valkyrie's hand with a mocking look among a number of partners before the lutes and drums. Her expression was a calm mask that gave me nothing. It was one I had seen many a time. One that told me she already knew what she was getting herself into. After all, cultural study was one of her great pursuits...
The drums picked up and the men shouted and stomped their feet as they spun around women in the Kanton custom. I did not follow their rules.
I secured the demi-god's forearm in my own and met her eyes. I knew then that I had been correct. She mirrored my quick step and circled us to begin. Our arms held between our eyes and the laughter of mortals surrounding our backs. But my focus was steadily on the timeless woman of burning silver eyes.
The lutes joined the beat and a thickly voiced woman cut through the cheers to their delight. I dropped my arm quickly and struck up her other in a smooth motion. We changed course and circled the opposite way without breaking our gaze.
"It seems there is not much to teach." I told her, over our bound arms. She winked quickly as the dance progressed and we drew our arms back into a straight line increasing our circle and only linked by our hands. It was quite a feat of agility considering the number of drunks we had to dodge in the process.
"I learn much from you. Dancing is not one of those things." She murmured, keeping the neutral mask in place.
She raised our hands high quickly and I spun under them meeting her chest with my back. The closeness sent waves of sparking current through my body. She looked down to me keeping our arms high and stepping quickly with the drums.
"Your steps are a touch sloppy." I mocked, spinning back out to the extent of our arms and raising an eyebrow. She was no such thing–but I was not about to let her know she was as flawless as a native.
"Forgive me. It is hard to perfect the dance of every continent." She said in a low voice over the song.
I missed a step in shock and she grinned briefly before I picked back up and drew our hands inward to meet her other. Our hands joined in a bridge and I narrowed my eyes before her.
"Vex?"
"They are much more intimate." She smirked.
"Jurrian?"
"Far too aggressive." She scowled, thinking back to a past I had not seen. I found myself smiling despite it and closed the space breaking apart our routine.
"I do not remember close embrace as part of the dance." She teased, drawing her arms around my lower back anyway. I tilted my head and appreciated her.
"How intimate is the Vex custom?" I murmured in a sultry tone.
Her own irises darkened a touch and she moved her hand to grip my jaw. "I believe the Uccellon Royals executed the last pair who tried it inside the Castle halls."
This made me smirk despite the consequences. "I believe we are not in a Vayleron castle now. You can lead and I will follow–"
She shook her head before I could even finish. "If I want to explore you in an intimate way, Tayah. It will not be where any other eyes can steal a look."
I grinned and pressed myself close to her warmth before drawing away and securing her forearm before us again. The music was infectious and I still wanted to enjoy a moment of timeless joy before something as moronic as fate took it from us. She never took her eyes off me and I was not about to lose sight of her either. We circled and twirled as the candle wicks grew deeper and the mortals grew drunker.
It was not many slithers until a heavy mortal had tried to steal her arm. I did not even need to involve myself before she let a bright light enter her eyes and even the drunk stumbled back into the crowd again. It made me laugh loudly however.
That look of rage and death that I had been on the end of for so long on the mortal realm.
"I am so glad to no longer receive such looks from you."
She drew me back into her embrace and raised an eyebrow at me. "You never were."
I scoffed. "You threatened my buffoons and myself with death every span!"
"Well. You were a handful." She murmured, with a darker smirk and a very deliberate grip on my sides. I rolled my eyes at her.
"Whatever would we be if we both met as mortals?"
She thought on this for a moment and shrugged. "I have no memory of such things so your guess is as good as my own."
I twisted my mouth and considered it. "I think much of one's personality remains despite memory. You would still be as stubborn and hot tempered as a mortal."
"Oh?" She chuckled, stepping in time with the music and moving me close against her body before releasing me back to the steps. "I would likely be cleaning up after your enemies as much too."
"It's true you do enjoy playing the hero for me." I smirked.
She dipped her head low and captured my lips quickly. I was stunned briefly. But shook off the initial shock and returned it. The electric power sung between us and heated my face. She pulled back and watched me carefully.
"Call it instinct." She answered in a low voice. "Some things we are inexplicably drawn to. We protect them more than our own lives because we know they are important even before they become so."
I stared dumbfounded for a moment. I blinked and shook my head. "Sometimes I wonder just how much you kept from me when I was mortal..." I whispered, knowing she would still hear me over the music.
Her eyes lit in a mischief I knew too well.
"As I once told you. We all have our secrets."
I grazed her lip with my thumb and watched the way her eyes burned between us. She spoke true but did not know I had concealed my own feelings between us for a long time before I acted. We both did. But there was always too much chaos between us to confirm such things. The hard truth that a mortal and immortal could not coexist in such a way. Now we were both timeless–for however long fate or the gods decided we may have this union.
