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Each pairing nominated has either a sequence or posts. Posts within a sequence are distinguished by color. Happy voting!
Comments are MOST welcome.
Merrin & Kendath - Star Crystal (Meldawen & Lady Dark Moon)
1 sequence
Stinging snow. Tears, threatening to freeze on her face. Exhaustion that made her limbs heavy and blurred the stark white of the snow and the jagged black shadows of the trees into grey. Merrin collapsed against a birch tree whose naked branches reached like a skeleton to the black sky, which seemed no longer dotted with stars, but veiled by snow. She raised her face to stare up at oblivion. The blackness could have convinced her that no sun existed; that no sun ever had.
Too numb to feel the pain the movement could have brought - pain both physical and mental - she wrapped her arms around her chest and kept walking. Unbidden, disjointed memories floated to the surface of her mind, made irregular by the grief that she held back only by the most fragile of barriers. She remembered sea air blowing into her face, a deck rocking beneath her feet, unreasoning panic at the thought of losing him. The words I need you.
So close. But she'd never told him. She'd never been brave enough to push past the walls he erected against her and admit that yes, she was in love.
Is this bravery? she asked the silent skies in anguish. When everything you love is taken away and you have to keep going when there's no one, no one left to lean on? I never asked for this. I trusted you. I trusted that you would take care of me.
Tears were streaking silently down her cheeks again. Merrin didn't have the stamina to stop and wipe them away before they were turned chill by the wind. Where was the redwood...where was she going...why was she here...when did the endless night dawn? Did it ever? No, despair answered dully. It never ends. It only grows darker and darker until the hope of dawn is nothing but a memory. Why hope?
The Merrin who'd flung defiance in the face of even death, who'd given dying villagers faith, would have seen the lie she told herself. But the Merrin of now was exhausted, becoming more spent with every frozen tear she shed, and this Merrin couldn't separate the truth from the lies any more. There were too many. Too many lies, and truth might well have been a single flake of snow among the millions, for all that Merrin could find it to raise as a beacon.
Why was she still stumbling through the storm? The thought fought its way to the surface of her mind, relentlessly repeating over and over. I need to tell you something. "I love you," she whispered, as if afraid that she'd forget the words. Those words drove her up, up, to the edge of the precipice that yawned, its voice the edges of ice that crashed in the brook below. She cast it barely a look. What drew her eyes, what made her gulp the frigid air even as it increased her uncontrollable shivering, were the half-filled footsteps in the snow. The footsteps that followed the edge of the gorge, away from the redwood.
With some last reserve of energy that she didn't know she possessed, Merrin broke into a run, her footfalls muffled by the snow and her frequent gasps for breath somehow smothered by the silence.
It wasn't far.
The silent black-clad silhouette, whose shape broke distinctly from the rest of the black night, had his back turned. He was walking away. Walking away from her.
Renewed despair choked in her throat, but Merrin had no more tears. Perhaps the little pain she could feel past the numbness was hope. Idiot, her mind told her bleakly. Don't hope. She'd been an idiot, all this time. She still was.
He tried to kill you.
"Kendath," she whispered, stepping forward one more time.
Footfalls behind him. Muffled, urgent, and punctuated by ragged gasps of breath. It had come. The ever-hovering presence, its breath a brittle trickle of ice down his neck - at last, it had caught up with him. But which one was it? Crimson eyes or blue? Not blue. Not her. Let them be crimson. Commander Rolan he could wrench out his falchion on. The Lich he could throw himself upon with renewed fury, hacking and slashing and exacting retribution for every crime the creature had ever committed.
Silence. The footfalls had ceased. Kendath kept walking, his stare nailed on the flawlessly smooth blanket of snow ahead, his fist flexing beside his falchion. Let it be the Lich. Let it be the Lich... But he knew, even before he heard his name, a whisper almost lost on a breath of wind, that it could only be Merrin. The real Merrin, not the phantom that had haunted his steps. Merrin, who'd followed him all this way. Merrin, who stood behind him now as though his dagger had never caressed her neck. As though he'd never been the instrument of her destruction. Why? How could she bring herself to come near him?
