bellaknoti (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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peopleofthedas2010-12-21 11:21 am
bellaknoti) wrote in peopleofthedas2010-12-21 11:21 am
fanfic: Wings of the Storm Crow
Series: Wings of the Storm Crow
Title: Stripped Bare (Chapter Eight)
Rating: AO
Pairing: Lily/Zevran
Summary: It's late, I'm tired, we've just spent the last six hours perpetrating international fraud, but now - right now, no waiting - it's time for The Conversation. He won't be put off... and I... I can't tell him no.
oops... i thought i posted this chapter yesterday. >.> sorry.
It's 2 a.m.
I return to the house, and look at Zev. He is sitting on the couch, reading over the papers Stalker left behind. I take off my gloves and stuff them back in my pocket, followed by my rings, my necklace, my collar; all of them go into the pockets of my trench coat. I hang it on the hall tree, too tired to bother with putting it away properly, at the moment. I stand there, feeling lost, staring at my boots. I need to come back to myself.
I crouch down and pull the knife from my boot, adding it to the collection in the pockets of my coat. While I’m down here, I untie my boots and kick them off as I straighten. I wander into the bedroom and get undressed. Standing there in the cold in just my bra and panties helps, and I shake myself. I tie up my hair and get in the shower. Hot showers are definitely not something I had access to back then.
My mask runs down my face and washes away down the drain in a dark swirl, and I am not sorry to see the last of it. I’ve just been an accessory to international forgery. Oh, my gods, what am I doing? A man I do not actually know washes up on my beach, and I take him in with no questions. He is in my bed, he is chasing off my asshole ex, and I am breaking every law on the planet to keep him. Anything, anything to keep him.
And now I have to explain to him where he's come from. No. Not now. Oh, gods, why? I don't want to. But as soon as I turn on my computer, there's going to be the question: Why is there a drawing of me on this thing? I can't avoid ebay forever. I have to list stuff, or I’m going to run out of capital... although... the bank account Stalker set up for Zev wasn't a tiny thing. Still, don't dare touch it for a while, anyway. Doesn't matter, oh, gods, it doesn't matter.
How do I tell him he's a character from a game? That his entire world is unreal? That he shouldn't even exist? That first night, I just glossed over it. I thought I was crazy. I thought he would disappear like seafoam on the tide. I thought he'd be like my driftwood, washed away and gone.
But he's here, sitting in my living room. I’ve called in an ancient favour and dug up old bones for him. I’ve got myself in deep, and I keep thinking I know him, I know him so well, but do I? Questions for another time. I stand under the water until it runs cold, then turn it off, finally, reluctantly. I stand and stare at myself in the mirror for a long time, finding myself at thirty, tumbling back down all the long years to the now, the woman who has grown from the girl, the survivor who has come to this house on the beach.
I wander into the bedroom, put on some pyjamas, and drift into the living room. The fire still burns and crackles, and I stand next to it for a moment, before putting the kettle back on. Chai tea, another comfort of my adulthood. The scent of the spices when I open the canister brings me further into the now, and I sigh. I find myself automatically setting up two mugs, and pull my hair down while I wait for the water to boil. Waist-length hair: another thing not possible on the street, where head lice are common enough that putting glue in your hair to stand it up in liberty spikes actually makes sense.
He is quiet, setting the papers aside as I bring him the mug. I mean to sit in the chair across from him, but he takes my hand in his, catching me firmly, clearly not wanting me to move away. I sit next to him on the couch, my knee against his, and his gaze is direct, disconcerting. I am pinned, and I realize with dread that The Conversation is coming. “So... cara, I have questions.”
I turn the mug in my hands, looking down into the milky depths of my tea. We both have questions. So many of them have no answers, and I am not used to not having the answers, but he deserves nothing less than my complete respect; I must give him everything I can. “I bet. Ask me anything.” He lets go of my hand and I wrap it around my mug, trying to conceal the shaking. I know what he's going to ask. How the hell am I going to explain this? I look at him over the edge of my cup, holding it up like a shield.
He takes a moment to think; I see the gears clicking in his head, trying to wrap his mind around all the things that I know have been a terrible shock. The only real question here in my mind, besides how to explain, is what he is going to ask first. Of course, he surprises me with where he begins. “You told him two days that we knew each other cara. Yet, it was two years that I knew you through the Blight.”
This is not exactly a question, but I must respond. “Uh... Well, I did know you then, but... As I said, I was not in this body, while I was there. But you have only been here for two days.”
He gives me a sharp look. “You deflect my questions as though we were sparring. This is not a session with weapons. Be straightforward with me, cara mia, please.”
Oh, my heart. I grimace. “I'm trying to be, I swear to you. Ask me something else.”
