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runicloreTitle: Lapis Rose [2/?]
Author: Amber Michelle
Rating: PG (at most).
Setting: The official IoM whatthefuckverse
Past installments: Chapter one.
Lawfer wasn't all bad, Raeger reflected after retreating upstairs. Not very exciting maybe, and a little rough around the edges - he was a /knight/ after all, who knew what kind of company he kept? - but nice enough. He didn't strike her as a bastard, anyway.
That's what one could expect of new money, they'd say. Oh look, they managed to find a wife for him! Where did they dig her up? Not that she cared what the peers of the realm thought of her. Most of them clung to the capitol for dear life, as if they thought setting foot into the countryside would make them provincial just by association.
Raeger had a word for that: stupidity. But she got in trouble when she made that observation out loud, so tried to keep it to herself.
She stopped in her room to change, with Bertha's help. The dress was every bit as bad as she'd feared. Standing was fine, provided she didn't lock her knees, and she'd managed not to embarass herself when asked to play a bit on the piano, but any position other than 'straight-backed and rigid' would have her gasping for air.
Once garbed in an old black frock without a hint of a waistline, she wandered out of her bedchamber to the sitting room she used to study. It was small compared to the grand reception chambers downstairs; shelves lined its walls, crowded with books and trinkets, and folios of music scores and papers covered with her messy handwriting. This was the room she was schooled in as a child, that had seen a long line of governesses and quite a few of her angry fits. The cramped space was cozier, she thought, than any of the elegant parlors that her mother preferred. Bertha had already lit the fire, probably assuming Raeger would run to it as soon as she could.
Only two candles were lit, and tea was set at the round table. She ignored it for the moment and wandered over to the hearth, dropping gracelessly to sit on the carpet.
Twice that day, before the Lords Millais arrived, she tried to tell someone about the shadow that visited her. The words wouldn't come. Her tongue wasn't stilled by a spell, which had occurred to her in a half-panicked moment a little while before dawn - could he do that? Normal people didn't walk around and light candles with their fingers. Nor did they sneak into the rooms of innocent young girls and make propositions.
No-- she revised that thought. From what she had seen while visiting Artolia, that was in fact very common. There were reasons her parents hadn't sent her packing off to the capitol.
Nothing had been done to safeguard her room. No one knew somebody was sneaking into the house at night for gods-knew-what reasons. Raeger wasn't afraid of losing her virtue, as no one had never shown much interest in trying to take it. But she was afraid of those cold eyes peeling away her layers - literally and figuratively - to see what she might be hiding. He hadn't explained his interest in her, that man. It was her fault for telling him to leave, she supposed, but what else could she have done?
She pulled the nearest armchair close to the fire and rested her cheek against the brocade cusion. The fire flickered and danced in the grate, throwing rainbows through the crystal that hung from the mantle and shining on the brass urn that held the iron poker and rake. After such a cold day downstairs, on marble floors and uncomfortable chairs, after long walks through the grounds, and up into less populated parts of the manor that no one bothered to warm, the heat was like a blanket draped over her shoulders, warm and soft and lulling.
The door, left open a crack so the servants would know where she was, let in a whisper of a draft that stirred the hair at the nape of her neck, the rest still arranged in a tight roll atop her head. With it came sounds from around the house: whispers, laughs, and footsteps, accompanied by idle notes from the wind chimes hung on the eaves.
They could leave her at their country estate, she mused sleepily, as her eyelids drifted closed. They had one, or said they did. No need to waste her time in the capitol, when she could waste it in the relative peace of the outlying territories. And mother won't be there. She'd always been distant in Raeger's memory, and now that she'd started taking an interest in her daughter's life, was something of a witch.
Even Bertha lost patience with her more often now. She was too old for this, too old for that, not dignified enough, always getting into trouble. Marrying would mean being away from all that. They could give her servants paid to let her do what she wanted.
Raeger felt a pang at that thought, and swallowed it. There had to be something good about all of this. If she had to leave her room, this wonderful little library, and Bertha, who knew just what was wrong whenever she needed help - there had to be something to look forward to.
Lawfer wasn't just 'nice-looking' as she'd thought from a distance. He was better-looking than Sarah's husband, certainly, and she'd be green with envy if they ever visited. If.
Someone let her hair down and stroked through it gently to unravel the braids, and Raeger sighed, curling against the chair. Maybe - as a titled lady, she would have more than just maids at her disposal. Maybe she could visit one of the others finally, and see them in person. Maybe Lawfer wouldn't mind taking her himself - he was a knight after all, it was his job to clear the countryside of trouble.