It struck him then. It struck him as so lucidly clear, as clear as the fangs of ice hanging from the branches - so clear that he marveled at how it'd never occurred to him before. Phantom Merrin. Real Merrin. What difference did it make? Their faces were one and the same. He had but to turn around and be impaled by the crystalline spear of that gaze - that gaze still carved on the bare surface of his memory. Blue eyes. White fire. Chosen of the Gods, whose shoulders bore the hope of the world. And he had tried to destroy it.
He didn't fear white fire. It was clean. It was purification, like the fire that'd blossomed from the skies to cleanse a village infested by infidelity. Could it save him? Yes. Yes, he knew, it can. As long as Merrin wields it, it can. Then, I'm sorry. So sorry... And he wanted to stop. He wanted to turn around and see her and tell her. Tell her what? Everything. Everything I've never had the courage to say. Thank you, Merrin. You're beautiful, Merrin. I love you, Merrin.
The words pounded against his chest. I'm ready to die now, Merrin.
His feet kept moving him forward. His boots sank deeper into the snow with each heavy step. He steeled himself for the flames as he heard himself say, his voice colder than the wind that carried it over his shoulder, "If you've come to kill me, do it now. I'm ready."
The knife was twisting, twisting - his every word wrenched at it one more time. She stood rigid in the deepening snow, gasping breath past the pain of it. If you've come to kill me, do it now. Never. Never him - because through fire and ice and grief, pain, loss, he'd been there. He'd stood beside her when her dragon was buried in rock, when the city she called home flew Meiltha pennants from once-white towers stained with blood.
And now he was walking away.
"I didn't," she said, her spent voice threatening to break. "Stop - Kendath, please -"
Her feet would not obey her, would not carry her after him. They might well have been rooted in the snow, because all she could do was watch as he walked away from her. Gods, she cried out silently, I can't, I can't, I need him. Silence. I love him.
He tried to kill you.
"Kendath!" This time it tore from her throat in a plea. The tracks of tears streaked her cheeks, but there were no tears left to make her words shake with sobs. Merrin raised a trembling hand to her lips. Now. Now, or there was no hope, and she would be forever standing alone against the dark. The dark that would break her. I thought you'd be with me, she wanted to cry in anguish. I told you not to let go, on that mountaintop, at the Lost Battle. Don't! Don't let go!
Instead, she raised her head and let the wind whip her hair back and sting her tear-streaked cheeks as thought it could numb away the pain. "I didn't," she said again. "I came - I came because -"
Cold mountaintop, with his arms around her. Midsummer's Eve, laughing with him in the sand. After the siege of Vryngard, sobbing into his chest. On the third test, his fingers drying her tears. No tears left, now.
"I came because I love you," she whispered.
Time stopped. Every step that he took, every crush of the snow beneath his boots, beat upon his temples and rebounded back to him a thousand times in the hollow silence. The wind had died. The last echoes of Merrin's words hung suspended in the air like shards of ice. I love you. He clung to every syllable. He grasped each falling shard by the tips and watched them slip through his fingers. I love you.
How many times had he held her and breathed those silent words into her hair? How many times had he looked her in the eyes and yearned for all those unsaid secrets to burst free and scatter her tears like white doves in the breeze? How different it sounded, dropping from her lips and not his, yet each inflection of that tiny phrase could have melted the snow at their feet and sprayed beads of dew to spring rains. I love you, she'd said. I love you, I love you, I love you...
His boots thudded one last time. He remained there unmoving, feeling the wind pull at his shirt, hearing the river slosh in the gorge so far below. It sharpened to stark clarity that long-ago moment... Standing at the prow of the Albatross. Raising his face to the bitter tang of the sea and bracing his feet against the pitching deck beneath him. He'd sworn never to hurt her. He'd sworn... he'd sworn to end it.
