0001-03-04 - The Story of a Marriage (Part 2)

Sevyli is fifteen now when another year passes, she's settled into her life at Keroon and has slowly started to learn the particular style of Hold management prevalent at Keroon from a lady's perspective from the Headwoman. She's astute, learns quickly, and any reports about her passed onto the Lord Holder are glowing. There is an accelerated air to her learning, however, and her brightness is an asset, as Lady Keroon's condition worsens.

Naledi's absence from the day to day trappings of life and her failing health casts shadows across the Hold and the bustle of healers in and out have become the norm. Gaiety seems inappropriate, but teenagers are teenagers, and as an escape from the preemptive grief that is only just held at bay in the Hold, Sev finds herself at the stables in between lessons frequently. Using a curry comb, she runs gentle circles along the hide of her favorite horse, clucking at it soothingly and smiling upward at the beast. "You don't mind me smiling, do you?"

Even, or perhaps especially, in her illness it's clear that there's no strong bond between Naledi and her husband: they lead separate lives, and the Lady of Keroon has undertaken the duties of her station only intermittently in the twenty-ish turns of her tenure. Sevyli may be a child, but she's the future of the Hold, and her youth and vitality are certainly encouraging; perhaps Keroon's next Lady will be a better one.

Day-to-day, it doesn't impact Laurie: he's busy with his father, or being ignored by his father and trying to learn anyway. But his mother is still his mother, and the weight her condition holds over the hold is unmistakable.

"I don't mind you smiling," he murmurs, coming up behind his future bride, not touching but certainly very physically present. "Someone needs to smile. We're lucky to have you, Sev."

Sev's eyes shut lightly, the shifting of her eyes visible in the thin line between lashes and cheek. Her slender body trembles a moment, every nerve in her body aware of his non-touching proximity. A sharp, deep breath is taken in and held and released slowly before she's turning that smile upon her Laurie. "It'll be a sad day for Keroon when you start minding my smiles, m'lord," is her innocent flirtation. "How was shadowing your father today?" The subject of his mother's condition today, ever growing worse, is delicately skipped over except in the scrutiny of her young study of her fiance's features.

Laurent reaches over her shoulder to rub at her horse's nose, then sidesteps: it's one thing to draw so close temporarily, but it would be another to linger, for all that his smile echoes her flirtation. He's settled, in this past turn, eased his way back into Keroonian life quite as if he never left. His outgoing mail rarely includes letters for Telgar, now, though at least there were never any for Nabol.

"As I recall, I promised to exchange smiles with you across the breakfast table," he agrees. "And I keep my promises. Father preferred to visit the track, this morning, but Claiven," their longstanding Steward, "and I rode out to take a look at the borders. The road needs repairs. We'll have to send a crew. How was your morning?"

How does she share that she spent the entire morning with her would-be mother in law? She doesn't. He may know. There may have been talk. But she doesn't say it to him herself. "I kept myself busy, learning what I need to to be the perfect wife and partner to you. There's more than I ever expected or knew a wife should do to keep an entire Hold running properly so her husband," she breathes a little less audibly when he moves off, and turns back to grooming her horse, "Can manage the external affairs. I helped select the menu for tonight's supper," she adds as an after thought. The accomplishment shared is a little perplexed, punctuated by a shrug of her slim shoulders, as if uncertain why this should be something she does, but such is life. "I wrote my parents and reassured them that I am not a nuisance," with a lilt of a question as need for reassurance.

A flurry of movement at the far end of the pasture fields closest the Hold garners a brief glance.

Does he know? If he does, there's no indication of it in that young, handsome face. It may be that he concerns himself little with what his future wife does to occupy her days, except when their paths cross. "I'm sure it will be an excellent menu," is even, and a little bland.

But more importantly, one hand reaches out to touch her arm. "You're not. Sev. You're an important part of this Hold. Come on: let's get away. Just for an hour or two?"

It makes him look very young-- surely a hint to the emotions inside. Movement, motion, all of that is ignored.

Sev's attention keeps getting pulled to the movement of one particular person at the other end of the field, but as she's not the only one watching, it proves to be the distraction needed for her to lean into the hand that holds her arm and to slip her hand down into his. The brush that was once in her hand falls into the hay about them. Brown eyes dance brightly, with youthful anticipation of what might come - what they may have already done before for her to look forward to again. She is his to whisk off, agreeable to his ideas and malleable to his movements. The reasons commotion will be gossip by later this evening for her to indulge in.

Laurie swoops them up onto the horse, bareback with Sev in front and his arm there to steady her: he's playing a long game with his physical presence around her, though if asked he'd probably swear blind it isn't intentional. What is deliberate: the way he makes sure they avoid anyone who might put a stop to their escape. Is he aware of the (human) runner trying to chase them down as they gallop out of the courtyard? If he is, he shows no sign: they can wait. Everything can wait.