He sighs, exasperated. “Lily, this is... no less difficult for me than it is you. How are we to manage this if we are not sharing the burden?” He fixes me with a stern eye, and I feel small as he squares himself. “My shoulders, they are broad, yes? There is nothing I would not do for you, and your actions this night have proved that you will risk just as much for me.” His hands slash through the air in denial, but in the next moment, reach toward me, almost in supplication, as he leans in close. Somehow this unexpected intimacy is more intimidating than his hardness. “Trust in me that I shall try to understand everything you say. I need no protecting, as I am a man, and will face all the obstacles that are before us; we will do it together. You must tell me the truth, Lily; is this not the way between us?” He folds his arms over his chest again, and pulls back abruptly, leaving me suddenly feeling like an island.
I stare at him, kind of in shock, then bow my head. “I know. You're right, of course. I-- I’m sorry.” His worry, his trust – they break me. I have to explain, but how? Maybe I can ease him into it. I’ll start with something... the closest thing I have to being personal. “Hang on... Let me get...” I bite my lip and rise, setting my mug aside; going to my desk, I open the drawer and pull out the journal. Since I can never trust my power situation, every series of my fic has its own hand-written book, and this one is Lily. I chose a journal that had an art nouveau pattern on the cover – a bunch of calla lilies. I turn, holding it to my chest. “This... will explain some of it.”
Slowly, I reach out and lay it in his hands, terror clutching at my heart. I sit next to him, picking up my mug again, and watch nervously as he reads through it, flipping pages back and forth, sometimes skipping ahead, his hands smoothing across the paper as he goes. Finally becoming impatient, he goes to the last few pages, reading over them quickly. Here, he freezes, eyes wide. He begins to vibrate at a fine tremble; I only notice because he is usually so still, so in control.
He swallows a few times, closing the book and holding it tight over his heart, eyes closed, mouth tight. I’m going to shatter into a million pieces. This is so hard, so very hard. I close my eyes for a moment and pray: Oh, gods, I swore I would not question you, so please, let us find a way through this. I realize I’m clutching my mug so tightly that if it were any more fragile, it would have fractured in my hands. I force my arms to straighten, my fingers to uncurl, and set it on the table.
He bows his head, and I shake with the fear of this moment, the time when we have to face what I have been avoiding. I brush my fingertips against the back of his hand, my eyes burning. “I told you... It... This shouldn't be possible.”
“I am... not real. I am... a character,” he says, voice harsh. He is shutting down, I can see it. “Cara, how can this be?”
“I don't know,” I choke. “But... but clearly you are real.” He looks up at me, so much trust now completely absent from his eyes, and it breaks my heart. “Zev, I cannot explain the whims of the gods,” I say quickly, desperately. “These are things I wish I had answers to; I wish I could tell you by what strange fate we should be here, now, together. We must be an amusement to them, that is all I can say with any certainty.” I reach out again, but he recoils, and has gone cold on me.
“You mean to say that you are an amusement for the gods, perhaps. Does that mean that I am an amusement for you?”
I choke again, and my hand falls away; I can't look at him, the burning in my eyes is so intense, and I feel something scalding make a track down my cheek. “I don't... know how to explain, what to say. You are no mere amusement. This is my journal. I wrote every word, I experienced every moment. Every laugh we shared, every kiss, every touch – I played them over and over again in my mind, in my dreams. I saw you when I slept, I craved you when I was awake, I ached that you were not here, so I wrote, so I could be with you. I came to you the only way I could.”
I glance up and away again, because I cannot see his face through the tears. “All my time, even as I worked, you were with me, in my thoughts, in my hands.” I look at them, helplessly, and fling an arm out to the side, pointing. “Go out to the shop, really look at my work, and you will find the shape of your tattoos in the lines of everything I made. I could not escape you... I didn't want to. I was never beyond your reach.” I cover my mouth with my hand, hearing the words coming from some part of me that had been without conscious expression, only knowing them as they pour forth.
“So you created me?” He waves a hand, grasping at intangibles. “And then you... took yourself from me?” He maintains a white-knuckled death grip on my journal.
“I didn't create you. And, I... I don't know why I took myself from the story, it... it's what came. It was a decision that I regretted; as soon as it was done, I wished nothing more than to take it back.” This is the complete truth. I had made myself literally sick with it; I had cried and cried, so much I threw up. I felt like someone had punched me in the soul; my chest ached, and every breath was agony, sharp and horrible. I had a bitter taste in my mouth that nothing could wash away. At the time I had thought myself pathetic for mourning him, but I cannot now be ashamed.
Now he softens, seeing my state, but the trust still has yet to return to his eyes. He touches my cheek anyway, stroking away the tears. “Perhaps you did it so that I could be here now?”
I shake my head. I still don't know why I did it, had no idea what would come from it, but I can answer one thing. “My agony was so devouring, the ache so complete, I was hollowed with grief... I was sick with it... and then, suddenly... you were here, on my beach. Perhaps if my sorrow had not been such a crushing weight, you could not have come.” I dare to look him in the eye again. “For a moment, the pain was washed away... but I became terrified that you wouldn't be here, if I slept. It would have made everything so much worse for having had you here, for having held you in my arms, and then to have you suddenly taken from me again, I would have shattered... never recovered. I would have been a ghost in my own life.”
