i am the mace, the map, the fall and the high

“I assume very little,” he replies, his bright eyes decidedly devilish as he peers at her, grinning. Where she lay open before him like the pages of a book, it seems she could read little of him in return. It’s an intriguing prospect, knowing she doesn’t truly know him and yet finds him fascinating regardless. And strokes his ego perhaps a little too much, but he is still too young yet to acknowledge such a thing.

Where he can see the way her memories shift and falter - the fear and heart-pounding anticipation of her flight from her home, the love she had borne for those she left behind (even if she refused to admit it), the way she now hides behind her wit and irreverence - she can see only that which he leaves for her. Would she see Brazen’s death in his bones? Lilliana’s continued absence in the raging of the river? The sacrifices he had made for them both in the absence of teeth from the shadows? Or would she find none of it?

Either way, just as he could see her past written in her memories, so too could see the way the future winds before her on so many paths. So many paths that stumble upon his own. Perhaps she would disappear, would run away home, choose one of the invariably few that did not lead to their next meeting. But he doubts it.

As the shadows weave around his bones, knitting skin and fading bruises, he watches her. Listens. There is something about hearing her story from her lips rather than seeing the way it stumbles so haphazardly around her. He finds he rather likes it. “Are monks not celibate?” he asks on a laugh, briefly interrupting. “It’s a wonder you were fathered at all if that’s the case.”

Then she asks about his own family, the shadow creatures of his birth-home. He tilts his head curiously, wondering at her interest in their secrets. “If they did, they would be far more interesting,” he muses, blue eyes fixed on her with a speculative air. “But if you must know, it is merely that my great-uncle is sickeningly in love with his mate and has produced a passel of shadow-children.”

When she has finished her work, he shifts away, suddenly restless. Rune stirs from the tree in which he had been waiting with the silent patience of a predator. Reave glances at the bird for a brief moment before returning his attention to Elliana with open consideration. “Come with me,” he finally invites. It is an invitation he rarely extends. Would she be honored by such a thing? “I don’t think we are nearly finished with one another,” he continues before a wicked smile begins to grow and he adds, “and I might even show you what I was running from.”

reave

i am the mace, the map, the fall and the high

It’s a strange thing, watching her as she reminisces on her family. On those she left behind. She wishes so badly to be free, to act as though she is quiet and unbothered by their failings. And yet she is not. She is trapped by the endless cycle of their mistakes, tethered undeniably in their grip. Her denial only makes it all the stronger.

Reave of course should not speak on such matters. Not with the weight of his own ancestry dragging behind him with each willful step. Not when the machinations and deceit of his own grandmother had filtered down through generations. He is only the latest in a string of them. So many stories had already played themselves out long before he was born, but they too lie as a yoke around his neck. His only fortune is that he does not bear the curse so many of them do. That at least he could not blame on the grandmother who had caused the rest of it.

Love is disobedient, she says, and Reave’s lips twist at that. He hasn’t known love, but he has seen enough of it to understand. “It is,” is his equally simple reply. He wouldn’t exist either if it weren’t.

He watches curiously as the faces of those she loves crash through her memories, all those she had left behind. The garden she even now remembers with a wistful longing. His eyes never leave her as she looks to the sky. For a moment, from an outsider's perspective it would almost appear as though she were praying for absolution. Reave knows better.

He grins at her questions, blue gaze wickedly enticing. “Why not?” he quips easily, teasing her for her sudden hesitance. She had not been nearly so reticent only moments earlier. “I have a garden of my own I could show you.” He pauses, grin turning devilish. “Since you love flowers so very much.”

His head tilts as she admonishes him once more, though he does not appear at all repentant. Neither does he reveal his satisfaction however, when she admits his assumption might have been right. Instead, with only a gleam in his blue eyes, he simply says, “I am glad I haven’t frightened you off.”

As Rune launches into the sky, Reave turns with a grin to do as she had indicated and lead the way.

reave

i am the mace, the map, the fall and the high

Reave does not rush. There is no need when they have all the time they could wish for. When a leisurely stroll through the tall and ancient trees of the Taiga is a stroll through a place as much a home to him as the windswept moors off its northern border. With Rune gliding far above, the path ahead is as clear as Elliana beside him. There would be no surprises on this brief journey.

At least, none but the ones his fetching companion might yet reveal.

The pace they set together is entirely different than the one he might have set had he been alone. But then, there is a wild recklessness in being alone that doesn’t seem to plague him the same way when he has company. No, his recklessness is far different when he has secrets he might pry from the deep recesses in which they hide. Or when he might convince another to join him in his wilder pursuits. Adrenaline is so much more delightful when shared.

It only remains to be seen what she might be convinced of.

He eyes her with amusement as she asks if she will get to keep one. Like him, the garden of the North is not made to be beautiful so much as it is to be bold. “If you wish to,” he replies enigmatically, eyes gleaming with humor. “But I’m not certain you’ll want to weave the flowers in my garden through such a lovely mane.”

He considers her quietly for several paces then, weaving between trees and around mushrooms with the dexterity of someone familiar with their placement. He is not an introspective sort by most standards, but her reactions have made a rather peculiar set of emotions rise deep in his breast. Peculiar, because for the first time in perhaps his entire life, he actually cares what someone he barely knows thinks of him. Perhaps it is the way in which she doesn’t feel like a stranger. Or perhaps it is something else entirely he hasn’t quite picked apart yet. But whatever the case, he finds himself rather put-out that she keeps lifting barriers between them.

“Am I really so much a stranger to you still then?” he asks, that odd feeling getting the better of him. Nevermind that they have truly only known one another for a single afternoon. He feels far more like they have known one another their entire life. And for a brief moment when she had first pulled him into the shadows, he almost believed she had felt the same. “You don’t feel like a stranger to me.”

reave