Our moment was ripped apart by a painfully familiar shout too close and much too drunk.
"This is–is HOW a Uccellon dances!" Kaden boomed nearby, whisking a dark skinned woman into his thick arms and twirling them in a chaotic spin.
To both my exasperation and shock she laughed. She seemed to revel in the gigantic man's presence and had an affinity for touching his arms. I stared in disbelief as he took the woman in his arms with drunken merriness and cut a path for them between the crowd.
"Are you sure you would not like to return to Valhalla?" Kára murmured in my ear, half serious.
I finally dragged my stare off them and chuckled at her. "Odin and I are not on the best terms."
"You think I am?" She scoffed.
I shook my head and leant my head against her chest watching Kaden's antics. I felt her arms secure me and her hands soothe my back. We slowed to a slow circle that did not match the frantic beat of the music but we did not seem to care. I smiled against her dark tunic, watching his madness and knowing that I wanted to stay here. I wanted my years with the two men I called my family as much as I wanted the rest of eternity with the endless being that held me. One would end much faster. We were yet to see which that was.
The loud sound of furniture breaking caught my attention. Had we not done that enough for one night?
I prayed to the dead gods that it was not who I thought it–
John shouted something before flying into a table and scattering a few natives' meals. He was more drunk than even Kaden was. I cursed loudly and pulled my head off her chest as I felt her stiffen under me.
"John for the love of the gods! Can you not have one night of–"
A thickly armed man threw other spectators from his path and roared something in the foreign tongue before drawing a dagger. I grit my teeth and glanced at Kára.
"What is that meat with arms saying?" I demanded.
Despite it Kára fought a smirk and tucked her hands behind her back. She shrugged. I growled low and grabbed her collar making her meet my eyes as more shouting and commotion erupted behind us.
"I know you wish him dead but this is not the time for your grudge." I warned.
Her bright eyes flickered to me and then she surprised me even more.
"Let me handle this." She stated simply, pulling my hand away and walking calmly to the thickly bearded warrior that stormed for John's drunken sprawl on the table.
"No elementals!" I called after her. She only threw me a quick wink before closing in on them quickly and stepping before the raging mortal. I decided to pull up a chair and watch the show with a growing smile.
His dagger was still drawn and the look of fury evident in his wild eyes but he had no idea just how much of a bad idea that was in front of that particular woman...
* * * * *
John was staring at the golden haired immortal.
Eyes alight with something I had not seen in her direction before. It made me smirk widely before the candles in our inn quarters. Yanu had fallen asleep on top of Kaden's drunken form in the corner–it was quite adorable that he had carried the tired boy home instead of bedding the woman from the bar. Those two were becoming dangerously inseparable.
My immortal paid John no mind and watched the small flames on the table. I laid my head against her stomach and polished an iron pauldron from the armour I had bought in the hostile fighting town. John shifted in his seat watching us on the floor.
"I don't understand." He finally murmured, aware of the sleeping two behind.
"That would not be a first." Kára stated, not taking her eyes off the light. Her whole being felt relaxed under me on the cushions. It made her feel human–not a demi-god of origin and destruction. Not a being that moved faster than any I had seen and dismissed fighting mortals like they were falling leaves.
"You fought for me?" He pressed.
"It would seem." She said lightly, glancing down at my work. I had decided I would not involve myself when those two seemed to be making progress. I was shocked myself at what she had done this night. I made a face into the shine of metal and saw my silver eyes shine back.
"But why? I had thought you ready to end me." He pressed.
This time she met John's confused stare and nodded. "It seems that for the foreseeable future, we will be together. In this very group. Hating you does me no favours in that future, John Keavesmith." She finished in a factual voice.
He tilted his head unsatisfied. "But you could have let that drunken mountain land a few blows on me. You stopped him?"
"Mortals do not fair well with a few blows from a dagger. And I have seen you fight." She uttered with no small humour in her tone.
But John was still too shocked at her actions to find her words offensive. He leant back in his chair with a huff and dragged his hand through his hair. "You are a truly confusing woman."
"I know." I snorted below her.
I felt her prod me in the side and I grinned into the shining metal as I polished.
"Do not make me blacken that iron." She warned, half serious.
I did not respond. I didn't want to break the calm air that had for once taken place between her and John. He seemed to be watching us both closely however and even propped his chin under his hand as he did.
"Is there something you need mortal?" Kára asked in a low voice, noticing his obvious gaze.
"It's just that you have protected Tayah for so long. I never once expected that to extend in our direction." He mumbled, nodding back towards the others.
"Nor did I." She answered honestly. "As I told Tayah many times, I was once the perfect soldier in an immortal army. I cared not who I ended to fulfil the wishes of the gods."