It almost looks as though there is a glimmer of understanding in those golden depths, but I don't even dare to hope. “We both would have been ghosts. I would have been no more, no matter whether you ceased your writings, your dreams and prayers. As surely as the sun rises, I would no longer take breath if such a game had been played upon us.” He relinquishes his grip on my journal, setting it aside reverently, and takes my face in both hands. “It is good that I am still here, then. We do not have to be ghosts.”
I swallow the hard knot in my throat and nod, my hands covering his. I turn my face to kiss the ball of his thumb, biting back the tears again. Just as I am relaxing, knowing the crisis averted, he continues, throwing another punch that strikes me just as hard as his first question. “There are so many things more that are unsaid yet between us.”
I wince, but look back at him and nod; our hands drop to the couch between us, our fingers intertwine. “Go on.”
He isn't pushing, but he will not allow me to let it lie. “If I am not your creation, whose am I? Who would play such games with us?”
Zevran is uncomfortably close to the truth, but I can't tell him that. It would ruin everything, and any understanding he has would wash away, never to return. I bite my lip, and take the plunge. “It may be easier to... show you,” I say, slowly. Crossing my fingers, hoping the power holds steady, I grab my laptop from where it has been sitting innocently on the desk, all this time. Luckily it boots – well... whether it's lucky actually remains to be seen. I know I can't show him the game... not yet, and maybe never, but my wallpaper pops up onto the screen. Hopefully this will lead to the right questions... and, if I am very, very lucky and very, very clever, the right answers, as well.
He reaches out, tracing it, then touches the name in the corner. “'Tahara'? Is this the name you use for your artwork? I didn't know you were skilled with a pen beyond the use of words, but for art as well?” He gives me a tiny smile. “You sew, you write, you carve, and this – beautiful artwork, as well. Is there anything you cannot do?”
I blush, and I fear my laugh has a manic edge to it. I shake my head. “No, no... I can draw, it's true, and I'll show you some of it, sometime, but this one isn't my work. I’m not that good.”
Zevran's hold on my hand spasms. “You did not draw this? But who else could know what we look like, to make such accurate likenesses?”
Taking a deep breath, I flail around for a place to begin. “Thedas is a world many travel to.”
“I gathered as much,” he says, impatiently, more than a little sardonic, and I wince.
“I said that before, I know... just... bear with me, here. I’m trying to explain, trying to find a place to begin. Just as I did a couple of nights ago, I want to choose my words carefully, so that I make no mistakes.” I turn my hand, lacing my fingers between his. He nods, and I take another breath before continuing. “So... Thedas is a world many travel to, and many... have stories there. They live there for a time, and meet many people, just as I met you there. But... it is... like...” I struggle with it, chewing my lip. Where do I go from here? I don't want to say 'game', dear gods, that word is to be avoided like the plague. Alternate realities... that's the key. “These others who go, they can take the same... position, in time and place. I became Lily Mahariel, and you knew me there, but when I left, someone else went. They lived there during the same time, taking the niche that I had occupied.”
This is as simply as I can explain it without telling him that he comes from a game. I want no hint of any idea that someone 'played' with him. In his world, Zevran suffered enough games to last many lifetimes; his past makes mine look like a cakewalk. He is no one's toy.
“So, you are saying that right now, as we speak, someone is reliving the Blight?” he asks, his eyes going wide with horror.
“Yes,” I say sadly, latching on to that. “Unfortunately, that is it, exactly. Someone else is living through the Blight, someone else is a Warden, someone else will hopefully slay the Archdemon.”
“Someone else will meet me, as well?” He connects the dots so easily; his intelligence is dangerously sexy to me. Few have been those who could outclass me, but I suspect – no, I’m pretty sure – he can. There's no hiding from the sharpness of his mind.
I nod. “Another you – a you who has only begun to set out from Antiva, to fulfil the contract on the Grey Wardens. Perhaps you will succeed in killing them, perhaps they will befriend you, perhaps other things will happen, perhaps they may kill you, perhaps you will follow them, only to elect to go with Taliesen, later... there are so many variables, so many things change depending on how each person will choose to live their life. They may never live to see the Archdemon in the first place. They may be completely evil and drag the entire realm into darkness. I don't know.”
“Mph, this sounds like a game for sport, a way for others to live in Thedas, to force the people who reside there to re-experience the pain of the Blight repeatedly.”
I squeak. Gods, this man is too perceptive for my own damned good. “A... game?” I stutter, but forcibly collect myself. Stay on track, here. “That's just it, though: the people of Thedas only experience it once. There's no memory of other times the story is told. Every time it happens, it is happening for the first time, for all of them.”
“So, it is a story that may be retold many times, so that many of your world may experience it, yet it only happens once for us?” he sums up.