She rested against Bertha's lap with a faint smile and another sigh. The maid smelled of something deep and sharp, with an insidious sweetness that reminded her of trips to the temple at the edge of the manor grounds. Breathing in deeply and feeling a little dizzy, she drifted off.
Her eyes opened wide when she felt cool fingers on her brow, expecting to see the alabaster face of the one who called himself 'Judas,' but it was only Bertha, and she leaned over, looking pale and concerned against the backdrop of the dark canopy.
"You're burning, miss. Are you well?"
Raeger could only blink, and abandoned the idea of sitting up when her first attempt made her head reel. "I thought I--" She swallowed. "How did you get me in here?"
Bertha pushed her back into the pillows. "You must have walked in yourself, miss. And without touching your tea."
Her stomach fluttered as if she'd taken a long fall. But you were there she wanted to say, if it wasn't you then-- She didn't let herself finish the thought. The room really was hot, terribly so, but her skin prickled with a chill. She reached up to pull at the collar of her frock, and found it gone; Bertha had changed her into a proper nightgown, low-necked to give her some air, and it was something else her hand encountered.
It was warm from the heat of her body, some kind of smooth or polished stone. The chain was so light she hadn't noticed it until she lifted the charm to her eyes.
A rose, evening blue and swirled with lighter and darker shades, flecked with gold. Like the sky, she thought, full of stars. She knew a poem like that, written by a scholar who had been down to Egypt and returned to tell the tale.
The pendant dropped from her nerveless fingers to strike her chest, and her hand to the bed. And Raeger never could remember what she said to the maid to make her go away, but when she was left in peace, she stumbled around her room to search again, and spent another sleepless night staring at the window that she never opened.
The next day she remained silent, though she was near to bursting with the story of the specter that haunted her. That he must be, when he left no trace of his presence, coming and going with impunity. Even her mother couldn't draw her out of her shell, no matter how sharp her lectures.
Lips sealed, seemingly by magic, and the pendant hidden beneath her dress, Raeger avoided the darker parts of the manor and her mother's shrill irritation. She ate little, subsisting mostly on tea and snacks - Bertha brought her favorites, and even though she was busy watching the windows and keeping stock of the shadows in her room, she couldn't resist the deep, nutty scent of afternoon tea, or the warmth of fresh-baked bread.
Her maid must have kept her mother appraised of the situation; the priestess that maintained the manor's temple came to call when her condition did not improve. They were a little jumpy, all told, since it wasn't unusual for Raeger to avoid her mother for days on end, especially when prickly topics like 'marriage' and 'womanhood' came up.
The priestess was a kindly woman of middle years, crowned by blonde hair just beginning to pale with white, and she was dressed simply in deep brown robes of wool. Bertha said she was a druid, and not really a priestess the way a more traditional place like Crell Monferaigne would consider valid. Her bond was with nature, but she held deep respect for the gods, and had taken over for the old priest when Raeger was a child. He probably died, but it was so long ago she couldn't remember.
There were no words exchanged; the druid laid her hands on Raeger's head, murmuring a charm of some sort, and examined her as any physician would, looking for some kind of defect. Though she was pale and the shadows under her eyes were deep, nothing was really wrong with her. The woman might have come to the same conclusion, or perhaps simply felt the weight of the matriarch's expectations - instead of bringing out potions or whispering prayers, as she did sometimes on other occasions, she beckoned Raeger to follow, begging permission to proceed alone to the temple without the rest of the family.
It wasn't until they were outside and well on their way through the garden that the woman spoke. "There is something you fear, child, that you cannot speak of. Am I correct?"
Raeger blinked. "Well-- I--" She hadn't spoken in three days. Her voice cracked.
"I'm told you are to be married to a young lord."
Her step slowed. "... Yes."
"And it doesn't please you." A statement, not a question. The woman's glance said she was well-acquainted with the idea. "Many girls experience fear at the prospect, my lady. I think your mother has forgotten her own uneasiness. Childhood dwindles away with the years, until not even memory remains."
Raeger kept her gaze straight ahead. Was she afraid of getting married? In a way, she supposed. Her friends didn't paint a pleasant picture of matrimony. Her own mother and father barely spoke to each other, and it made an odd sort of sense to hear that their marriage was met with the same uneasiness she felt right then. Her mother, while very duty-oriented, had still taken a very dim view of the various obligations of marriage that she was trying to instruct her daughter in. Then she wondered why the idea was met with so little enthusiasm.
