Embrace [Malcolm]

[Elyna]

Even with all the chaos in her weary mind, as Malcolm buckled her response was to go to him. To help him and to ease the burdens he carried. An instinct to save him over and above herself, no matter what. Fear, as it had often done before, caused her footsteps to falter and so she didn’t move. Failing to run either to him, or away as he was lost to dust and her heart threatened to stop.

This was a new place. One she’d never heard of, or understood. For the first time, as she saw her lover in the shade she realised who he was. Truly. For the first time she recognised him as more than a mortal man and wondered why she’d never seen him like this before. Malcolm had always been just a man, no matter his astounding abilities. She had never been afraid of him, but now she felt awe. Desert sand washed over her feet like water, hissing and blazing hot. She’d never been any where like this, nor had the imagination to dream it.

The distance between them felt even more vast then the ocean that he’d crossed to Ne’Haer. Yet he reached out towards her and offered his hand. He offered to make her forget. Malcolm had explained he could do that. A small voice reminded her. A waking voice. Yes, he could. He could take away all the terrible memories and the heartache. He could take the confusion and leave her in a simpler life, couldn’t he? She would be free of him and all the lies and the sordid web that spun around them.

Elyna sat down where she’d stood. The sun beating down on the back of her neck as she remained out of reach.

“No,” it was a whisper. The sand was too hot to touch, so she found herself wrapping her arms around her knees, watching him from across the distance. “Never,” her voice was firmer and she shook her head.

“If everything we shared was only a dream…then it was the best dream. I wouldn’t trade my memory for a world of peace, Malcolm,” she bowed her head against her knees.

“If it was real…” she swallowed. If it was real… then what was wrong and what was false? What was real and what was a dream? How much of Malcolm was who she loved and how much told and twisted by her enemies. What if it wasn’t real, and what if Yoreth and Marcus spoke the truth? Why though…why would they? What did they want – a foolish question and she knew the answer. They wanted power. Malcolm though…what could he want? He had all the power in the world at his fingertips and nothing to gain from her.

“I wish that I had come with you,” she looked up at him before she straightened up. Careful of the scorching sand she approached and stepped into the shade. “I promised myself that I would follow you to the ends of the earth if you lived in the arena…you deserve better than what I can offer you. If I am not worthy of you, then I will...I would...you could..." she blinked back fast tears, "and I would still wake in a room where they carve their mark into my skin...where they f-force. I-" She chocked on the words to describe the abuse at his sons hands. It was not his pain to carry.

[Malcolm]

The distance had been hard on both of them, but Elyna especially, and even for all of the man's abilities, he had not been able to protect her, and that was eating him up. The noble woman didn't need to say the words, Malcolm's mind could fill in the blanks. "I am pain," he whispered and every scar his body had ever held painted his flesh for a brief moment, every sword stroke, every lash by whip, edge of an axe, beaten and bruised skin he had received and passed on over the last four hundred years. "And I promise you, their suffering will be tenfold."
"I am devotion," he whispered and bright blue orbs like trapped electricity ran down invisible strings to the shadows of people he was connected to, those he could feel and see through. The brightest of all of them running directly into Elyna, Vaughn, Marcus, Vanessa, Benjamin, and a handful of other people she couldn't possibly know. "And my commitments bind me to this world."
"I am reminiscence," the man got to his feet and pinched an invisible hair from the woman's head, pulling a line of memories from her thoughts to let loose all around them. A scene from her childhood of a ball in Burhan with nobles and their guests dancing. "And I can alter what has passed," he demonstrated, turning every dress in the room blue, a minor detail, but something she would never be able to convince herself was out of the ordinary.
"But I am nothing," he told her as daylight was replaced by the that of night, the stolen vision shrinking into memory as the dreamscape put them back where they had started, standing on Widow's Point. "If I don't have you."
Malcolm took Elyna's hands and looked into her eyes, projecting an image of the room of his house in Burhan to her where she was being kept prisoner. He led her through the door that had only ever been closed to her, down the stairs and across the large living space through a pair of large wooden doors and out onto the front lawn. From there the vision sailed skywards to show her a bird's eye view of the property, the long lane that led through grassy fields to the road, a road that weaved through the forest back to Burhan, avoiding the dangers of the mist.
The vision took them back into the room then and Malcolm pulled her bed away from the wall to point to the corner of the room. He counted the wooden floorboards out loud, getting all the way to seventeen before drawing his hand up the wall to shoulder height. It was there that he started banging at the wall with closed fist, finding a weak point in the plaster where he had redecorated years prior, and filled in a window that used to exist there. The window led into another room, an upstairs kitchen where Elyna would be able to find herself a makeshift weapon, even if it were only a rolling pin.
"Get out!" He told her and pushed the woman from the top of the cliff, hoping to jolt her from the dream. "Now!"

[Elyna]

Elyna had always been mesmerized by the tiny motions and cues of the man before her. This though, this transcended anything she had witnessed before. There was an intensity to Malcolm born of the struggle between darkness and light within him. Devotion and Pain. Was there a world where one existed without the other? A dream perhaps, nothing more or less then in a dream. Which was where they were, wasn’t it? Couldn’t they keep the light to themselves even here? Life was hard, but surely dreaming could be easier. He made his promise of vengeance and she reached out for him, pressing careful fingers to his arm. The vow frightened her. Above all, she didn’t want Malcolm to put himself in danger. To do something reckless that would hurt him. If he upheld the promise then what would he do to his son? It wasn’t his pain to carry, or his vengeance to give.

