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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | After a Heist goes awry, Lathrik and Natalyah have a night, where feelings are spoken, scars are revealed, and decisions for the future are made. Romance RP. 10k~ words. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
Arc: The Red String Game
“You need to rest,” Lathrik says more gently, when they are alone in the house. “I won’t have ye passing out on me again.”
"I'm fine," she insists defensively. "That was just too many shifts, and the casting was not — " She tosses her head, her hair falling limply across her forehead with the movement. But despite the protest, she slides out of the chair into a close stand, throwing both arms around Lathrik. "You did scare me." It's both a plaintive admission and an accusation. "Does the guard teach people to define 'safe' as 'not being actively stabbed,' or is that a personal philosophy?"
Lathrik slides one arm around her waist, pulling her hips against his, while his other hand searches her back for some way to unfasten the dress. “I was safe,” he says, that calm confidence radiating from him. “Until the end. But I apologized for that.”
The dress has a series of small metal hook-and-eye closures hidden by the careful folds around the orange mark that partially defines the Atala butterfly at the base of her lower back, and the chain across her shoulder blades fastened by a claw link like a necklace.
She pokes at his back with a hard finger. "You were in this armed with a knife against a shadow master you lost sight of repeatedly who took out a death knight with a single mind attack, while in the middle of a household where the maids are armed and take orders like kill on sight," she reminds him. "Practically the only time you weren't in any additional active danger was when you were confronted by an actual lioness for a test of wills, and that's only because you're used to dealing with me."
“He spoils her, I’ll bet,” Lathrik says of the lioness, his fingers finding the hooks by feel and deftly undoing them. Someone trained him to be good with his hands.
He plants a kiss on her neck, just under her jaw, before continuing. “It’s not an unusual situation for me. I know it seems like we just stand around a lot, like being a guard is about patrols, and directions, and settling disputes, and all the hard jobs go to the army, but it’s not like that.”
The dress loses most of its tension that holds it firmly up as the hooks are undone, and Natalyah loses most of hers at the kiss with a murmured sigh of encouragement. The dress hangs on her by the chain and the halter straps at the base of her neck. It may or may not occur to him that there is no sign of a brassiere on the smooth expanse of her back.
"I've seen you in action," she reminds him, and if it was meant to be a defensive scold, it comes out more like a purr. "But you didn't even have your sword, or your shield. All you had was the Light, and you didn't even take a mana potion before you confronted the assassin." She stiffens in memory, her hands tightening on Lathrik's shoulders like he's about to dash off again. "Shit. You were disguised, but you used the Light, and a paladin's skills. There aren't that many paladins in the guard, and with Pennings coming there, there's not enough good enough reasons for Count Amerith to not suspect that it was you, of all possible people it could have been."
“Aye,” Lathrik says, his hand sliding up her back to the chain and straps. “I was clear on the risks of my intervention. Expect he’ll pay us a visit, sooner or later. But I have some questions for the man.” He speaks casually while continuing to undress her, and if he’s noticed the lack of brassiere, it only serves to fuel the hunger in his eyes.
"About 'Fray Farrens'? Peril said that was probably the name of your father," she says in that direct way of hers. She makes no comment or movement to halt him from undressing her, an implication that he has every right to do so, and the way she holds herself in place, making eye contact with him has an implied dare. She's not going to stop him. "I wrote down what you were looking at as quickly as I could. I got at least most of one and some of the other, and the map parts that I could recognize."
Lathrik’s hand twitches on her back, and his gaze loses some of its intensity, looking as if he’s staring past her. It takes him a moment to pull his attention back. “That, and what he knows of our ‘Shadow Man.’ Sounded like he’s seen him before. And the death knight.”
It takes him a moment to feel out the claw link mechanism, mostly due to his inexperience with necklaces in general, but he succeeds without looking all the same, leaving the dress with nothing but the cloth itself holding it to her.
“Tomorrow…” he murmurs. “We’ll discuss the rest tomorrow. Tonight, I just want to hold you.”
The dress hangs by a semi-literal thread, most of it draping down enough to show a lot more skin of her décolletage, now scandalously low and unsupported, a hand's brush away from a breast falling free.
Her expression is open concern mixed in too many equal measures with wary uncertainty and heated lust.
"Like this? I'm a mess," she admits, and that sounds like the wary uncertainty talking; there's another obvious glance at the water and cloth. "I didn't exactly keep my cool."