She shook her head. Let the druid take that however she liked. No, she didn't like the idea of leaving, but she objected far more to the fascinating stranger that was haunting her thoughts.
He was terribly interesting, the more she thought about him. He could have been anything - a ghost, a vampire, a god - but never human, not when his abilities were so terribly inhuman. Surely any mage could light a candle with their fingers, or even a very sharp glance, but not any mage could appear and disappear at will, and confound the manor's reasonably competant staff.
Not just anyone knew of Amenti, and one had to read very specific books to even know the name of 'Lorien,' the faerytales of which had fallen out of fashion along with her grandmother's moldy old dresses, by the look of the books she found it in. Marie, the smartest of her group of friends, as everyone agreed, had never heard of the place. But after learning about it, she'd found some very interesting things by writing to her cousins in Flenceburg.
His name was old, too, in a style she'd never heard. And that ankh, shining in her memory with an aura brighter than even a mountain of gold - she knew the word, she'd read descriptions, but had never seen one.
And the rose. There was that too. Her hand rested over the place it was hidden, and the afternoon seemed colder.
The woman bade her to walk in alone once they reached the temple, and Raeger complied without protest, tired of the covert glances and unspoken questions. Perhaps the druid didn't know what she was hiding or why - and neither, Raeger admitted, did she - but her suspicion was clear.
The chamber was small and simple. There were only six wooden benches, worn and polished to a dull gleam, and a functional wooden altar topped by a six-pointed rood wrought in gold and flanked by candles. She knelt on the prayer mat in a gesture of supplication, but did not pray. Could not. The candles had been annointed, or incense burned; she sensed, on the air, a faint echo of the scent in her dream the other night, sharp, deeper than honey but not quite as sweet. It left her feeling light-headed.
The answer came when her thoughts began to drift, and rested on that man. She said into the silence: "You're here. Aren't you."
A breath of air brushed the back of her neck, and she heard a rustle of rich, heavy fabric. "My lady." Soft as the stirring of the dust.
"Why are you here?" It occurred to Raeger that she shouldn't keep her back turned to him, yet she couldn't bring herself to see him face to face, either. She didn't want him to read her thoughts on her face - a feat, her mother assured her, a simpleton could accomplish on his worst day.
He joined her, standing at the edge of the mat, though she couldn't quite see him. She could feel his presence. "Do you favor the idea of being sold into slavery, my lady?" His sigh stirred the hair at the nape of her neck, and she realized too late he was kneeling beside her. "I find myself sympathetic. Quite against my will, I assure you."
She glanced at him through her hair, turning her head as little as possible. "I'm not a slave."
"You will be." His finger brushed her hair back, cool and dry, and she recoiled. The motion caused her to fall back, and left her in no position to flee. He simply withdrew his hand and watched her, expression inscrutable.
Her hand, half-unwilling, rose to rest on her collar again, where the rose hid. And though she knew it would be sensible to rip it from her neck and throw it back at him, his look stilled her hand and the intention withered.
"Consider listening to my offer, lady. Your family does not recognize your virtues, nor, I believe, does your future husband." His hair was long and thick, so dark a black that it seemed blue where the light shone upon it, and it fell about his face as if growing out; too short to be held back properly, and too long to be obedient. He pushed it back behind his ears, and pointed. "That trinket, my lady, was once a gift fit for a queen - too good for her, many said. There is more to it than a plain surface, and more beauty in its facade than many notice upon first glance. So it is with you."
He rose, and Raeger tensed, but he merely took a step back and bowed as he had that first night. "You have nothing to fear from me. I have been honorable thus far, have I not? I will not overstep my bounds. We will meet again at a more convenient time."
She watched him retreat into the shadows, where there was a door that led to the hall used by the druid as her living quarters. He could have disappeared, or perhaps just melded with the shadows. Her eyes strained to see and, when the found no sign of movement, Raeger got shakily to her feet and tottered toward the door. The ghost of his presence lingered in the air, and she didn't trust herself to find any peace there.
She kept her silence when she met the druid, and went straight to her room once they returned to the manor. It was empty, of course, though she searched just the same.
She couldn't quite decide whether to be disappointed or not.
* * *
Author: Amber Michelle
Rating: PG (at most).
Setting: The official IoM whatthefuckverse
Past installments: Chapter one.