I nod. “Yes. I was not the first to go, and I will not be the last, but you do not remember them, because you never met them; it only happened once, for you, for me.”
“What then of this?” he asks, tapping my monitor and the drawing there. “This person, this 'Tahara'. She knows of me, but also knows of you?”
This is getting easier as his grasp on the situation increases. “Well... Remember how I told you about the world marketplace where I sell my work?” He nods. “Okay, well, the marketplace is not the only thing that happens in that way. There are libraries, schools, communities of people, forums for discourse and ways to send letters, among many, many other things. I am part of a community of people who have gathered to tell the stories of our experiences in Thedas. We write or draw, and share what we know, what we have learned.”
“So a person you know drew this? As a way for you to be able to keep me close to you?”
I nod. “Yes, precisely,” I say, relieved to at least have this much explained clearly.
“That is a good friend then, to gift you a way to hold me close,” he says, his voice warming at last. He is slowly relaxing, and the terrible clutching fist around my heart is easing up, as he does.
“Yes, she really is.”
“I shall have to thank her somehow. Will you convey my thanks?”
My eyes go wide. “Uh... you know what? We should just... send her a photograph of us. Her artwork is part of what made it possible for us to be here together.”
“Then she is a very good friend, and I wish her much joy – as much joy as she has brought us.” He is decisive, raising my hand up to place a small kiss across the back of it, and I know everything will be all right now. I let out a breath I didn't realize I have been holding.
This conversation, as hellish as it was for me, and for him, has been good for us, and it didn't go as badly as I thought it would. He was right to force the issue, even as late as it is, to make me talk to him about it. It has been weighing on me so heavily, and I feel like now, maybe I can breathe.
I am still unsteady, still unsure of us, a little, but I really need to be in his arms. “Zev?”
“Hmm?” He has been staring at the picture Tahara drew, rubbing his thumb absently over our entwined fingers.
“It's late now... Um... is there anything else you want to ask me?” I’m hoping there isn't.
He sighs, then gives me a smile. “Of course, but it shall keep until after we have rested.”
Utterly relieved, I shut down my laptop. Once I'm finished, Zevran takes both my hands, pulling me to my feet, and enfolds me in his arms, holding me tight to him; I cling, so very grateful to have navigated this minefield safely. Emotional conversations with him have always been fraught with peril. It is comforting, in a twisted way, that this has not changed, for I know that I stand a very good chance of continuing to be able to communicate effectively with him. I managed to go through all the canon conversations without ever getting a negative response, only finding out much later that things have the potential to go disastrously wrong, very easily. I didn't dare to hope, could barely bring myself to think of it, of how it could all explode in my face. Right here, right now, smelling his skin, his breath in my hair, and his strength wrapped around me, my world is right.
With gentle urgings he guides us to our room – and it is 'ours'; I can't think of it being just mine any more – and strips me of my pyjamas. The last barriers fall away, and I am naked under his gaze, once more. The trust I had thought fled is back, and he is looking at me in that way of his that tells me I am the centre of his everything. It is a better way of saying he loves me than any words could ever be.
Even as he undresses himself, I can't see where he hides his knives, no matter how closely I watch. I wonder if I'll ever figure it out. Maybe I will ask him about it sometime, but not now; we've had enough questions for one night. I've had enough for a lifetime. As soon as he is under the covers I roll into him, wrapping myself around him, a horrible weight lifting from my heart. “Zev, I'm sorry I hid these things from you. I never meant to be dishonest.”
He kisses my forehead as he says, “Tch, it is not good... true, but I understand. These are unbelievable things, yet we have proof of them here that cannot be ignored. I shall forgive you, cara mia, if you promise to not hide so from me again.” Zevran tugs on my chin, bidding me to look up at him. “It is no good if we keep things from each other; we will be unable to protect and care for one another if we don't know what we must guard against.”
He has a point. A very good point. If he had found out any of this on his own, he would have pushed me away, leaving him lost in this unfamiliar world without anyone he knew to lean on. Zevran is a survivor, but only against the sorts of straightforward enemies that don't hide behind walls of information, documents, taxes, surveillance. He would unknowingly – too easily! – commit some crime and be hauled away for it. Once they found out that not only was he not documented, but he wasn't even human? I shudder to think. Oh, gods, what horrible things would happen to him! I shy away from it, clinging tighter.
“You're right, you're right. I’m so sorry.” I shake my head, burying my face in his shoulder, and take another breath. “I trust you so completely, and I want you to be able to be certain that you can trust me, that we will face these things together, shoulder to shoulder, as we have always been. I swear to you, I will always give you the truth... as much as I know it to be.” I lift my face to blink up at him, my fingertips wandering across his chest.
Now he kisses me, softly, sweetly, at last, and I am finally at peace. “Va bene, dolcezza. It is enough.”