Outside the Hold, it's basically impossible to track a person down. Firelizards are myth, after all, and if you don't know where a person's gone...

If he could swear blind it isn't intentionally, Sevyli could not say the same. Every movement, action, and touch she offers is by all her worldly young teenage designs. The kind of things a girl who grew up reading the romance novels she wasn't entirely supposed to. Rubbish, her mother and father would say. So that part of her soul is ever so delighted at how he takes charge and how they escape the view of all those who would halt shenanigans of this nature, even between those engaged. It's not their fault they don't know what's happening at the Hold, and it's not their fault her, childish, explorations of his face and mouth and clothed body, are a welcome distraction from everything else less bright and cheerful in the world. Or how she allows him to take certain liberties, or encourages with just a shift of her body and a brush of her hand.

That the Hold they left behind is in sudden mourning is not something they could be aware of, though hindsight will make her, at least, feel immensely guilty.

It's not that hard to encourage Laurent, who is, after all, still a teenage boy (man?), and at fifteen, Sevyli is increasingly old enough (nubile enough) to be a temptation. What harm in a few innocent intimacies? The slightest of liberties? It makes for a pleasant escape: he's a gentleman, and the way he so carefully treads that path between encouraging and denying surely only goes to prove how much he respects her. Besides, Naledi's illness has cast a long pall upon the Hold, and an escape lifts that burden, just for a time.

It's later than he'd planned, when they return, the sun already beginning to disappear below the horizon. And high atop the Hold walls, the Keroonian Standard has been withdrawn.

Does he know in that instant? That sharp intake of breath?

A conspicuous absence is made all the more obvious by a tragedy occurring. Sevyli's enamored bliss lasts only the ride back to the Hold. Tucked in front of him, with the wind in her ears, she feels rather than hears the sharp intake and her keen dark eyes scan the horizon for the cause. Her own reaction is felt in the tension sudden in her body, as the horse speeds into the courtyard. She's at a loss for what to do, literal loss not being something she's experienced and not anything that can be academically taught.

Clearly, someone has been watching for them, or more likely several someones-- and equally clearly, they were spotted long before their mount began to climb the road to the hold. Claiven is waiting for them at the front of the great doors, along with a groom ready to take hold of their mount (though first he'll help Sevyli down, gaze averted as if her very position, so close to her fiance, is an afront to his sensibilities).

"lord Laurent, lady Sevyli," says Claiven, not waiting for Laurie to finish his own dismount, though the young heir is quick to follow his bride-to-be.

"My father wishes to see me."

Claiven looks awkward, apologetic. "Your father is unavailable, lord Laurent."

His father is at the race track, has deliberately gone to the race track, and it's probably better for everyone's sake that Laurie doesn't know this.

"Lady Naledi--"

"My mother is dead. Thank you, Claiven."

Laurie strides off, abandoning Sevyli and Keroon's Steward without a backwards glance. He's never hard to find, though, should Sevyli choose to do so: the little room tucked in behind his mother's chambers, accessible through a back staircase, has long been his place of retreat.

Laurent's frank interruption, completion, and acceptance of Claiven's thoughts stops Sevyli short, the hand that was about to come up to his elbow and find reassurance in his touch halting abruptly. Brown eyes watch, dazed, when Laurie strides off, and she turns woeful eyes to the Steward. "The Lord?" she asks, now that her husband to be is out of earshot. And then, drawing on the well of years of training, Sev stands straighter, "What needs to be done?"

Claiven pauses, suddenly uncertain as to the best approach to take. Sevyli is, after all, effectively the next best thing to a Lady Keroon has, now, even if she's not of the Blood and not yet married into it. But she's young-- how much to put on her shoulders?

"He has gone to the track, my lady," he admits, now that Laurent is out of earshot. Gone to, specifically, not 'has been at and not returned'. "Her ladies have laid her out. The staff will need instructions." A funeral pyre; the accompanying feast. A hundred different things.

"And Laurent..."

Sevyli's fifteen year old face turns cold, it's chilling the sudden change from hapless teenager to woman trained for some semblance of this. She may not know what to do about grief, may not know what to do for Laurent or her future father in law, but she can do the busy task of direction and orders. "Bring the staff to me, I'll be in my sitting room shortly." If they show up before she does, they can wait. For now, the young woman strides into the Hold, in a similar fashion to her betrothed, purposeful and knowing exactly where to go. Once she's there, she doesn't enter immediately, standing outside the door, the purpose leaving her body and hapless once more. She listens.

Claiven turns upon his heel to watch Sevyli go. His chin drops, then rises; it's just faint, but it may even be a sign of approval. The future lady, taking charge.

Upstairs, down all those convoluted corridors and winding staircases, there's no obvious sound from within Laurie's hideaway: whatever he's doing, he's not sobbing his heart out.