When…when has she ever? Does she even have a cool setting?
The concern is probably what has her hands moving up along the back of his neck, fingers lightly scratching the shorter hair like she's looking for the sweet spot in his ruff. The lust is definitely what makes her press her hips forward to lean fully against him with a restless shifting.
His lips seek hers as she leans into him, as though he cannot continue speaking without a taste of her. “Any way,” he murmurs fiercely, though he follows her eyes to the water bucket. “Would you like to clean up yourself, or may I?”
There's something about the phrasing that does it again, the way her features relax into some blend of odd relief and sweeter surprise, that sense that there have been a lot of times in her life where she was not asked, not given the option of doing things herself or having someone do it for her, and the way she curls inward would read like shyness in a less bold woman; in her it reads like she's trying to catch the sentiment and hold it closer. She's watching in equal parts his eyes and his mouth, and she's close enough that he can feel the light fan of her breath on his lips as she answers.
"You may," she says, that inevitable touch of a dare to her tone, like she's waiting for him to change his mind when he realizes the rest. "But not here." Her hand pick at the collar of his tight fitting clothes. "It's harder for me to keep my balance, and I'd rather be sitting, and not out here." There's only two rooms, so that makes the option pretty obvious.
"I can get there myself," she adds quickly, a strange little flicker of something that looks like fear sparking across her face like a flash of lightning, as if she was momentarily worried that maybe he would pick her up, right then and there, without warning.
The tiniest of smiles appears on his face, and this time, his lips land on her forehead. “As ye like,” he says, his eyes focused on her, as if reluctant to let her go. But he stays still, letting her make the first move, or show him with her eyes what she needs.
If he was going by her eyes, the answer to what she needs seems to mostly be Lathrik, as her mouth curls up into that mischievous smile.
She looks back over her shoulder, where her canes have managed to stay propped against the table, despite Peril's earlier bonk, the curves of the handles resting on the flat top. There's a coquettish tilt to her head as she trails a finger along his collar at the back of his neck as she sways her hips deliberately — it might not be all in flirtation, as the motion disrupts more of her dress, which now falls into a shallow start of a puddle of fabric at her foot, a dangerous length. Which means either the dress has to be done up, or taken off entirely. She doesn't tell him which one, but she's definitely daring him to do one over the other.
"But I can't walk in like this. You've made my dress into a hazard."
Lathrik’s smile widens into one of playful satisfaction at the word ‘hazard.’ “Have I,” he says. It’s not a question. It’s also the only urging he needs to fully remove the garment, sliding it down her body, his hand feeling her skin the entire way.
As hinted by the design of the dress, there is nothing under the formed bust of the dress, leaving her bare but for the black mageweave briefs that cover her from her hips to her upper thighs.
It reveals several things, all of which might have various notes of interest to Lathrik. The first are her breasts, full teardrops that already show her interest as well as the cooler air on her skin. The second are a tracery of white scars around her left ribs, a strange burst of scar tissue at a few places, and at least one long line diagonal headed to her left hip; they’re faded, older than four years.
The third is that she is utterly unembarrassed about her nudity. There’s no drop of confidence, not a shred of shyness, as she presses back against his hand eagerly, watching his face with that wicked smile of hers.
She's going to have to move out of his grasp to relocate, but she's not that impatient to be out of his hands.
His eyes first catch on her breasts, and his left hand slips along her back and around her shoulders, to support her while his other hand explores. Then he finds the scars. His fingers travel along them, all the way down to her hip, and his eyes hold a touch of concern and the hint of a question, but he doesn’t verbalize it. Instead, he presses his lips back to hers, as desperate as if she is a soothing spring after a long day in the sun.
He is in no hurry to release her either.
The problem with this spring is that it's a hot spring by nature, and the force of her returning kiss is more like a geyser, powerful and surging into him. It's not much of an answer to the questions he's asking about the scars, but it's an answer to something else at the least, an overflow of her feelings, the intensity of them on display.
As she kisses him, she moves her own left hand down to his, and while it's not with any force to make him do so, there's an encouragement to let her guide his hand along her body, showing him how she wants to be touched, where to stroke and where to pinch, where to be feather light and where to apply force, what she likes and knows she likes.