Lawfer wasn't all bad, Raeger reflected after retreating upstairs. Not very exciting maybe, and a little rough around the edges - he was a /knight/ after all, who knew what kind of company he kept? - but nice enough. He didn't strike her as a bastard, anyway.
That's what one could expect of new money, they'd say. Oh look, they managed to find a wife for him! Where did they dig her up? Not that she cared what the peers of the realm thought of her. Most of them clung to the capitol for dear life, as if they thought setting foot into the countryside would make them provincial just by association.
Raeger had a word for that: stupidity. But she got in trouble when she made that observation out loud, so tried to keep it to herself.
She stopped in her room to change, with Bertha's help. The dress was every bit as bad as she'd feared. Standing was fine, provided she didn't lock her knees, and she'd managed not to embarass herself when asked to play a bit on the piano, but any position other than 'straight-backed and rigid' would have her gasping for air.
Once garbed in an old black frock without a hint of a waistline, she wandered out of her bedchamber to the sitting room she used to study. It was small compared to the grand reception chambers downstairs; shelves lined its walls, crowded with books and trinkets, and folios of music scores and papers covered with her messy handwriting. This was the room she was schooled in as a child, that had seen a long line of governesses and quite a few of her angry fits. The cramped space was cozier, she thought, than any of the elegant parlors that her mother preferred. Bertha had already lit the fire, probably assuming Raeger would run to it as soon as she could.
Only two candles were lit, and tea was set at the round table. She ignored it for the moment and wandered over to the hearth, dropping gracelessly to sit on the carpet.
Twice that day, before the Lords Millais arrived, she tried to tell someone about the shadow that visited her. The words wouldn't come. Her tongue wasn't stilled by a spell, which had occurred to her in a half-panicked moment a little while before dawn - could he do that? Normal people didn't walk around and light candles with their fingers. Nor did they sneak into the rooms of innocent young girls and make propositions.
No-- she revised that thought. From what she had seen while visiting Artolia, that was in fact very common. There were reasons her parents hadn't sent her packing off to the capitol.
Nothing had been done to safeguard her room. No one knew somebody was sneaking into the house at night for gods-knew-what reasons. Raeger wasn't afraid of losing her virtue, as no one had never shown much interest in trying to take it. But she was afraid of those cold eyes peeling away her layers - literally and figuratively - to see what she might be hiding. He hadn't explained his interest in her, that man. It was her fault for telling him to leave, she supposed, but what else could she have done?
She pulled the nearest armchair close to the fire and rested her cheek against the brocade cusion. The fire flickered and danced in the grate, throwing rainbows through the crystal that hung from the mantle and shining on the brass urn that held the iron poker and rake. After such a cold day downstairs, on marble floors and uncomfortable chairs, after long walks through the grounds, and up into less populated parts of the manor that no one bothered to warm, the heat was like a blanket draped over her shoulders, warm and soft and lulling.
The door, left open a crack so the servants would know where she was, let in a whisper of a draft that stirred the hair at the nape of her neck, the rest still arranged in a tight roll atop her head. With it came sounds from around the house: whispers, laughs, and footsteps, accompanied by idle notes from the wind chimes hung on the eaves.
They could leave her at their country estate, she mused sleepily, as her eyelids drifted closed. They had one, or said they did. No need to waste her time in the capitol, when she could waste it in the relative peace of the outlying territories. And mother won't be there. She'd always been distant in Raeger's memory, and now that she'd started taking an interest in her daughter's life, was something of a witch.
Even Bertha lost patience with her more often now. She was too old for this, too old for that, not dignified enough, always getting into trouble. Marrying would mean being away from all that. They could give her servants paid to let her do what she wanted.
Raeger felt a pang at that thought, and swallowed it. There had to be something good about all of this. If she had to leave her room, this wonderful little library, and Bertha, who knew just what was wrong whenever she needed help - there had to be something to look forward to.
Lawfer wasn't just 'nice-looking' as she'd thought from a distance. He was better-looking than Sarah's husband, certainly, and she'd be green with envy if they ever visited. If.
Someone let her hair down and stroked through it gently to unravel the braids, and Raeger sighed, curling against the chair. Maybe - as a titled lady, she would have more than just maids at her disposal. Maybe she could visit one of the others finally, and see them in person. Maybe Lawfer wouldn't mind taking her himself - he was a knight after all, it was his job to clear the countryside of trouble.
She rested against Bertha's lap with a faint smile and another sigh. The maid smelled of something deep and sharp, with an insidious sweetness that reminded her of trips to the temple at the edge of the manor grounds. Breathing in deeply and feeling a little dizzy, she drifted off.