Title: Stripped Bare (Chapter Eight)
Rating: AO
Pairing: Lily/Zevran
Summary: It's late, I'm tired, we've just spent the last six hours perpetrating international fraud, but now - right now, no waiting - it's time for The Conversation. He won't be put off... and I... I can't tell him no.
oops... i thought i posted this chapter yesterday. >.> sorry.
It's 2 a.m.
I return to the house, and look at Zev. He is sitting on the couch, reading over the papers Stalker left behind. I take off my gloves and stuff them back in my pocket, followed by my rings, my necklace, my collar; all of them go into the pockets of my trench coat. I hang it on the hall tree, too tired to bother with putting it away properly, at the moment. I stand there, feeling lost, staring at my boots. I need to come back to myself.
I crouch down and pull the knife from my boot, adding it to the collection in the pockets of my coat. While I’m down here, I untie my boots and kick them off as I straighten. I wander into the bedroom and get undressed. Standing there in the cold in just my bra and panties helps, and I shake myself. I tie up my hair and get in the shower. Hot showers are definitely not something I had access to back then.
My mask runs down my face and washes away down the drain in a dark swirl, and I am not sorry to see the last of it. I’ve just been an accessory to international forgery. Oh, my gods, what am I doing? A man I do not actually know washes up on my beach, and I take him in with no questions. He is in my bed, he is chasing off my asshole ex, and I am breaking every law on the planet to keep him. Anything, anything to keep him.
And now I have to explain to him where he's come from. No. Not now. Oh, gods, why? I don't want to. But as soon as I turn on my computer, there's going to be the question: Why is there a drawing of me on this thing? I can't avoid ebay forever. I have to list stuff, or I’m going to run out of capital... although... the bank account Stalker set up for Zev wasn't a tiny thing. Still, don't dare touch it for a while, anyway. Doesn't matter, oh, gods, it doesn't matter.
How do I tell him he's a character from a game? That his entire world is unreal? That he shouldn't even exist? That first night, I just glossed over it. I thought I was crazy. I thought he would disappear like seafoam on the tide. I thought he'd be like my driftwood, washed away and gone.
But he's here, sitting in my living room. I’ve called in an ancient favour and dug up old bones for him. I’ve got myself in deep, and I keep thinking I know him, I know him so well, but do I? Questions for another time. I stand under the water until it runs cold, then turn it off, finally, reluctantly. I stand and stare at myself in the mirror for a long time, finding myself at thirty, tumbling back down all the long years to the now, the woman who has grown from the girl, the survivor who has come to this house on the beach.
I wander into the bedroom, put on some pyjamas, and drift into the living room. The fire still burns and crackles, and I stand next to it for a moment, before putting the kettle back on. Chai tea, another comfort of my adulthood. The scent of the spices when I open the canister brings me further into the now, and I sigh. I find myself automatically setting up two mugs, and pull my hair down while I wait for the water to boil. Waist-length hair: another thing not possible on the street, where head lice are common enough that putting glue in your hair to stand it up in liberty spikes actually makes sense.
He is quiet, setting the papers aside as I bring him the mug. I mean to sit in the chair across from him, but he takes my hand in his, catching me firmly, clearly not wanting me to move away. I sit next to him on the couch, my knee against his, and his gaze is direct, disconcerting. I am pinned, and I realize with dread that The Conversation is coming. “So... cara, I have questions.”
I turn the mug in my hands, looking down into the milky depths of my tea. We both have questions. So many of them have no answers, and I am not used to not having the answers, but he deserves nothing less than my complete respect; I must give him everything I can. “I bet. Ask me anything.” He lets go of my hand and I wrap it around my mug, trying to conceal the shaking. I know what he's going to ask. How the hell am I going to explain this? I look at him over the edge of my cup, holding it up like a shield.
He takes a moment to think; I see the gears clicking in his head, trying to wrap his mind around all the things that I know have been a terrible shock. The only real question here in my mind, besides how to explain, is what he is going to ask first. Of course, he surprises me with where he begins. “You told him two days that we knew each other cara. Yet, it was two years that I knew you through the Blight.”
This is not exactly a question, but I must respond. “Uh... Well, I did know you then, but... As I said, I was not in this body, while I was there. But you have only been here for two days.”
He gives me a sharp look. “You deflect my questions as though we were sparring. This is not a session with weapons. Be straightforward with me, cara mia, please.”
Oh, my heart. I grimace. “I'm trying to be, I swear to you. Ask me something else.”
He sighs, exasperated. “Lily, this is... no less difficult for me than it is you. How are we to manage this if we are not sharing the burden?” He fixes me with a stern eye, and I feel small as he squares himself. “My shoulders, they are broad, yes? There is nothing I would not do for you, and your actions this night have proved that you will risk just as much for me.” His hands slash through the air in denial, but in the next moment, reach toward me, almost in supplication, as he leans in close. Somehow this unexpected intimacy is more intimidating than his hardness. “Trust in me that I shall try to understand everything you say. I need no protecting, as I am a man, and will face all the obstacles that are before us; we will do it together. You must tell me the truth, Lily; is this not the way between us?” He folds his arms over his chest again, and pulls back abruptly, leaving me suddenly feeling like an island.
