Fanfic:An Unconventional Proposal
| Author(s) |
|
|---|---|
| Character(s) |
|
This is a piece of fanfiction. Only the original author(s) or Librarian(s) should make content changes to this page. |
"...and so, that's my family lineage and so it's yours. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, but things have been odd, as you know as well as I do."
Lysira had been sitting on the couch in her parents' quarters for the past fifteen minutes as her mother had discussed her noble lineage - a heritage that she had had no knowledge of before that moment. She had just been told that not only was her mother born of a minor noble house, but of the House of Breyon itself; the very House that nearly ruined Lysira's happiness by having too nice a girl available for marriage.
All Lysira could do for several moments was just sit and stare, trying to take it all in and understand what she'd been told and all the implications.
Suddenly, an idea blossomed in her heart. It grew on excitement and that feeling swelled until she was almost trembling. Her eyes flickered through the room as a smile began to curve the corners of her mouth and her mind reached out and touched the bond sitting in the back of her head, tracing its location... tracing the location of him, and he wasn't far.
I have to go, she signed quickly. Thank you for telling me, mother. Pushing herself to her feet, she kissed her mother's cheek and nodded farewell to her father as she hurried out of the rooms and rushed towards the feeling of the bond. He was in the gardens, which somehow seemed fitting to her as she made her way through the corridors with all respectable speed.
It was evening, so it was dark out but there was a full moon and lanterns that lit the pathways. She wasn't sure what Jerid was doing out there, but it didn't matter. It only mattered that it was where he was and where she was headed.
Jerid found himself on the path returning to the Tower and the Indigo Ajah Hall. The last fifteen minutes had been spent in a glade not too far away, paying tribute to those family members who were buried beneath a memorial. It had been some time since he had stood before it, as duties and political affairs had abducted most of his time.
Yet he had managed for just a few minutes today before returning to see his grandchildren to bed. It was a somber affair for the Master of Soldiers, a ritual he alone took part in. It often served as a reminder of why he needed to be vigilant these days, even inside his own Soldier Hall.
Darkness did not affect Jerid's ability to navigate the darkened pathway. He knew every curve and path inside the Tower by heart, a product of residing inside for so long. Despite that, he his mind was not on navigating but on other affairs concerning his place in Andor. A few Houses still insisted that he announce who he was to wed, or rather insisted on accepting their proposals.
His thoughts however shifted as he found the small knot in the back of his mind that was Lysira draw closer. Curiosity flashed in his mind as he wondered why she would be here.
She's coming to find you, you wool-headed lummox. Jerid squashed the annoying voice from his mind and moved in the direction the bond told him Lysira lay in. Before long he caught a small shape moving in the dim light, and he knew it was her from the way she moved.
By some bit of luck, the area of the gardens was all but abandoned. She knew that he'd sense her coming, but there was no concern or fright in her so there would be no reason for him to be worried, even if she ran towards him and came to a slightly skidding stop. As her forward movement halted, she had to laugh at her own antics. She was acting like a teenager and not a grown woman, a Gaidar, but she didn't care.
Lysira just couldn't care about that, after everything that had happened to them. Everything had suddenly coalesced into a single spot.
A faint smile played upon her lips as he tilted his head. "What brings you out here so late, my Lady Gaidar," he asked in the dim light. He could not think it anything serious, or he would have sensed it. That much he knew.
The light was dim but they were each still visible, enough so that he would be able to see her hands rising. Yet as she brought them up, the sky cracked loudly and rain suddenly dropped down. Her mouth opened with surprise and she looked up. Water splashed against her face, but she could only laugh silently at it, turning back to Jerid.
She signed to him.
Thunder sounded in the distance and all too shortly water began to fall earthward. It didn't matter, as he saw the motions of Lysira's hands. The only problem was that it was too dark even for him to discern. "I'm afraid you'll have to repeat that, Lysira. I am not quite so adept as Wolfkin at seeing in the dark."
Grinning, Lysira moved closer to him. She was so close that she was almost leaning against him, but with just enough room for her hands to move and sign, and for him to read them.
I said... she began again. Marry me!
With a grin he stepped forward even as she did herself. Of course the grin soon faded into a dumbfounded look. He blinked in obvious surprise at her signed words.
"What?" Perhaps he had mistaken the words? As rare as it was, Lysira could have signed so fast that even the Indigo missed it. The statement came again, this time unmistaken.
The entirety of her face was beaming with the inner excitement. She almost lit the gardens up on her own with her smile. Her dark eyes were insistent as she repeated the gestures. Marry me!
A shocked look spread across the Master of Soldiers, and flooded the bond like a storm. So caught up in it that his first few words came out in fragments.