Indeed, he's simply sitting in a chair, staring at the wall that connects this room to Lady Naledi's, as if he could will her to get up again. Will her to live.

She listens harder, eyes clenched shut and intense concentration on her face. But it does her very little good it would seem and so, eventually, Sevyli steps forward and pushes the door open, well-oiled hinges not allowing for a loud creak, but the brush of wood against floor is still distinct in the midst of silence. Does he stay seated? Does he look up? She gives a moment's pause to assess.

He doesn't stay seated. He does look up. There's a moment when he might look utterly pitiful, a few tears drying about his cheeks.

Mostly, though, he all-but-throws himself out of his chair and grabs Sevyli, closing the door with one foot and pushing her up against it so that he can kiss her, hard.

This is different, to their interactions thus far. This isn't soft, romantic, gentlemanly Laurie. This is angry Laurie; hurting Laurie. Four-turns-her-senior Laurie.

He gives her no time to react, to give in to that well of sympathy at his tear-dried face, until well after his hard lips are upon her, bruising and hurtful. Her protest is silenced in his mouth, and her arms flail ineffectually, unsure of what to do other than the fact that Sevyli. does. not. like. this. at. all. When she can wrest her face away, turning it to the side, she only manages an angry, "LAURIE!" in between quickened breathing.

Thankfully, Laurie is not actually a rapist, and though his brain is clearly not working at its full capacity, drugged up on grief and guilt, there is a moment in there, as he's attempting to reclaim her lips after she turns her face aside, when he seems to realise.

He all but flings himself away, turning his whole body to the opposite wall, braced against his forearms. That is when he starts to sob, loud, heart-rending, uncontrolled sobs.

White-faced, Sevyli stays pinned to the wall, even without hands forcing her there. Now if he had just been sobbing when she entered, instinct to console would take over, but now, after that, instinct takes a back seat to shock. An older Sev might know what to do better than her reaction now, which is to let out a little cry, pull at the door, and escape through the narrow opening she creates. It isn't until she makes it to a few hallways away that she sobs too, sinking to the ground, arms wrapped about her shaking body in a failed effort to steady herself. Those ladies awaiting their orders from a fifteen year old will just have to wait a little while longer.

After that, Laurie-- Laurent-- avoids his future bride. Shame is a heavy burden, and he clearly feels it: it's obvious in the way he looks at her, when he does, and in the way he so carefully makes sure to not be alone with her. Not that he ignores her: he holds her hand (awkward though it is) as his mother's body is burned, and he's solicitous and gentle in their interactions. If she needs a chair pulled out, he's there to do it; as a dance partner, at Keroon's gathers, he's always available. Still. Still.

Laurie has other problems, too. His father, spending less and less time on hold matters and more and more on his races, gambling often to extreme losses that must be carefully made up through business dealings and negotiations, all of which are Laurie's to take on. These are lonely turns, those earlier intimacies lost; Laurie expresses his regret in every touch, but those touches are infrequent, now.

When Lord Ebrem dies, suddenly, the turn Laurie is twenty-one and Sevyli seventeen, it's just more of the same. Except, this time, Laurie sends a message to invite Sevyli to his study, two days after the funeral pyre has been extinguished.

Sevyli goes through the motions of life, adjusting to her role as de facto Lady Holder, for while Naledi was alive, even if she might be the one truly running things, there were a lot more safeties to fall back on. People looked to her less for the final decision and the Headwoman and her staff did much in the name of the lady. Now? Each turn brings a wiser, more capable woman. There have been letters to Fort and from Fort that seem prepared to withdraw the betrothal, in light of everything, but in the end, she stays. Perhaps her family makes certain the gambling debts don't become a problem. Perhaps they force Keroon to be more beholden to them in ways neither Sev nor Laurie might envision, through back channels and fronted business negotiations that ultimately reach back to her father. In Pern, power is everything and as first Hold, and Fort likes having a lot of it.

She speaks not of the cooled interactions, or the reasons behind them. The little tells that show at first, flinches, tentative hands holding his, dissipating after a while. They live, nominally, separate lives, but somehow, still, manage to sit at breakfast with each other daily, even if the smiles aren't always there.

"M'lord?" she says, upon being granted admittance to his study. There's a small smile there, tired sorrow in early wrinkles around her eyes. She did love her father in law. For all his problems. He doted on her like a daughter he had never had, and she -- she indulged his inadequacies.

"Sev."

Laurie knows, of course he knows, that things are not the same between them; that they're never likely to be the same between them. He knows that it is his fault, and that if anything he's lucky she has stayed. It puts neither of them at an advantage, now, when his charm is no longer useful.

"How are you holding up? Wine... something stronger? Whiskey, brandy, port." Tequila, though the local cactus brew is not something most Bloods will own to keeping a supply of. "I wanted to thank you." It's so horribly impersonal, and he makes a face: it's not what he's trying to say.