I stare at him, kind of in shock, then bow my head. “I know. You're right, of course. I-- I’m sorry.” His worry, his trust – they break me. I have to explain, but how? Maybe I can ease him into it. I’ll start with something... the closest thing I have to being personal. “Hang on... Let me get...” I bite my lip and rise, setting my mug aside; going to my desk, I open the drawer and pull out the journal. Since I can never trust my power situation, every series of my fic has its own hand-written book, and this one is Lily. I chose a journal that had an art nouveau pattern on the cover – a bunch of calla lilies. I turn, holding it to my chest. “This... will explain some of it.”
Slowly, I reach out and lay it in his hands, terror clutching at my heart. I sit next to him, picking up my mug again, and watch nervously as he reads through it, flipping pages back and forth, sometimes skipping ahead, his hands smoothing across the paper as he goes. Finally becoming impatient, he goes to the last few pages, reading over them quickly. Here, he freezes, eyes wide. He begins to vibrate at a fine tremble; I only notice because he is usually so still, so in control.
He swallows a few times, closing the book and holding it tight over his heart, eyes closed, mouth tight. I’m going to shatter into a million pieces. This is so hard, so very hard. I close my eyes for a moment and pray: Oh, gods, I swore I would not question you, so please, let us find a way through this. I realize I’m clutching my mug so tightly that if it were any more fragile, it would have fractured in my hands. I force my arms to straighten, my fingers to uncurl, and set it on the table.
He bows his head, and I shake with the fear of this moment, the time when we have to face what I have been avoiding. I brush my fingertips against the back of his hand, my eyes burning. “I told you... It... This shouldn't be possible.”
“I am... not real. I am... a character,” he says, voice harsh. He is shutting down, I can see it. “Cara, how can this be?”
“I don't know,” I choke. “But... but clearly you are real.” He looks up at me, so much trust now completely absent from his eyes, and it breaks my heart. “Zev, I cannot explain the whims of the gods,” I say quickly, desperately. “These are things I wish I had answers to; I wish I could tell you by what strange fate we should be here, now, together. We must be an amusement to them, that is all I can say with any certainty.” I reach out again, but he recoils, and has gone cold on me.
“You mean to say that you are an amusement for the gods, perhaps. Does that mean that I am an amusement for you?”
I choke again, and my hand falls away; I can't look at him, the burning in my eyes is so intense, and I feel something scalding make a track down my cheek. “I don't... know how to explain, what to say. You are no mere amusement. This is my journal. I wrote every word, I experienced every moment. Every laugh we shared, every kiss, every touch – I played them over and over again in my mind, in my dreams. I saw you when I slept, I craved you when I was awake, I ached that you were not here, so I wrote, so I could be with you. I came to you the only way I could.”
I glance up and away again, because I cannot see his face through the tears. “All my time, even as I worked, you were with me, in my thoughts, in my hands.” I look at them, helplessly, and fling an arm out to the side, pointing. “Go out to the shop, really look at my work, and you will find the shape of your tattoos in the lines of everything I made. I could not escape you... I didn't want to. I was never beyond your reach.” I cover my mouth with my hand, hearing the words coming from some part of me that had been without conscious expression, only knowing them as they pour forth.
“So you created me?” He waves a hand, grasping at intangibles. “And then you... took yourself from me?” He maintains a white-knuckled death grip on my journal.
“I didn't create you. And, I... I don't know why I took myself from the story, it... it's what came. It was a decision that I regretted; as soon as it was done, I wished nothing more than to take it back.” This is the complete truth. I had made myself literally sick with it; I had cried and cried, so much I threw up. I felt like someone had punched me in the soul; my chest ached, and every breath was agony, sharp and horrible. I had a bitter taste in my mouth that nothing could wash away. At the time I had thought myself pathetic for mourning him, but I cannot now be ashamed.
Now he softens, seeing my state, but the trust still has yet to return to his eyes. He touches my cheek anyway, stroking away the tears. “Perhaps you did it so that I could be here now?”
I shake my head. I still don't know why I did it, had no idea what would come from it, but I can answer one thing. “My agony was so devouring, the ache so complete, I was hollowed with grief... I was sick with it... and then, suddenly... you were here, on my beach. Perhaps if my sorrow had not been such a crushing weight, you could not have come.” I dare to look him in the eye again. “For a moment, the pain was washed away... but I became terrified that you wouldn't be here, if I slept. It would have made everything so much worse for having had you here, for having held you in my arms, and then to have you suddenly taken from me again, I would have shattered... never recovered. I would have been a ghost in my own life.”
It almost looks as though there is a glimmer of understanding in those golden depths, but I don't even dare to hope. “We both would have been ghosts. I would have been no more, no matter whether you ceased your writings, your dreams and prayers. As surely as the sun rises, I would no longer take breath if such a game had been played upon us.” He relinquishes his grip on my journal, setting it aside reverently, and takes my face in both hands. “It is good that I am still here, then. We do not have to be ghosts.”
