*giggles insanely* Ok. I was going through folders and... I found a goldmine!!!!
For another Ara scene go to: Horses!
But for now... Elayne:
“Wait, no! Let go of me. Why are you doing this to me? D’arim will come back and see what you are doing. You do not want to make him mad. Stop it! You’re scaring me.”
“We have no intent of hurting you, Elayne,” one of the three brown robed clerics spoke calmly.
“How… how do you know my name?” the blonde, beautiful though disheveled woman asked shakily.
Another of the clerics extended their hand out to her with unmistakable gentleness.
“You are a part of a long awaited fulfillment of prophecy. You will do great things, Elayne. We do not want to hinder that, only help you. Your time to come with bring with it much hardship and difficulty.”
With those words, the slight amount of reassurance that had been offered by the show of kindness was suddenly revoked. Elayne jerked her hand back swiftly, cradling it in her other hand as though it had been wounded. The emotion was echoed through her clear eyes.
“I want nothing to do with your hardships and prophecy. I just want you to leave me alone!” Anxiously, her eyes scanned around her, searching for a view of her lover.
There was only the clearing in the shallow woods where the two had settled for the night before D’arim had set off in the morning, promising to be back before nightfall. Further back were the edges of the forest which seemed to be slowly creeping up on her, just one more thing to corner her right now.
“He had left you, Elayne. You never did truly know what he was, did you? He always succeeded in keeping something very important from you. You know that. You could feel it whenever you were near him,” the third and final cleric said, his eyes slightly unfocused as though seeing something that wasn’t really physical.
Elayne looked at the unfocused cleric, brought back from her sight stimulated reverie, then at the other two who were still watching her carefully. Spinning her head around, she tried to figure out if it was possible for her to out run them all; find some place to hideaway until D’arim came back to her. At the same time, she knew such a thing would be impossible.
“You don’t know anything of us,” Elayne said resolutely. “He gave me all I could, and I him. Nobody can give everything of themselves to another person; it is foolish to expect it.”
“Elayne, please listen. You know in your heart that it was more than that. More than just some small thing of himself that he kept. Something that worried you greatly at times.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Elayne said, her eyes skimming around for him once again.
“You do,” the second cleric insisted. “And you don’t want to trust what we have to say because to do so would be to immediately distrust all that he has ever told you.”
“That’s not true,” Elayne said, although this time she seemed somewhat distracted as she gazed off into the distance.
“You thought that if you loved him enough, it could be…”
“Hush… no more,” the first cleric interrupted him, his eyes also fixed to where Elayne was looking. Only it was not on the ground coming towards them.
They looked upwards towards the horizon.
“What is that?” Elayne murmured to herself, not really expecting an answer which none of the clerics offered to her anyway. They merely stood by, content to watch.
As the creature in the sky became bigger, it became less animal shaped and more… human.
“Oh god,” she whispered, her hands coming up to cover her mouth. “Is that…?”
“Come,” the first cleric said to her persuasively. “You must. It’s not safe here for you.”
Dumbfounded, and still looking up into the skies, Elayne let herself be dragged away.
*
“That was… was that?”
Elayne was still baffled by what it was she’d just seen, even more so by the fact that she had somehow found herself traveling in a smallish carriage together with the three clerics who had seemed to just come out of nowhere at the same time as everything had seemed to start going… strange.
“You are right in your suspicions,” the third cleric said to her, but Elayne didn’t really hear him.
Instead she was focusing on the building that was looming in front of them; the one they were swiftly approaching.
“Is that where you are taking me?” Elayne said, suddenly sounding very much like a small child.
The first cleric turned and patted her hand from where he sat opposite her in the carriage.
“Don’t worry. We will ensure your safety here. You will not come to harm with us.”
Elayne didn’t answer, biting her lip to stop it trembling as she stared with fear and confusion at the monstrosity in front of her that they were now beginning to slow at.
How long was she to be kept here?
*
These two trails will be entwined together eventually where it fits, but for now, I have to treat them as two separate stories for easier flowing writing.
*
“Identify yourself!”
The second cleric stepped out alone to face the wrath of the heavily muscled, winged man who was standing in front of him.
“I am but one of a long line of clerics dedicated to ensuring that Prophecy comes to pass,” the cleric stated, giving enough information that would satisfy the asker while keeping from him the bulk of the important knowledge.
Although he was about half a head shorter than the winged man, the cleric stood his own, staring strongly up into the winged man’s eyes without cringing at the expression he found there.
“And what is your business here?” the winged man demanded.
“I come with a message from D’arim… from Elayne,” the cleric said, careful to remain neutral so as not to give away by tone his own underlying thoughts.
The winged man’s eyes widened, then narrowed as though he couldn’t figure out whether to come across as hard or thankful.