Heart thumping hard in her chest she watched the orbs dancing, one sinking into her chest before vanishing. It left a soft glow behind and she felt warmer for its touch. Heated from the core instead of by the burning sand that surrounded them. He pulled the memory from her mind and she held her breath. She remembered the ball so clearly, she had enjoyed it despite the crowds of people and the noise and laughter she’d managed to watch it from a safe corner of the room, hidden beside the drapes and unnoticed. It had been fascinating, all the smiles and secrets exchanged. The dancing that she’d wanted to avoid at all costs. The blue dresses…she blinked. Was that – yes it must be right.

Looking up at Malcolm, he seemed further away than he ever had before. Lifted high above her and out of reach. Sand was replaced with lush grass and sunshine with starlight. The forested whispered behind him as hands were offered and accepted, cautiously. Risen to her feet the woman remained silent as they returned to her prison. For all the fear Marcus had instilled in her, returning to the room was worse. She didn’t want Malcolm to see the details that made it up, to think of her here. She didn’t want him to know all that transpired and how she had taken risks to protect him from the worst, in spite of what they’d told her and how they’d twisted her dreams.

Elyna shrank behind him, reluctant to approach the door and fearful to step through. She could not refuse the gentle insistence of his grip however and was pulled through, cringing. Expecting an axe to fall or something to leap out of the darkness to devour her. She was smaller, younger held his hand with a tight grip. Hesitant fingers trailed the banister in the hush. Fear made her stumble on the stairs and her grip on Malcolm increased. She committed the details the memory, repeating them silently. The stairs, the door a lane protected from the white mist. She could do it.

Back in the room, legs buckled and threatened to drop her. She stayed upright, focused intently on his actions as he made them clear and deliberate. Seventeen. Seventeen boards over. This was a dream…this was a dream she reminded herself. It wasn’t real. Yet…he turned back to her. Elyna read the intent in his gaze and reached out to try and grip his hands. No. She didn’t want to leave. The young woman wanted to stay with him. Even if she was confused and frightened it was better than waking up, “Mal!”

* * *

The woman launched herself out of the covers. Sweat slick across her limbs and mingled with the bitter scent of dried blood. Tears made her cheeks sticky and her eyes itch as she blinked in the darkness. Seventeen. The number rang in her mind. The dream was clear for a moment before it faded. The details slipping away and confused with her argument with Malcolm. Why had they been arguing? The will? She’d been cross about the will. Elyna rubbed a hand across tired eyes and shook her head. No, that wasn’t it. Careful with her movements she slid an arm and a foot from the sheet. Pressed a knee to the floor and slid with painstaking care from the bed. Her sword was in reach and she curled shivering fingers around the weapon. Her second hand closing on the bag. The door, she only had to make it out of the door. But it was a different door to the one in her dream. A different room.

Her movements though hadn’t gone unnoticed and Marcus sat up from the tangled sheets and even in the darkness, his look froze her in place.

“Where are you going Elyna?” It was an icy demand as pulled on breaches and followed her actions, eyes moving from sword to woman.

“Veljorn,” she said the first thing that came to mind. A plan. She needed a plan. I am pain. I am devotion…teeth closed on the inside of her cheek and she made her choice. To be broken by fear, or to break through it.

He’d closed the distance between them and she resisted the urge to cringe. Forcing herself to look up into the blue eyes she hated most in the world.

“If my Uncle demands that I marry you, then he can tell me to my face!”

An easy smile spread over the man’s features and he nodded, “I’ve been summoned to Andaris, it’s time we moved on,” he closed a large hand over her arm “a wedding in the Temple. It’s what you deserve as a Noblewoman.”

[Whisper]

Elyna

Peer Review

Story: 5/5
Collaboration: 5/5
Structure: 5/5

Awarded Knowledge

Anxiety: Loneliness
Anxiety: Safety of my Child
Dreaming: Lucid Dreaming
Location: Widow’s Point
Malcolm: Anchor
Malcolm: Comes First
Malcolm: Devotion
Malcolm: Like Marcus?
Malcolm: Pain
Malcolm: Reminiscence

Extras

Loot & Losses	[/color]xxxxxx	Injuries
None	[/color]xxxxxx	None[/color]

Malcolm

Peer Review

Story: 5/5
Collaboration: 5/5
Structure: 5/5

Awarded Knowledge

Dreams: To Join Elyna
Elyna: Comes First
Elyna: Frightened
Elyna: In Pain
Elena: Nothing Without Her
Location: Audrae’s Throne
Location: Widow’s Point
Nyvora: Rage Breaks the State
Mortals: Fickle
The Meaning of My Domains

Extras

Loot & Losses	[/color]xxxxxx	Injuries
None	[/color]xxxxxx	None

Comments

So romantic. I don’t know if that’s what you guys are intending but it seems effortless. And it’s not about what you do say, it’s about what you don’t. There is nothing overt in how you are writing, nor does it seem forced. It’s like the emotions sort of… slips over you like gentle waves on the sand. You might not even realise it. That’s a true gift in writing.

What makes it better is that your writing styles seem to converge. I can see that they are both different in some ways but at the same time it’s not obvious, like it is with other people. For role-play, this isn’t a massive issue at all. But here, with you two, it reads so naturally.

Feels like gravity. Something you read and instantly want. Thank you for sharing this.

As you can see, I have provided feedback and reasoning behind my review. If you have any questions, comments or criticism about your review, feel free to send me a PM and we can discuss it.
Thank ye.

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