I swallow the hard knot in my throat and nod, my hands covering his. I turn my face to kiss the ball of his thumb, biting back the tears again. Just as I am relaxing, knowing the crisis averted, he continues, throwing another punch that strikes me just as hard as his first question. “There are so many things more that are unsaid yet between us.”
I wince, but look back at him and nod; our hands drop to the couch between us, our fingers intertwine. “Go on.”
He isn't pushing, but he will not allow me to let it lie. “If I am not your creation, whose am I? Who would play such games with us?”
Zevran is uncomfortably close to the truth, but I can't tell him that. It would ruin everything, and any understanding he has would wash away, never to return. I bite my lip, and take the plunge. “It may be easier to... show you,” I say, slowly. Crossing my fingers, hoping the power holds steady, I grab my laptop from where it has been sitting innocently on the desk, all this time. Luckily it boots – well... whether it's lucky actually remains to be seen. I know I can't show him the game... not yet, and maybe never, but my wallpaper pops up onto the screen. Hopefully this will lead to the right questions... and, if I am very, very lucky and very, very clever, the right answers, as well.
He reaches out, tracing it, then touches the name in the corner. “'Tahara'? Is this the name you use for your artwork? I didn't know you were skilled with a pen beyond the use of words, but for art as well?” He gives me a tiny smile. “You sew, you write, you carve, and this – beautiful artwork, as well. Is there anything you cannot do?”
I blush, and I fear my laugh has a manic edge to it. I shake my head. “No, no... I can draw, it's true, and I'll show you some of it, sometime, but this one isn't my work. I’m not that good.”
Zevran's hold on my hand spasms. “You did not draw this? But who else could know what we look like, to make such accurate likenesses?”
Taking a deep breath, I flail around for a place to begin. “Thedas is a world many travel to.”
“I gathered as much,” he says, impatiently, more than a little sardonic, and I wince.
“I said that before, I know... just... bear with me, here. I’m trying to explain, trying to find a place to begin. Just as I did a couple of nights ago, I want to choose my words carefully, so that I make no mistakes.” I turn my hand, lacing my fingers between his. He nods, and I take another breath before continuing. “So... Thedas is a world many travel to, and many... have stories there. They live there for a time, and meet many people, just as I met you there. But... it is... like...” I struggle with it, chewing my lip. Where do I go from here? I don't want to say 'game', dear gods, that word is to be avoided like the plague. Alternate realities... that's the key. “These others who go, they can take the same... position, in time and place. I became Lily Mahariel, and you knew me there, but when I left, someone else went. They lived there during the same time, taking the niche that I had occupied.”
This is as simply as I can explain it without telling him that he comes from a game. I want no hint of any idea that someone 'played' with him. In his world, Zevran suffered enough games to last many lifetimes; his past makes mine look like a cakewalk. He is no one's toy.
“So, you are saying that right now, as we speak, someone is reliving the Blight?” he asks, his eyes going wide with horror.
“Yes,” I say sadly, latching on to that. “Unfortunately, that is it, exactly. Someone else is living through the Blight, someone else is a Warden, someone else will hopefully slay the Archdemon.”
“Someone else will meet me, as well?” He connects the dots so easily; his intelligence is dangerously sexy to me. Few have been those who could outclass me, but I suspect – no, I’m pretty sure – he can. There's no hiding from the sharpness of his mind.
I nod. “Another you – a you who has only begun to set out from Antiva, to fulfil the contract on the Grey Wardens. Perhaps you will succeed in killing them, perhaps they will befriend you, perhaps other things will happen, perhaps they may kill you, perhaps you will follow them, only to elect to go with Taliesen, later... there are so many variables, so many things change depending on how each person will choose to live their life. They may never live to see the Archdemon in the first place. They may be completely evil and drag the entire realm into darkness. I don't know.”
“Mph, this sounds like a game for sport, a way for others to live in Thedas, to force the people who reside there to re-experience the pain of the Blight repeatedly.”
I squeak. Gods, this man is too perceptive for my own damned good. “A... game?” I stutter, but forcibly collect myself. Stay on track, here. “That's just it, though: the people of Thedas only experience it once. There's no memory of other times the story is told. Every time it happens, it is happening for the first time, for all of them.”
“So, it is a story that may be retold many times, so that many of your world may experience it, yet it only happens once for us?” he sums up.
I nod. “Yes. I was not the first to go, and I will not be the last, but you do not remember them, because you never met them; it only happened once, for you, for me.”
“What then of this?” he asks, tapping my monitor and the drawing there. “This person, this 'Tahara'. She knows of me, but also knows of you?”