“A message? Why does she not tell me of it herself? Where is she now?” D’arim demanded, although he attempted to keep much of his natural aggression out of his body language.
“I must apologise for saying, but it was her wish that she not still be here when you returned,” the cleric reported with straight face.
Again D’arim’s eyes narrowed, all thought of lessening his aggression fading.
“And what do you mean by this?” he asked warningly.
“Please, I would ask you to refrain from taking out your emotions on myself, for I act only as a messenger,” the cleric said calmly.
D’arim lifted his chin proudly.
”Very well. But I demand you speak. Fast,” he told the cleric.
“As it is your wish,” the cleric replied, with a curt inclination of his head. “Elayne wished to report that she could not live in this way anymore. Forever hiding and scared of what others might think, but without ever being told of why she was running. She could not take the secrecy, especially when she believed her life might be at stake because of it.”
“Her life was never at stake! I would never have allowed it. She knows that,” D’arim said thickly.
“It is not from outsiders that she feared for her life,” the cleric said, repeating what he had been told to relate by what the third cleric had seen. “She saw many a display of your own temper, but knew not where it came from. She could only fathom that your secret was something so big, so bad, that you felt you had to keep it from her, and because of that…” The cleric faded off, holding out his hands in supplication. “She truly no longer felt safe with you.”
“Then I must find her!” D’arim said, hurting at the thought that he had so scared her. “Convince her that none of this is true. You know where to find her. You must. You will take me to her!”
“Alas, I cannot. Her wishes were very clear in this. With all that the two of you had gone through together, she felt as though she owed it to you to tell you of why she felt she must make this decision, but in the end, she meant it to be a final parting.”
The cleric watched on without emotion as D’arim appeared to collapse into himself. All the fight, all the aggression that had been so much a part of him simply seemed to drain from him. In that moment, he seemed half the man the cleric had initially run into on the outskirts of the forest.
“If it means anything, I am truly sorry that it was I who had to deliver this…”
Again the cleric fell quiet, but this time because D’arim waved a hand to silence him. A broken man, he gazed off blindly, his feet walking him forward, backward, only a few steps before he realized he had nowhere he wanted to go and stood still again.
“And she says she will not speak with me. Will not even tell me where she is now?” the winged man asked, though without much hope.
“That is indeed her wish.”
Silence again. Then,
“I will thank you to leave me now. I know not what I will do, but that you will not wish to see it. Be gone from here at once and do not return.”
It was consideration for the fact that the cleric had already stated himself as only a messenger, the cleric knew, but all the same, it was a lasting threat against the man who had caused such pain. The cleric knew that he would be safe not much longer while still in his company.
While D’arim was still turned away, the cleric made his retreat to the carriage he knew was waiting for him. He had done this duty to the order, now he must return to see how Elayne was getting on after all.
The carriage ride back, on his own, was a silent contemplative time for the cleric returning back to his monastery.
* Okay, I had a real hard time keeping Elayne likeable and undersatndable in her actions here. You'll understand when you read it. I'm sure this is what she does, maybe the hardship came because not enough has been written on the other side of the chain explaining her thought processes...?
*
It was a moment after the brown robed man had left before D’arim was even able to begin thinking again through the waves and waves of pain that were coursing through him. He knew that times had been hard, that Elayne had been missing home and security, but he had been so sure that their love for one another would have been enough to see them through.
Obviously even that had been a lie!
He couldn’t get the vision of his Elayne’s face of innocence from his mind. It was etched there as the minute markings within his fingers were etched, as the skin that peeled away on his back to reveal… these were all things he couldn’t deny from being.
Except that she wasn’t innocent. She couldn’t be. He had believed her, so much. Given her more of his heart than he had ever given to another woman. He had never trusted like he had trusted her, but from the first moment that he had met her eyes, he had known that she was different from any other person that he had ever met.
Thought that she was different anyway. Apparently, that had been just another lie.
Or maybe… D’arim’s heart al but stopped as a new thought occurred to him. Perhaps it wasn’t from his beloved Elayne that this lie was originating. Perhaps it was from the cleric who had visited him this night. He had no proof bar the smaller man’s presence and the fact that he had used Elayne’s name to say that the message he had been delivered was actually true. In fact, he and that ‘long line of clerics’ he had spoken of could have merely taken her against his will and then fed him with all of those lies to stop him from following.
It would actually make even more sense if he remembered what the elders of his tribe had warned him of her before they had run off together.
“She is marked. Her life is lived but to bring in the life of another. You can find no lasting happiness there. It is suggested by wisdom of all the tribe that you keep your associations with her short and brief.”
Of course, he hadn’t listened to them. Nor had he ever thought of telling Elayne of it, deciding instead to keep it from her at all costs. What would she have thought of it! And what had they known anyway? But then, the cleric had mentioned also a prophecy, and that sounded strangely along the same lines as the cryptic message from his elders.
