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1. [DL-C] Reasons to Stay - JP
From: "Rachel Lange" <meghanlore@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2005 23:24:43 -0600
From: "Rachel Lange" <meghanlore@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
Subject: [DL-C] Reasons to Stay - JP
Day 6
Morning
Alania looked up as Andahar entered, thinking it was Andorra. Seeing
Andahar she laid back and brushed her hand across her cheek. "I
thought
you were gone."
"Do you want me to go?" Andahar asked, only his eyes betrayed the
emotions warring within him.
She pushed up to sit and look over at him. "Do you have a reason to
stay?"
"Yes. You." His lips twitched as if trying not to smile.
She shook her head firmly. "You do not need to feel responsible for me
anymore, Andahar. I do not want to become another woman that you feel
sorry for and take in to take care of." It was clear whom she was
referring to.
His eyes hardened for a moment as he thought of Reain and what her
angry
words had almost cost. He didn't want to think of Reain, but of
Alania.
"I have never felt that way about you," and now he did smile, as if
teasing her. "You are not like nomad-woman. You do not need me to
take
care of you, and I find that..."
"Aggravating?" she supplied.
"No."
"Frustrating?" she suggested.
"No." He shook his head.
"Infuriating?" she offered.
"No." And he laughed and answered, "Attractive."
The word took Alania's breath and she clutched the sheet. "Please
don't
tease me Andahar. I do not think I could......" Her head dropped as
tears rolled down her cheeks. "Please do not," she choked out.
He sobered immediately as he saw the unintended pain his word had
caused. He crossed the room and approached the bed. She instinctively
shrank away from him, but it hadn't surprised him after the treatment
she had endured. He would have to teach her to trust again, and the
first thing he needed her to see was that she was attractive to him,
now
as much as before.
He dropped to a knee beside the bed and reached for Alania. She
resisted, at first, but as his warm, comforting embrace enfolded her,
she clung to him, pressing her face against his chest.
"Alania, I do not... tease. You are...," He tilted her face up, so he
could wipe away her tears, and then lowered his lips to hers. Their
kiss was tentative at first, but lengthened and deepened as they clung
to each other.
Alania continued to cling to Andahar throughout the kiss. She broke
the
kiss breathlessly and looked up into Andahar's face. "I did not think
you...." Another sob caught in her throat as she desperately tried to
make sense of the situation. "After what happened to me....and how I
must look to you now....I do not understand."
"How you must look?" With concern in his eyes, he traced the now
fading
bruise on Alania's cheek, realizing as he did so that Andorra had used
some of her healing talent on her. "You look tired... I do not
understand, how do you think you look to me?"
Alania pulled back a bit. "I am not talking about this," she replied as
she gestured towards her cheek. "I am talking about what happened to
me, out there. I know how nomad men view women. I've been.." she
winced and paused, turning her face away from him, her body shaking as
the memories came back to her.
"You know...? You do not know. You think you know, but you do not
understand." Andahar said softly, but with a tinge of anger in his
voice. "You think that 'Woman can share mat with many men, and when
she
gives birth, baby is still hers. Man can share mat with many women,
but
how can he ever know if baby is his unless his woman only shares her
mat
with him?' So, you think nomad man will not let woman share mat with
other men. But you are wrong!
Andahar paused until she looked him in the eye, "It is not act of ...
*** ... it is act of lie that brings dishonor. You did not go to man
and tell him, 'share my mat, make child in me,' and then go to other
man
and share his mat and tell him child is his. You were taken as slave,
as... 'prize'... by one tribe. It was act of war. I have redeemed
you... brought you back to home ... to Cleft. You are free again,
Alania. I told you, I was once taken... and made slave. But I am now
free. How do you look at me?"
"But you are....I mean you are a man.." she offered weakly. She had
not
thought about things exactly that way. Though she knew Andahar would
understand her pain she had not thought of viewing him any less than
she
had before.
She brought her gaze back to him. "I love you," she whispered.
"Do you? I am who I am because of what I have lived. Do you love me
less if I tell you men and women forced themselves on me? Should I
love
you less when same happened to you?" His amber eyes bored into hers,
locking their gazes together as if he searched her soul. Almost
fiercely
he spoke from his heart, "Ja ta draelln."
Alania was sure she was dreaming at that point. "After everything? Even
still after everything I have said and done?"
"Why do you punish yourself? What could you say or do that would turn
my heart from you? Or is it that you doubt me?" Andahar asked.
"After our last conversation you spoke of your love in the past," she
offered.
"I thought you did not love me... could not love me because of who I am
and ... how I treat woman." He searched her face, once more, as he
admitted, "I am man of Nomad people... am I not just like men who took
you? How can you love me?"
An angry expression filled Alania's face. "You are not like them,
nothing like them at all. You would never force..." She trembled and
fell back. "I was angry, because of what Reain said to me."
Andahar shook his head, "I would have become just like them... if not
for tribe being attacked and being taken... and for Bohoc. And I took
Reain as Chunor... but..." he looked away, sadly, "I would not force
her
to share my mat, and I do not know," he felt a heat rise in his cheeks
with the admission, "when she came to me to make Kenziah. THAT is why
I
did not believe baby was mine. If I had taken her, as was my right,
and
used her, as was expected... then I would not doubt about Kenziah."
"I am sorry Andahar. I should not have said the things that I did.
They were in anger. I should have talked with you calmly about what
Reain told me." Tears appear on her cheeks again as she looked up at
him. "Please forgive me?"
He nodded, "If you promise you will stop painting me, and all nomad
men,
with one color brush."
She nodded. "I promise to try."
He pulled Alania back into his arms and held her tightly, "And I will
try to be less of what you expect and more of what you want." He
kissed
the top of her forehead lightly.
She smiled and pressed closer to him. "Please stay with me?"
He chuckled and turned her own question back on her, "And... Do I have
a
reason to stay?"
She nodded and looks back up into his eyes. "Yes. I need you."
---
NRPG: No tags, just character development.
---
Respectfully submitted by:
Rachel Lange
AKA
Alania
Arlene Jacobs
AKA
Jeffrey Jacobs
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