"What brought...? How...? Why?" The subject had only been discussed once, but by Lysira's mother and he, not Lysira herself. Selenirra had broached the subject of her heritage once, had implied Lysira had been conflicted any relationship might have weakened his House.
But he had not expected Lysira to ask.
So he stood in the rain, dumbfounded, looking at his Gaidar with a mix of shock and joy.
Lysira laughed silently. Strands of hair plastered to her face, but she didn't care. She gave Jerid a light push, playful and without force, to try to shake him from his shock. Why ask why, you fool? she signed, still grinning. I love you, and you love me... and this life is too short, and too dangerous, to not take advantage of life when it's presented to us. She paused, tilting her head with a flicker of amusement in her eyes. That and I spoke with my mother of my... family tonight. There is nothing else to stand in the way then! She stared into his eyes. So what say you?
Jerid grunted and stumbled back a pace at Lysira's push, graceful enough to keep his footing without a thought. Before he could even ask again, or form a coherent sentence, the diminutive Gaidar had responded.
Her reply evoked a brief chuckle from the Indigo, and wry amusement. She spoke of a life in which was not so short for Channelers; Jerid was still in his prime, and would remain so for at least another five decades. Warders aged more slowly due to the bond, but were still bound closer to the Wheel's passing...
You are a flaming fool, you lummox! Stop dwelling on the practical thoughts and just answer the woman! Jerid did not ignore the thought this time. He could not. And of course, the added knowledge that she knew the lineage from which her mother had been born into only further explained why Lysira had spoken those words.
Jerid took a step closer, his gold-green eyes peering into her large, deep liquid gaze. "Lysira, nothing in this Age or the next could have stood in the way. I told your mother as such in Cairhien." Inwardly he winced at the slip, realizing he had known before Lysira had, but given his recent shock it didn't matter.
He lifted a ringed hand to her cheek and added, "As to what I say..." His other arm snaked around the small Gaidar then, as fast as any Warder???s reflexes, and he pulled her close. His lips touched hers in a brief but intimate and fierce, hard kiss. He pulled away after a few seconds and whispered, "I say yes... and what took so long."
The last words were spoken with a faint, teasing smile.
The kiss took Lys' breath away and as he released her, she was glad that she didn't need it to speak. As it was, the emotion of the moment was making her hands hard to control. An occasional delicate tremor of excitement passed through them, and all they wanted to do was hold onto him... but she wanted to 'speak' too.
Well, I was hardly the only one capable of asking, she teased right back. She kissed him again and then her expression grew more serious, although no less warm and loving. After... what happened in Ewlyn, I realized even more how important you are to me, and how transient even the lives that we live can be. I see now, from here, how far I slipped... but you caught me. I'm supposed to protect you, but you protected me and pulled me back not because of the bond but because of your love. Call me sentimental, but that sounds like the kind of emotion that brings people together in marriage.
She flashed another smile, thinking of the emotional bond that she had witnessed in her parents - private, quiet, but powerful. She had seen it as a child and realized what it was as an adult and now she'd seen it again since their return. Maybe it was some of her youth showing through, though she was wholly aware that marriage was not easy... she had seen that too... but there was something powerful to her in the idea of being bound as husband and wife as well as Warder and Ward.
And now that she knew that her lineage would not, in fact, be a burden to Jerid's new duties but actually a benefit... there was no reason not to.
Jerid's eyes danced between Lysira's hands and deep gaze. Thoughts of Ewlyn still occupied a corner of his mind, along with how close he had come to losing the Gaidar to the madness the ter'angreal had inflicted upon the female Channelers.
Such a thought still sent a mental shudder through the Indigo's mind. Warders could be lost, a fact he was keenly aware of, and while they were trained for such a possible fate, Jerid had refused to give Lysira up to such an affliction. It also reminded him of the strength of the Warder bond, and beyond, how much power human emotion lent it.
The cold rain falling on them both brought Jerid back to some semblance of the present. Slowly he touched one of the many curls of her plastered hair, smiling softly. "Is it not the shared domain," he asked quietly, "of both lovers and bondmates to act as an anchor to this world?"
Light knew she had been a guiding force in his own life. A faint smile touched his own lips as he withdrew his hand. "Where you walk, so shall I be there with you." It was a commitment not lightly made, and something he truly desired. Lysira was a driving force in his life, and one he would welcome for the rest of his life.
"Of course," he teased with a soft smile, "if I were to call my Warder sentimental, then I will have to regard Caden with the same light when he is around Miahala."
Lysira laughed silently. And I would, she signed, just not when he was around to see it!