Somewhere beyond the gray mountains, the towers of Dey'tarn lifted their heads to a sky of silent stars. Somewhere under the turrets where sunburst pennants had once flown, an empty temple wept tears of shimmering moonstone. His father's last breath had been a blessing - no, a plea. A plea for the gods to spare his son. They'd spared him, all right. They'd spared him for a purpose. And now he knew. He knew what he had to do.
Kendath's own tears were acid against his eyes, but the cold froze them to his cheeks before they could fall. He had sworn, that long ago day that he'd stared out to sea. Enough promises had been shattered. This would not become one of them.
Merrin needed him no longer. And he knew - knew all too well - that only one emotion in the world was powerful enough to make her see.
"Everything," he began quietly, his gaze riveted on the colorless snow before him, his voice reeling on the edge of a chasm that would swallow him forever. "Everything - every word, every gesture, every move - that you've ever received from me... has been a lie." He spun around to face her, and the clear lance of her gaze nearly staggered him where he stood. Nearly, but not quite. Slowly advancing, he continued, "This entire time, Merrin, you naive fool. You never knew, did you? You never suspected. Did you honestly think that you could... you could seduce me with your pretty speeches? Did you honestly think I might be moved by this sentiment... this thing you call love?" He tossed back his head and laughed - just like he'd laughed so many instances before, in the early times, when the warm blood pouring over his hands had become unbearable. He laughed, and every mirthless rasp tore out his chest, his very heart.
He was the assassin. He felt nothing, killed for nothing. He looked into her eyes one last time. One last time. And he twisted the blade home.
"You are nothing to me."
Merrin's hatred for the Shadowers would be nothing compared to her hatred for him. She would hate him until the sun fell from the skies and eternity splintered among the stars. She would hate him forever, and forever was long enough to keep her from pursuing him, to keep her from remembering his name.
And as Kendath walked away from her, walked away from her one last time, he could feel the blood staining his hands, his arms, his chest. Never would it wash away.
Something was breaking. Something was shattering, millions of shards of blown glass ringing endlessly against stone. Every piece was a dagger, every piece a tiny knife. The ringing was louder, louder, then deafening, and Merrin was pressing her hands over her ears, crying out with the pain. The shards whipped into her face on a cold wind - not cold enough to numb her - and tore at her skin, and she moved her hands to shield her face.
The knife was gone. It no longer existed. Were those the tiny shards, tiny blades - had the blade shattered beyond retrieval?
Or was it her heart that lay in a million million pieces?
She opened her eyes. The snow, like daggers, stung them. Unfeeling, she raised her face to the unforgiving malice of the wind. It spoke the words over and over again, and every sound swept crystal shards to the four winds. ...naive fool...seduce me...this thing you call love. All it told her of that were snatches, but the last words were deafening no matter the intensity with which she pressed her hands over her ears. You are nothing to me.
Her hands moved, first covering her face, then her ears, then her eyes again. If she tried to stifle the sounds, they echoed louder in her head. If she tried to block the sight in the darkness, it replayed on the inside of her eyelids. Over and over, she saw him breaking the fragile sphere of glass that was her heart and flinging the pieces in her face. Every time, he turned to walk away. Every time she knelt, crumpled in the snow where her knees had given way, and hoped with all the pieces of her shattered heart that he would turn around, and the viper's hiss of his words would be whipped away by the wind. Like her nightmares. Her nightmares.
"Wake up, wake up," she gasped. "Wake up! Kendath!"
Any moment now. Any moment now he'd shake her shoulder, and she'd roll over and press her face to his chest and cry because she'd been so terrified, and the nightmare would fade, and he'd rock her and stroke her hair and tell her that it was all right, because he'd always be there. He'd never leave her.
He'd tell her all the lies that he'd told her since he'd known her.
When she raised her face to the wind once more, she knew there would be no waking. Not from this nightmare. "I trusted you," she whispered through lips blue from the cold. How could the words keep tearing her apart when her heart was already broken? "I trusted you."
She whispered his name one more time, feeling the word meld with snow and blow to the skies with one last caress of her cheek.