Her eyes opened wide when she felt cool fingers on her brow, expecting to see the alabaster face of the one who called himself 'Judas,' but it was only Bertha, and she leaned over, looking pale and concerned against the backdrop of the dark canopy.
"You're burning, miss. Are you well?"
Raeger could only blink, and abandoned the idea of sitting up when her first attempt made her head reel. "I thought I--" She swallowed. "How did you get me in here?"
Bertha pushed her back into the pillows. "You must have walked in yourself, miss. And without touching your tea."
Her stomach fluttered as if she'd taken a long fall. But you were there she wanted to say, if it wasn't you then-- She didn't let herself finish the thought. The room really was hot, terribly so, but her skin prickled with a chill. She reached up to pull at the collar of her frock, and found it gone; Bertha had changed her into a proper nightgown, low-necked to give her some air, and it was something else her hand encountered.
It was warm from the heat of her body, some kind of smooth or polished stone. The chain was so light she hadn't noticed it until she lifted the charm to her eyes.
A rose, evening blue and swirled with lighter and darker shades, flecked with gold. Like the sky, she thought, full of stars. She knew a poem like that, written by a scholar who had been down to Egypt and returned to tell the tale.
The pendant dropped from her nerveless fingers to strike her chest, and her hand to the bed. And Raeger never could remember what she said to the maid to make her go away, but when she was left in peace, she stumbled around her room to search again, and spent another sleepless night staring at the window that she never opened.
The next day she remained silent, though she was near to bursting with the story of the specter that haunted her. That he must be, when he left no trace of his presence, coming and going with impunity. Even her mother couldn't draw her out of her shell, no matter how sharp her lectures.
Lips sealed, seemingly by magic, and the pendant hidden beneath her dress, Raeger avoided the darker parts of the manor and her mother's shrill irritation. She ate little, subsisting mostly on tea and snacks - Bertha brought her favorites, and even though she was busy watching the windows and keeping stock of the shadows in her room, she couldn't resist the deep, nutty scent of afternoon tea, or the warmth of fresh-baked bread.
Her maid must have kept her mother appraised of the situation; the priestess that maintained the manor's temple came to call when her condition did not improve. They were a little jumpy, all told, since it wasn't unusual for Raeger to avoid her mother for days on end, especially when prickly topics like 'marriage' and 'womanhood' came up.
The priestess was a kindly woman of middle years, crowned by blonde hair just beginning to pale with white, and she was dressed simply in deep brown robes of wool. Bertha said she was a druid, and not really a priestess the way a more traditional place like Crell Monferaigne would consider valid. Her bond was with nature, but she held deep respect for the gods, and had taken over for the old priest when Raeger was a child. He probably died, but it was so long ago she couldn't remember.
There were no words exchanged; the druid laid her hands on Raeger's head, murmuring a charm of some sort, and examined her as any physician would, looking for some kind of defect. Though she was pale and the shadows under her eyes were deep, nothing was really wrong with her. The woman might have come to the same conclusion, or perhaps simply felt the weight of the matriarch's expectations - instead of bringing out potions or whispering prayers, as she did sometimes on other occasions, she beckoned Raeger to follow, begging permission to proceed alone to the temple without the rest of the family.
It wasn't until they were outside and well on their way through the garden that the woman spoke. "There is something you fear, child, that you cannot speak of. Am I correct?"
Raeger blinked. "Well-- I--" She hadn't spoken in three days. Her voice cracked.
"I'm told you are to be married to a young lord."
Her step slowed. "... Yes."
"And it doesn't please you." A statement, not a question. The woman's glance said she was well-acquainted with the idea. "Many girls experience fear at the prospect, my lady. I think your mother has forgotten her own uneasiness. Childhood dwindles away with the years, until not even memory remains."
Raeger kept her gaze straight ahead. Was she afraid of getting married? In a way, she supposed. Her friends didn't paint a pleasant picture of matrimony. Her own mother and father barely spoke to each other, and it made an odd sort of sense to hear that their marriage was met with the same uneasiness she felt right then. Her mother, while very duty-oriented, had still taken a very dim view of the various obligations of marriage that she was trying to instruct her daughter in. Then she wondered why the idea was met with so little enthusiasm.
She shook her head. Let the druid take that however she liked. No, she didn't like the idea of leaving, but she objected far more to the fascinating stranger that was haunting her thoughts.