I dropped the pauldron and picked up the other one to focus on something else but her warmth and breathing–and not interrupting what seemed like a constructive conversation. She picked it up and set it on the table. I knew she approved of weapon and armour maintenance anyway. She had so much to maintain.
"So it was your life for so many centuries?" John said in a quieter voice. "To kill and not question?"
I tensed slightly at the blunt question but Kára was not shocked by it. She met his gaze unnerved and dropped him a nod once. He seemed to consider this heavily. He knew our hands were not clean by any measure but we always made the choice. Most were criminals as we were.
"That seems like imprisonment. I cannot fathom what such a life would do to a person." He answered in uncharacteristic seriousness. It made me glance up and catch his solemn expression before I dropped back to my work. I had already thought through the same questions but much longer in the past. Back to the spans where her being still confused and scared me. When she made me feel strangely alive without my permission.
"It can destroy the mind, mortal. If you take the luxury of finding compassion and conscience in it. It will destroy you." She finished, making John freeze in shock.
"That is why you seem so cold and calm. It is your defence against such things." He realised. Kára did not need to answer him but much about her seemed to click into place for him. Much I already knew too well from my own past. Much of the reason I felt so closely connected to her. We all have our ways of defending ourselves from such horrors.
"I did not know the gods gave you no choice." He admitted, pulling at the corner of his sleeve. "You did not seem to care for anything on the realm so I assumed you a cold killer entirely."
Despite the admission I felt her chuckle above me. I set the pauldron down finally on the table and nestled closer into her embrace eying John with a smile.
"Oh, believe me, she tried to convince me of the same." I told him.
Her arms tightened around me in response before she answered John's confused look.
"It is easier that way, mortal. The ties we make on this realm are lost in a single lifetime and those who ascend lose their memory once becoming immortal."
His eyes bulged and he sat up in his seat. "But Tayah–"
"Hush." I murmured, glancing at Kaden as he snored and twitched him giant arm against Yanu. "I was working on a way out of that even before my ascension–"
Kára snorted and nudged my temple with her nose. "Yes, befriending the Captain of the Odians truly worked out well did it not."
"Do you two always make this much sense?" John drawled sarcastically.
"Then I will answer you plainly." Kára told him for me. "Tayah was destined to lose her memories once she ascended. I had done my best to keep feelings from her because of this. Yet Odin offered something no immortal has been offered. He returned her mortal memories to her to keep what we were to each other. I still do not understand his reasoning." She admitted with a frown. "Since his every move after our fight with Anselle has been to separate us. But then again, the gods usually have reason for everything."
I scoffed and adjusted myself closer to her. "I cannot see it."
"What of the Captain now?" He quickly murmured back.
"She's dead."
I whipped my head up to her in shock and then realised how true Odin's words had been. She will finish her task quickly. Her rage even surpasses your own.
"You failed to mention that." I got out. "Revna?"
She merely nodded minutely effectively sealing the fates of two immortals. I breath left me in shock as did John's.
"You are a different breed of chaos." John muttered, shaking his head with a slightly faster pulse.
She raised her chin to him and let a darker look briefly find her eyes before those features softened and looked down at me. I decided to relax against her again and pull her hand up between my own to trace her palm.
"I am glad that part of our past is finally over." I told her as I ran my fingers over her skin.
She did not have an answer for me and I did not expect one. Despite all they had done, there is no joy in taking the life of a friend. Revna was important to her. Yet a betrayal was enough to break such bonds. Trust was a fickle thing indeed.
"Well, I think I should find some rest like that tree." John finally noted, stretching his neck.
I nodded at him easily but he hesitated watching the demi-god again.
"It is good to know more of you past your blades, immortal. But don't expect me to make you breakfast." He finished, turning on his heel for the bed.
Kára smiled slightly and lay back into the cushions more fully, pulling me against her with both arms now. I happily melted into her side and lay my head between her shoulder and chest. She watched the wooden lines of the ceiling while I stared at the side of her face.
"I think you kept your compassion, you know." I whispered. Her face gave nothing away at my words but listened to me. "All those years of being a God's weapon and I still think you felt every life you took. You played the part of the indifferent immortal well but I know you better. It's why I fell for you. I saw underneath all that armour when you wanted none to. I see you." I finished slowly, before tucking my head into the crook of her neck without another word.
Although her face told me nothing, the quickening of that heartbeat under her tunic told me everything. The slight tightening of her arms around me and halt in breathing for a slither told me those words rung inside her. I had to wonder if that was what had made the invincible immortal feel real fear for the first time in her history. Not because of my feelings but because I saw she still had them underneath it all.
I always saw her.