This is getting easier as his grasp on the situation increases. “Well... Remember how I told you about the world marketplace where I sell my work?” He nods. “Okay, well, the marketplace is not the only thing that happens in that way. There are libraries, schools, communities of people, forums for discourse and ways to send letters, among many, many other things. I am part of a community of people who have gathered to tell the stories of our experiences in Thedas. We write or draw, and share what we know, what we have learned.”
“So a person you know drew this? As a way for you to be able to keep me close to you?”
I nod. “Yes, precisely,” I say, relieved to at least have this much explained clearly.
“That is a good friend then, to gift you a way to hold me close,” he says, his voice warming at last. He is slowly relaxing, and the terrible clutching fist around my heart is easing up, as he does.
“Yes, she really is.”
“I shall have to thank her somehow. Will you convey my thanks?”
My eyes go wide. “Uh... you know what? We should just... send her a photograph of us. Her artwork is part of what made it possible for us to be here together.”
“Then she is a very good friend, and I wish her much joy – as much joy as she has brought us.” He is decisive, raising my hand up to place a small kiss across the back of it, and I know everything will be all right now. I let out a breath I didn't realize I have been holding.
This conversation, as hellish as it was for me, and for him, has been good for us, and it didn't go as badly as I thought it would. He was right to force the issue, even as late as it is, to make me talk to him about it. It has been weighing on me so heavily, and I feel like now, maybe I can breathe.
I am still unsteady, still unsure of us, a little, but I really need to be in his arms. “Zev?”
“Hmm?” He has been staring at the picture Tahara drew, rubbing his thumb absently over our entwined fingers.
“It's late now... Um... is there anything else you want to ask me?” I’m hoping there isn't.
He sighs, then gives me a smile. “Of course, but it shall keep until after we have rested.”
Utterly relieved, I shut down my laptop. Once I'm finished, Zevran takes both my hands, pulling me to my feet, and enfolds me in his arms, holding me tight to him; I cling, so very grateful to have navigated this minefield safely. Emotional conversations with him have always been fraught with peril. It is comforting, in a twisted way, that this has not changed, for I know that I stand a very good chance of continuing to be able to communicate effectively with him. I managed to go through all the canon conversations without ever getting a negative response, only finding out much later that things have the potential to go disastrously wrong, very easily. I didn't dare to hope, could barely bring myself to think of it, of how it could all explode in my face. Right here, right now, smelling his skin, his breath in my hair, and his strength wrapped around me, my world is right.
With gentle urgings he guides us to our room – and it is 'ours'; I can't think of it being just mine any more – and strips me of my pyjamas. The last barriers fall away, and I am naked under his gaze, once more. The trust I had thought fled is back, and he is looking at me in that way of his that tells me I am the centre of his everything. It is a better way of saying he loves me than any words could ever be.
Even as he undresses himself, I can't see where he hides his knives, no matter how closely I watch. I wonder if I'll ever figure it out. Maybe I will ask him about it sometime, but not now; we've had enough questions for one night. I've had enough for a lifetime. As soon as he is under the covers I roll into him, wrapping myself around him, a horrible weight lifting from my heart. “Zev, I'm sorry I hid these things from you. I never meant to be dishonest.”
He kisses my forehead as he says, “Tch, it is not good... true, but I understand. These are unbelievable things, yet we have proof of them here that cannot be ignored. I shall forgive you, cara mia, if you promise to not hide so from me again.” Zevran tugs on my chin, bidding me to look up at him. “It is no good if we keep things from each other; we will be unable to protect and care for one another if we don't know what we must guard against.”
He has a point. A very good point. If he had found out any of this on his own, he would have pushed me away, leaving him lost in this unfamiliar world without anyone he knew to lean on. Zevran is a survivor, but only against the sorts of straightforward enemies that don't hide behind walls of information, documents, taxes, surveillance. He would unknowingly – too easily! – commit some crime and be hauled away for it. Once they found out that not only was he not documented, but he wasn't even human? I shudder to think. Oh, gods, what horrible things would happen to him! I shy away from it, clinging tighter.
“You're right, you're right. I’m so sorry.” I shake my head, burying my face in his shoulder, and take another breath. “I trust you so completely, and I want you to be able to be certain that you can trust me, that we will face these things together, shoulder to shoulder, as we have always been. I swear to you, I will always give you the truth... as much as I know it to be.” I lift my face to blink up at him, my fingertips wandering across his chest.
Now he kisses me, softly, sweetly, at last, and I am finally at peace. “Va bene, dolcezza. It is enough.”
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uh.
hi!
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I can't imagine what he'd think it he ever found out that he was the star in volumes worth of porn. Though I suspect he'd take it better than Alistair.
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the porn... well. it's zev. what do you think? he likes some of it, but not all.
;D
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There will be some measure of happiness for them now, yes? :D
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pretty good for a one-shot, eh? ;D
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if i'm a verrrrry good girl, will you whisper them in my ear?
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V.
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don't worry: there's no escaping the story yet.
*glances at zevguy and blushes*
not that i want to! >.>
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there's lots of artist's pictures of you at my deviant art favourites?
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