He was terribly interesting, the more she thought about him. He could have been anything - a ghost, a vampire, a god - but never human, not when his abilities were so terribly inhuman. Surely any mage could light a candle with their fingers, or even a very sharp glance, but not any mage could appear and disappear at will, and confound the manor's reasonably competant staff.
Not just anyone knew of Amenti, and one had to read very specific books to even know the name of 'Lorien,' the faerytales of which had fallen out of fashion along with her grandmother's moldy old dresses, by the look of the books she found it in. Marie, the smartest of her group of friends, as everyone agreed, had never heard of the place. But after learning about it, she'd found some very interesting things by writing to her cousins in Flenceburg.
His name was old, too, in a style she'd never heard. And that ankh, shining in her memory with an aura brighter than even a mountain of gold - she knew the word, she'd read descriptions, but had never seen one.
And the rose. There was that too. Her hand rested over the place it was hidden, and the afternoon seemed colder.
The woman bade her to walk in alone once they reached the temple, and Raeger complied without protest, tired of the covert glances and unspoken questions. Perhaps the druid didn't know what she was hiding or why - and neither, Raeger admitted, did she - but her suspicion was clear.
The chamber was small and simple. There were only six wooden benches, worn and polished to a dull gleam, and a functional wooden altar topped by a six-pointed rood wrought in gold and flanked by candles. She knelt on the prayer mat in a gesture of supplication, but did not pray. Could not. The candles had been annointed, or incense burned; she sensed, on the air, a faint echo of the scent in her dream the other night, sharp, deeper than honey but not quite as sweet. It left her feeling light-headed.
The answer came when her thoughts began to drift, and rested on that man. She said into the silence: "You're here. Aren't you."
A breath of air brushed the back of her neck, and she heard a rustle of rich, heavy fabric. "My lady." Soft as the stirring of the dust.
"Why are you here?" It occurred to Raeger that she shouldn't keep her back turned to him, yet she couldn't bring herself to see him face to face, either. She didn't want him to read her thoughts on her face - a feat, her mother assured her, a simpleton could accomplish on his worst day.
He joined her, standing at the edge of the mat, though she couldn't quite see him. She could feel his presence. "Do you favor the idea of being sold into slavery, my lady?" His sigh stirred the hair at the nape of her neck, and she realized too late he was kneeling beside her. "I find myself sympathetic. Quite against my will, I assure you."
She glanced at him through her hair, turning her head as little as possible. "I'm not a slave."
"You will be." His finger brushed her hair back, cool and dry, and she recoiled. The motion caused her to fall back, and left her in no position to flee. He simply withdrew his hand and watched her, expression inscrutable.
Her hand, half-unwilling, rose to rest on her collar again, where the rose hid. And though she knew it would be sensible to rip it from her neck and throw it back at him, his look stilled her hand and the intention withered.
"Consider listening to my offer, lady. Your family does not recognize your virtues, nor, I believe, does your future husband." His hair was long and thick, so dark a black that it seemed blue where the light shone upon it, and it fell about his face as if growing out; too short to be held back properly, and too long to be obedient. He pushed it back behind his ears, and pointed. "That trinket, my lady, was once a gift fit for a queen - too good for her, many said. There is more to it than a plain surface, and more beauty in its facade than many notice upon first glance. So it is with you."
He rose, and Raeger tensed, but he merely took a step back and bowed as he had that first night. "You have nothing to fear from me. I have been honorable thus far, have I not? I will not overstep my bounds. We will meet again at a more convenient time."
She watched him retreat into the shadows, where there was a door that led to the hall used by the druid as her living quarters. He could have disappeared, or perhaps just melded with the shadows. Her eyes strained to see and, when the found no sign of movement, Raeger got shakily to her feet and tottered toward the door. The ghost of his presence lingered in the air, and she didn't trust herself to find any peace there.
She kept her silence when she met the druid, and went straight to her room once they returned to the manor. It was empty, of course, though she searched just the same.
She couldn't quite decide whether to be disappointed or not.
* * *
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-02-26 11:41 pm (UTC)Otogizoushi is seeping into your sooouuul. XD
I presume we return to our regularly-scheduled (hah!) IoM Gaiden after this? XD
no subject
Date: 2006-02-27 01:06 am (UTC)Right now, though, I have way too much homework to write another installment! I was slacking yesterday, and so it took me longer than usual, but even an hour is too much to waste right now if I'm going to get this stuff out of the way. Maybe later. =D