Somewhere in her consciousness, a dull instinct forced her to her feet and told her that she would freeze if she stayed here. It led her back, taking her hand and guiding her blindly through the snow. It placed her palm on the bark of the redwood and opened the door, and made her stumble down the stairs.
At the bottom, it let her go. Like everything else. Like everything else, it left her alone.
A foreign name brushed her mind. She spoke it. "Adeila?"
Adeila. Adeila whose hands had mended her side and who voice had told her to rest. She remembered now. Again the wave of anguish broke. Merrin collapsed to her knees, seeing torchlight waver in front of her eyes like a ghost. "He's gone," she said, and saying the words aloud made her believe them. "Gone. Forever."
Forever. He tried to kill you. You are nothing to me.
Keyara & Beckett - Various PotC (Aramel Elyanwe & Calloniel)
3 posts
[Post #1]
Lord Beckett was still preoccupied with looking around the room as he listened to Keyara. What was she thinking? But before he could make a response to her foolish decision, her lips were on his. This little action took him aback. It had been the very last thing he had ever expected from her. He watched, dumfounded, as she turned away and walked right through the portal and disappeared from his sight. He blinked and tried to think, but for some reason he couldn't. He wondered if anyone else had seen this bold move. At first he was almost happy she was gone, how dare she do such a thing? But then he started regretting her leaving. How could she just leave like that? He watched as the portal began closing more and more, before he knew it he, himself, was walking toward it as if he no longer had any reasoning or logic.
[Post #2]
The look on Beckett’s face was all Keyara needed to know - this topic was making him uncomfortable; the whole conversation was. In fact, she felt the same way. When things had become awkward between the two, Keyara didn’t know, but she wasn’t sure if she liked it or not. She had never met someone like Beckett - someone that could challenge her in such a way. Maybe she was only jealous that someone else was more powerful than she was and could control others with a snap of the finger. Keyara made her way over the window where the sun was just starting to set and the sky was starting to turn a bright hue of orange, the clouds above taking on a pinkish tone. “Why don’t we discuss this over dinner?” She smiled, not intending to say what the meaning of ‘this’ was.
[Post #3]
Beckett only watched her as she made her way to the great window at the end of his cabin. He wondered if she had read deeper into him than he had first thought, but he quickly threw that out. It was impossible, wasn't it? he could also tell no matter how uncomfortable she was making him, he was almost making her even more uncomfortable. As he watched her, and before he knew it, a small smile was creeping across his face. She was a unique person, to be sure, someone he could actually look at and see a qualified rival in. Someone smart like Jack. If nothing else he always admired people that could give him a challenge. Although even Jack's riddles and challenges weren't quite like this. This was different in a more disturbing way. He despised the thoughts that were constantly popping into his mind, so in hopes to get rid of them he moved over and looked out to watch the sunset with her. He looked over at her, "but I thought you were going to take your leave?"
The Phantom & Silvryn - Phantom Grey (Meldawen & pirateoftherings)
1 sequence
"Agreed," returned the Phantom flippantly, leaning back to regard the heavens. The stars held his unrivaled attention - he'd never found them quite so fascinating before - for the next few moments.
The celestial lights, glimmering serenely in a velvet sky, were so very far removed from the minute struggles that encompassed all their lives. Obliquely, he glanced at Silvryn. She, too, was silent in what he assumed was contemplation.
"Where will you...go?" he started, for lack of a better question, and for reluctance to voice his real query more directly. Helplessly, he gave a vague gesture meant to encompass all the land spread out before them. "I mean...the elves...well, we never saw them, did we? Or - maybe you did -"
The Phantom gave himself up for lost. He struggled a moment. "I don't suppose elves were ever very tolerant of human visitors, frequently?" he said, carefully casual. "Or, maybe, let their reigning queen visit much?"
Anyone less familiar with the intricacies of politics might have laughed at the notion of a queen needing permission from her subjects to do anything, but Silvryn knew better. Any monarch - any good monarch, at least - was ruled by the people nearly as much as the people were ruled by the monarch. There were matters that required executive decisions, of course, but a ruler who ignored the will of the people - especially in matters of decorum - was a ruler without respect. And a ruler without respect would never lead effectively.