Former elders. He did not need listen to them any longer. He had broken away from them long ago and it was not a decision he had ever regretted making. However, if he did not go after Elayne now, it could very easily become a decision he would regret making almost from the moment he made it.
Feeling the familiar pain in his shoulder blades as he decided on the fastest, most accessable mode of transportation for him, dark, wide wings sprung forth and filling them with air from around him, D’arim lifted from the ground. The cleric had not had such a long head start in his carriage, so it should not be a hard effort to catch him up and let him lead D’arim to his only love.
I’m coming Elayne, he told her silently. Wait for me. I’m coming.
*
It wasn’t quite the view he expected to see as the little man in the carriage pulled up outside of a large building, possibly the only large scale building for miles around. None of it mattered. As soon as D’arim had realized that this was the cleric’s stop, his attention had gone from him and straight to making out the first sighting of his love. He was now convinced, more than ever, that she had been taken away from him by force, and was determine that he would get her back, whatever the cost.
*
Elayne stood by the window looking out. It was a large window, stretching from floor to ceiling as were most of the windows on this side of the building. As yet, she still hadn’t been told of why she’d been brought here. ‘All in good time’ had been the answer she’d most commonly received from them.
While she knew that this just wasn’t good enough, right at the moment, she just didn’t have it in her to argue with them. Too much of her mind was still taken up with what she had seen earlier that day.
Had that really been D’arim coming towards them? Flying?
*
There were far too many windows looking out and into this building, D’arim decided very quickly. Too many that he could look in and find Elayne quickly and easily without being spotted by one of the man clerics inside beforehand. He needed to think of a plan, and quickly. Just flying around the building was not going to cut it.
*
She didn’t know whether to be scared or curious. Had this been what he had been keeping from her all this time? But how did he do it? And why had the clerics been there just in time for her to see it for the first time?
Was there anybody that she could truly trust without resolve?
*
There! That small figure looking desolately out of one of the lower windows. D’arim had just been about to fall back and wait for a better time to get her out of there, when he had recognized her lithe form as she stood up just behind one of the floor to ceiling windows of the building.
Mentally, he tried to tally up just how much pain it would cost him to fly through that glass and collect her in his arms before flying away and off to safety again. Oh, to have her in his arms again. That would truly be…
But he couldn’t, he suddenly realized. She didn’t know of him in this form. It had been unsafe for her to find out about it at first, and after that, he had simply been waiting to find the right time to tell her.
Somehow though, he didn’t think that this was about to be that right time. But what other options were still open to him?
*
She loved D’arim. That much was true and unquestionable. But wouldn’t someone who loved her back tell her the truth? Especially about something so important as that! These clerics had promised her safety, and within the very sturdy walls of this building, she could believe it.
Remembering her nights with D’arim after they had run off together, she suddenly couldn’t remember one single night when she had slept within his arms, sound in the knowledge that she slept safely. Sure, she had known that had any trouble come to them in the night, D’arim would not have hesitated to keep it from her, but it was the possibility that trouble could have come to them at anytime that got to her now.
Actually no, she didn’t know what it was that got to her now. It wasn’t the lack of safety at all. She wouldn’t have minded if she was caught in the middle of a battle with him by her side. No, it wasn’t a safety issue at all. It was a trust issue. And the possibility that he hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her the truth in all the time they’d known and claimed to be so in love with each other was beginning to twist the wonder of their unity.
*
If he stayed here, she could be pulled back from the window by one of the clerics. She could be forced into something that he could have stopped had he moved now. If something happened to her now, while he was just watching on, well, then it would be just the same as if he had hurt her himself. Would it be?
It was that thought in the end that moved D’arim from his cover. The issue of his wings and what exactly he was could all be cleared up later. The most important thing was the ensure that they had a later. The clerics couldn’t be right. She couldn’t be here on her own. He was about to save her from them.
*
That there. What was that movement?
Elayne’s senses prickled in the same way that they had earlier that day when she had seen that moving being in the sky that she was still not totally sure had been D’arim. But what if it had been?
The dark was beginning to come over the sky, making it increasingly difficult for her to see clearly what was on the outside of the window. Nevertheless, a moment later, there it was again. Movement. Wings.
And a moment after that…
D’arim.
*
D’arim halted in his tracks as his eyes met with Elayne’s and he knew that she had seen him there. This was it. The moment of truth. She only had to make one single motion; one movement towards him, and he would go rushing inside for her, pain be damned.
Just one simple indication from her…
She stepped back one pace. Her arm reached up and with an expression that D’arim couldn’t clearly read, she pulled on the richly colored drapes he could see hanging on either side of the window. She pulled them together and succeeded in vanishing completely from his sight behind them. D’arim had only one through as he stood there in frozen disbelief, the waves of pain starting over anew.
The clerics had been right about her choice…
*