"Sev. I'm sorry."

Sevyli has learned, unfortunately, how to mask her feelings while feeling rather unloved. A more wily girl might have used this guilt to her advantage, Sev, for she truly thought she loved Laurie, does not. The tired smile on her face gains warmth, and her words are mostly believable, "There's nothing to be sorry for. I should express my sorrow to you. For your loss." For their loss. "Lord Holder," she adds a breath later, the title foreign on her tongue for this man. He's not her never-was father in law. "How strange it is to call you that, after all this time."

At seventeen, soon to be eighteen, Sevyli is learned, but not so much so she can't help but ask, "Are you sending me away?" Now that he's the Lord and can make those decisions on his own, is unspoken, but felt fragile in the air.

"I didn't want it so soon," is an admission from a man who has largely been impassive over his father's death. Such a shock: that fall from his horse, the broken neck. The opportunity for father and son to be properly reconciled, now gone forever.

"No-- no. Sev. Unless you wish to be released. I wouldn't blame you. I know this has not... been what you wanted. I haven't been what you've wanted. I want to make that up to you. Keroon doesn't work without you. I don't, either."

Her silence is just a little too long for his words not to writhe in the air, untethered to concrete thoughts or even delicate hopes. It's been years but her fingers rise, unbidden, to run along her lower lip, the bruise of that kiss so long gone, even if the memory won't disappear. Then, that lip disappears behind her teeth, Sevyli's long tell of having made a decision. "You were always what I wanted and hoped for," the past tense unintentional, but the lack of intention doesn't necessarily mitigate hurt, "If," she starts quickly after, "You don't want something better for a woman by your side to be your partner in all -- you have the choice of all of Pern now, and not just me." A daughter of Fort. It's hanging between them, even if she seems singularly unaware of her family's position in all of this right now. "If you still want me? I'm not a child anymore."

That silence is so hard, and leaves Laurie awkward and uncertain, two things that only seem to come in to play when it comes to Sevyli and their awkward, challenging relationship. He doesn't look away as her fingers trace that path, though surely he's conscious of its reference, and still ashamed of its lingering power.

"I want you." It could have so many meanings, not all of them ideal, even now that she's an adult. "I've always wanted you, Sev. Not for Keroon. For me."

Likely, the machinations of her family play a part in this, but for all his weaknesses, this appears to be genuine. "But if you wish to be released, I'll let you go."

If only things could be fixed with a genuine kiss. If only.

Without the oversight of a Lord Holder maintaining guardianship over her, who technically owns her is up in the air. Laurent? Herself? Something about the situation, and the unknowns of it, cause her to step forward, to wrap her arms around him and lean the short distance up to kiss him. "I would have left years ago if that's what I wanted. Keroon is my home." Keroon, but not necessarily him, even if the distinction seems lost on her. "All I've wanted is for you to look at me like I'm not the awkward twelve year old you met years ago. Tell me to stay, and I'll stay. Tell me we'll get married tomorrow and I will give my whole heart and body to you. Please?" Turns out, sometimes romance stories don't quite disappear even if reality keeps disabusing her of the notion.

Laurie's surprise is visible in the way he completely fails to kiss her back (though to be fair, less surprise would still have resulted in a kiss that was significantly less-than-full-on), but after a moment his arms go around her, holding her close if still carefully: this may be at her initiation, but he's apparently determined to ensure she never feels trapped by his embrace.

"You're not that," he promises. "I've known that for a long time, Sev. You're-- you're spectacular."

That's when he drops his arms, but only so that he can drop down to his knees, reaching up to try and claim her hands within his. "Marry me, Sevyli. Be my Lady."

And after a pause? "Smile at me across the breakfast table. Every morning."

When his actions don't match his words, the lack of kiss but the oh so pretty words, Sevyli can't help her reproachful reaction. The flush of embarrassment for having tried something that didn't quite garner the expected reaction. She doesn't have to say an explicit yes, outside of the small, chin nod she gives him and a tightening of her arms about him, pressing her very much not young child body against him.

They get married, the preparations of which take up her time and draw out a vivaciousness that's struggled since Naledi's passing. She involves herself in the selection of fabrics and decorations, and the wedding is definitely one for the books, though some might murmur about how such gaiety was too soon after the Lord's passing. For the jovial, gambling Lord was beloved by the every day man, the ones who didn't see the politics behind the scenes. There's dancing, there's kissing, and caught up in the excitement of the day, there's less uncertainty and tentativeness in the couple's interactions and their eventual, possibly too gentle, consummation.

The first turn is good, the honeymoon period, where there's hope at the end of the hallway and things might be good. The second turn, when she's heavily pregnant? That's when the hold staff begins to hide more delicate breakables in corridors occupied by the couple.