"I hope to restore relations between the two kingdoms," she said slowly, still staring out at the dark woods. "Adaniar tells me that Raen does not speak for the majority - quite a few elves are openly opposed to his policies, and even more secretly. Elves and humans lived quite peaceably in community with one another in the past, and it was not unheard-of even as recently as a century ago. That is why so many humans display elven traits. It was only when Raen began working his way into power that the conflict began. Without his presence to intimidate them...." She evinced a small shrug and said nothing further.
Sighing quietly, Silvryn looked up at the plethora of stars above them. It sounded so simple, talking about it. Only a small matter of overthrowing an immensely powerful elven lord, then convincing everyone to take orders from (in their minds) a mere child. Twenty-four had not seemed so terribly young when it was a matter of ruling humans, but surrounded by elves, some of whom exceeded a millenium in age...
Abruptly, it occured to her that she had never truly answered the Phantom's query. "I am not...entirely certain where I will go. The elven kingdom actually overlaps both Kytana and Vidyr; I've not yet figured out the specifics. I know nothing of where the capital is, where most people live, how most people live...." She paused, struggling to keep her tone even. "I know nothing about these people, Phantom. I am willing to lead them, of course, but...they are not my people. Not in the ways that matter, at least. I...I scarcely even speak the language! I can converse well enough, but any native speaker can tell that it is not my first language. I don't know how I'll-"
Silvryn cut off abruptly, allowing her gaze to fall to her hands in her lap. "Forgive me," she said quietly. "I have been rather...preoccupied, of late. You have enough concerns of your own without my adding to the list. Perhaps I should retire and leave you to your thoughts."
Five years of planning a rebellion. Five years of poring over the same maps, sitting up until ridiculous hours lobbing strategies back and forth, sidestepping disaster innumerable times - all with the sole view of putting Kytana's rightful heir back on her rightful throne. Five years, and never once had the Phantom seen Silvryn's flawless mask of composure slip. It had been a long rebellion; any of them would admit that. Now she was no longer the heir of Kytana, and no longer was the Phantom rebel leader for Princess Silvryn Seilhera.
He'd miss it. There was no denying.
Cautiously, the Phantom examined her posture from the corner of his eye. Her hands were in her lap, folded as though she were as calm as ever. Various words of comfort, most of which struck him as decidedly vapid, churned about inside his head. He wondered if her hands were not perhaps a more tightly folded than usual. "Logically," he began, trying to achieve a point of levity that was neither too much nor too little, "we did used to worry about the same things. At the same time. So I believe that worrying about different things at the same time isn't...different."
Another stolen glance, to see if he'd avoided vapidity. The Phantom cleared his throat, feeling decidedly awkward, and wondering if he'd missed something he should have remembered.
Silvryn's grip was definitely tighter than usual. The Phantom stared at them, imagining anxiety as illustrated by her hands in her lap. It probably wasn't comfortable. Worrying out loud was much better than worrying inside. He'd learned that early on.
This was all the convincing he needed that really, it was only natural, and probably would make her feel better - and the Phantom stopped generalizing and reached for her hand. Somehow he disentangled her fingers from each other, and found that now he had them in his.
He couldn't remember if this sort of thing came with words.
Silvryn, for once, was unsure how to respond. She did not instantly pull away, as she likely would have with most individuals, but it did make her slightly uncomfortable. She knew that the gesture - however awkwardly performed - had been intended as comforting, and she did appreciate the sentiment. But however it had been intended, the fact remained that it was something strictly proscribed by the society from which they both had come. Had it been anyone else, she would have discreetly extricated her hand and gently, but firmly, informed him that it was not to be done again.
But how did one respond when one did not necessarily wish to end it?
