Well, I am FINALLY back at it. Work has been insane for the last few weeks, but I finally had a chance to get this scene finished up. There is a lot of exposition/explanation of the root in the middle. Let me know if anyone needs anything explained. It will all be very important to a key plot point coming up later in the story. Mwahahaha.
Anyway, sorry for the long delay, thanks for the nice comments since the last time I checked in, and now on to the story! These two are finally getting somewhere!
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"... no one is going to come and rescue me, like the princesses in the old fairy tales," I said to my dear little cat, as I continued patting my skin cream onto my cheeks. It smelled like mint, and looked like clay, but it kept my skin clear. And if I was going to have to marry Laren in a few days, I had resigned myself to at least looking the part of a happy bride. "Everything might have worked out in those stories," I continued with a sigh, "but that's not what happens in real life."
It wasn't my cat who answered. It was a voice from behind me, standing at the door to my balcony. "Such little faith?"
"Jaffaran!" I spun around in an instant, and ran to meet him in the middle of the room. I had never been so happy to see anyone in all my life, and as I fell in to his arms, all of my fears seemed to melt away. "What are you doing here? How did you get here?"
"I climbed up your ivy," he replied with the lopsided smile I loved so much. "Just like in the old fairy tales. I remember those stories had princesses, but I don't remember them being green..."
"Oh!" My hands went up to my face, which was covered in pasty, minty cream. "I look terrible!"
Jaffaran was laughing, and his amber eyes were twinkling in the candlelight. "You look beautiful," he said, and he leaned down to kiss the tip of my nose.
"But we have to talk," he said. "I can't stay long. I just came back to ask you what you want to do."
"What do you mean? Why do you have to go?" I grabbed onto him and held tightly, as if I could prevent him from ever leaving my sight again.
"I don't want to risk anyone finding me here, and taking it out on you, for one," he replied. "I have no right to be in your family's lands anymore, but even if your father and I were on the best of terms, I don't think he'd allow me to climb up the ivy into your bedroom. More importantly, I have to get back to my family and help decide what to do about the root we found in the ruins. I placed a charm around it for now, to keep anyone from interacting with it, but I'm worried. I'm not the best alchemist in the family, and the root has changed in ways I don't understand. My mother needs to know about it, so she can put a stop to whatever it's doing."
"Yes, of course," I said, taking a step back and letting my hands fall away from Jaffaran's chest. "You have to go. I understand." My gaze dropped to the floor before I could even think about it. I wanted to stop him, to say that I loved him and didn't want him to go. But no matter how much I inwardly cursed my own inaction, something was keeping me from doing it. Luckily, Jaffaran was not so easily dissuaded.
He gently lifted my chin so that I was forced to look at him. He was staring deep into my eyes, with a concerned, curious expression, as if he were a doctor looking for signs of a concussion. "Come with me," he said gently. "I need to explain something to you." He gestured to the couch by the window, where Farli had gone to keep watch. I shooed the cat aside and sat down as he kept talking.
"I told you before that I thought the root was connected to the way your father has changed," he said. "It's more than that. It's stronger than I thought. I think it's affecting the whole area, including you and your brothers and your cousins... everyone really. What it does, is it finds your weakness, and it makes it worse. So if you have a temper and you're impatient, like Stellan, it will make you more angry, and more impatient. If you are insecure about your own authority, like your father seems to be, it will make you more authoritarian. If you are shy, like your mother, it will make you a recluse. If you are envious and nosy, like your cousins..."
"I understand!" I interrupted him, my cheeks turning briight red. It was hard to hear him list my family's shortcomings, even if I recognized them all too well.
"Savna, I don't mean to criticize," he said quietly. "We all have faults that we all work to overcome, and if that root weren't here, I'm sure your father and Stellan and the rest of your family would be perfectly able to manage theirs. Just like you would be able to manage yours."
I looked away again, as I felt my jaw begin to tremble. "And what are my faults?" I asked weakly. "What terrible traits has that awful thing made you see in me?"
Just as before, Jaffaran turned my gaze back to his with a gentle touch on my chin. "That you have no idea how beautiful you are, or how brilliant. That you don't see your own worth to the world, or how much I love you."
And suddenly, I was blinking back tears. It was true, and I knew it. I had always been a tomboy, always comparing myself to my prettier cousins in their dresses and pearls. I knew had a talent with making guitars, but I always lamented that couldn't play or sing. I remembered time and again, as a child and young woman, having to convince myself that my friends really did want me to come to a party, or that my work really was good enough. Silly little things really, and up until recently I had always been able to overcome my lack of confidence.
But Jaffaran was right. It was as though a fog had settled on all of the Pembina, and everything had changed, back when my father first started acting so strangely. I had thought that it was simply a case of one thing leading to another -- my father's attitudes changed all of ours. But the more I thought about it, the more I saw that I really had lost my confidence, and really had started to let my fears get the better of me. All until Jaffaran had come to take up his job as teacher, and he had understood me from the very first time I met him, and I had fallen in love with him.
I leaned more closely against him, and wrapped my arm across his chest, burying my face in the soft fabric of his shirt. "You make me so happy." It was a simple fact, but the truest thing I had ever said.
For some reason, it seemed to make Jaffaran uncomfortable.
"No, but... I mean, yes, but..." He furrowed his brow, trying to frame his reply. "You need to understand that when you're with me, part of what you feel, part of why you feel better with me... if you feel better with me... what I mean to say is, the den'Rhelys have a sort of natural immunity to the root and the powers behind it. It's been built up over generations, and strengthened over time, so that the root doesn't really affect me. And when you are close to me, it eventually stops affecting you too. So when you're with me, you naturally become more of yourself, and less of what that thing is trying to make you."
I knew that with all of his stammering he was trying to give me a choice, to be sure I wasn't confused about what I was feeling for him. It was a kind and gentlemanly thing to do, but it was useless. "I love you," I interrupted him.
"Well, I hope so... But I don't want to take advantage of the fact that part of what makes you think that you love me is that I have this immunity, and..."
"I don't think I love you," I interrupted him again.
"You don't?" Now he was confused.
I laughed at the expression, as purely happy as I had been in a very long time. "No, you daft man. I don't
think I love you. I
do love you."
"Savna..."
"Stop," I said, holding up a hand to cut him off. "You said it yourself. When I am with you, I am who I really am. Well I am with you now, and I really am madly in love with you."
I had caught him with his own logic, and he knew it. "Will you come with me then," he asked. "when I go back home? Will you come? That's what I came to ask you."
"Yes," I said immediately.
"It's a big decision, Savna. You'd be leaving your family, and leaving your home, and..."
"Yes," I said again.
"We can't guarantee that my family will take you in. I think they'll understand, but..."
"Yes, yes yes! Stop talking! Yes!"
And that was that. It took a bit more planning, a bit more discussion of details. We couldn't do anything that night -- it was already too close to morning, and Jaffaran needed to finish up some last research. But in a hurried discussion on the balcony, we made plans to meet at the ruins the next night. I would get dressed in travelling clothes, and carry a charm he'd brought me to help me slip past the guards. He would create a distraction in the courtyard, I would climb down the way he'd come up, and we'd make our ways to the designated spot.
Now that the plans were in motion, I could barely contain my excitement. We parted on the balcony after one last kiss, and then I dashed back into the bedroom to pace away the hours until the sun would set again. I only hoped that no one would come to visit me -- there would be no way I could hide my smile.