She knew she should not allow it. Even in the middle of the wilderness, as they were alternately plotting a rebellion and narrowly escaping death, she was royalty, and he was not. For that matter, she was elvish, and he was not. However innocently it had been done, permitting this would be potentially encouraging other acts that simply were not done by two people who were so vastly different. For all she knew, he had meant absolutely nothing by it. But it could not be denied - though not for lack of trying - that her heart was beating several paces faster than it had been moments ago, before their hands had been touching. Nor that their proximity to one another - had he always been sitting so very close? - was inspiring feelings that, as a princess, she knew she should not be having.
Though, once Silvryn thought about it, she rather didn't feel like being a princess at the moment. Princess Silvryn was always composed, always self-assured, always in control. She always did what was proper and right, always knew what to do next. And most of the time, she could play that role. She could wear the mask, because without it she would never have been able to face half of what she had. But every once in a while - if only briefly - she needed to be just Silvryn, the twenty-four-year-old woman (or elf) who desperately wanted to be told that everything would be alright.
So she did nothing.
"I suppose you are right," she said at last, evincing a thin smile. "Thank you. I just...thank you."
The Phantom found himself biting his tongue and looking down at their hands, finding his next words...nonexistent. What was there to say? You're welcome? Her hand was warm in his, and he found himself reluctant to let go, but words still eluded him.
Had he ever seen her quite so unsure? Princess Silvryn Seilhera, Kytana's precious heir, who never failed to present a flawlessly poised exterior. In all the years he'd known her, from their first encounter, he'd never known her to be anything other than utterly sure of herself, coolly removed, and the embodiment of a princess in every respect.
He didn't know whether to be sympathetic or alarmed - alarmed that even Silvryn was shaken by everything that had happened.
Abruptly, the Phantom was aware that they'd been sitting in silence for the last few moments, and none of the words that had flitted so doubtfully through his mind had proven fit to voice. He cleared his throat, glancing down at her. "If it helps," he began, staring down once more at their hands and then up at what he could see of her face, "Kytana likes you."
That didn't seem very coherent. He hastened to remedy it. "I mean, some of Kytana tried to kill you, but I think if you consider the greater percentage who didn't, you'll find that, er, they wouldn't have objected to you as queen. Surely the elves aren't - aren't -" He gesticulated wildly to prove his point, and found that he wasn't holding her hand anymore. The Phantom stopped, realizing this, and his train of thought fled into the distance.
There was a pause. "If they don't like you," he said, a touch helplessly, "I could always send Kjan along to prove how much worse you could have turned out."
If something resembling a snort of amusement happened to come from Kjan's direction at that very moment, it must have been pure coincidence, for when they looked, he was quite obviously still sound asleep. They turned back around, and there was a pregnant pause as both seemed to grasp for something further to say. But whether the conversation had run its natural course or the unexpected interruption had simply altered the mood, neither said anything.
Silvryn stared out at the dark woods and resisted the urge to toy with the hem of her tunic. She hadn't meant to say so much (judging by the Phantom's expression, he had been equally surprised the sudden outburst), but she felt marginally better for having done it. Eventually, emotions and thoughts that had been suppressed for far too long had to come out, and better to allow it on her own terms than have it unexpectedly occur at a crucial moment. And for whatever reason, she had felt comfortable enough in the Phantom's presence to drop the charade, if only for a moment. It did make sense, she reasoned inwardly. With all that had happened recently, it had only been a matter of time before she needed to sort things out verbally, preferably in the presence a trusted friend. That the Phantom had been the only friend available at the time of her choosing had been mere coincidence.
With the burden of worry at least fractionally eased, however, it was not long before Silvryn felt the need to suppress a yawn. She truly was exhausted, despite previous claims to the contrary. Elven though she might be, her body still had been craving human sleep patterns for the past few days, and even a thin bedroll on rocky ground was beginning to sound quite appealing. Especially given the direction in which this conversation was going.
She drew a slow breath and rose smoothly to her feet. "Perhaps I am more tired than I had thought," she said in a tone that was hardly impersonal, but more distant than before. "I will leave you to your watch." Dipping her head slightly in farewell, she turned to make her way back to the camp.
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