At a particular such encouragement that has her arching into him, and against the harsher clothing he wears, she shifts restlessly, and sets her hand back on his chest as she breaks the kiss. "I need to sit down. And you," she says with a tap to his chest, "are wearing too many clothes." Her voice has that gravelly sound, and she's breathless as if she's been sprinting. This is spoken as she leans back to sit in the chair, the first step to gathering her canes to her, and there's an interesting trust in the movement that he will support her and also let her go as she wills: caught without constraint.
Her trust is not unfounded, for even in the thickest moments of passion, his hold on her is like the tide bound to the moon, tightening and loosening at her whim, but always there to support her. He guides and releases her into the chair.
“How many is too many?” he asks, his voice deeper somehow, a low rumble coming from a place of near feral attraction. Without waiting for her answer, he is already pulling them off, tossing them to the couch to deal with later.
She manages to get ahold of her canes, as she kicks herself free of the dress, shoving it under the table to deal with later, but rather than rise to a stand, she just watches Lathrik with an attention so molten it's a very good thing that looks can't actually carry any heat transfer, or Lathrik would be possibly on fire. The velvet of her eyes has gone near black, her pupils wide pools, and tracing over his body like it's the ultimate butterfly she's always wanted to study. She sets an elbow down on the table, her chin in her hand as the clothes fly by, and keep going.
"Wow," she says, an open, honest reaction to the sight of him. "Sinners and martyrs preserve me, you're stupidly good looking." It comes out as a half-strangled moan. It's also not much of an answer for his question, but honestly, there's a good chance she's forgotten it somewhere around his bare chest coming into view.
Lathrik is not without his own scars, the most recent, the one on his right forearm, from the feral worgen slipping through his defenses. Apparently, he didn’t make it to a healer fast enough to avoid scarring. Above that is one on his shoulder, an arrow wound from Southshore. There are lighter, smaller scars, mostly on his arms where his armor failed to protect him, and of course, most notably, the rune on his chest, glowing faintly, as if angry that it was recently disturbed.
He stops when he’s in only his underwear, and picks up the bucket of water. “Am I?” he says, meeting her gaze, and this one might be a question. But he doesn’t wait for an answer, before turning to head into the bedroom. “Then we’re a good match.”
She's momentarily so busy watching him hungrily that she forgets to actually move until he's passed the door frame, and there's a bit of a clattering sound behind him as she hurriedly gets her canes onto the floor to rise up and follow him at a pace that does absolutely nothing to disguise her eagerness. The candles on the counters and the table are left to burn on in their holders.
The bedroom is dark, currently lit only from the residual light of the living room candlelight spilling into it, the warm amber walls making the space's darkness softer, and closer. As usual, there's at least the one candle on the nightstand in the holder, the box of matches left by it. The room carries with it that heavier scent of Natalyah's perfume, where it's been sprayed into a fine mist that she moves into to catch it on her skin in the mornings after coffee and any time she bathes, leaving enough of the residual to make it impossible to not notice it every time anyone enters the room that this is where she stays.
Her usual routine would put her at where she ordinarily keeps a basin of water and a towel, but she's altering that step, obviously. The next would be to put her canes wedged carefully between the bed and the nightstand where they can't easily fall over in the night. She'll wake up a worgen anyway, but it seems to be some sort of ingrained habit, and a security to know where they are. Lathrik, however, is in front of her, and she seems to be in no hurry to push him out of her way, likely admiring the view from this side of him.
Lathrik sets the water by the nightstand and steps to one side, out of her way. He can’t see as well in the dark as Natalyah, but there’s one thing he can see well, and he crosses his arms to hide it. If she can see his face at all, she might note that the lazy smile has returned as he looks back at her, gesturing to the bed with a hand, without moving the arm itself. “Miss Butterfly,” he says. He makes no move to light the candle.
Natalyah, on the other hand, wedges her canes into their spot with an overzealous shove, and immediately turns to light the candle, balancing carefully in between each point. The room is small enough that a single candle gives a decent illumination, but it's far from bright.
She control falls onto the edge of the bed, looking up at him. For a moment there's just a giddy sort of grin on her face, and then it fades as a wary confusion edges into her expression. It could have gone worse, into doubt, but instead something else takes up its place — stubborn determination, a refusal to doubt. She doesn't order him to her — in fact, all she does is lift up one hand and hold it out for him, to come closer, to get within her reach, more of an ask than a tell.
"You really are," she answers, from the question earlier, sweeping him with a slow, electrified look. She tries for a lighter tone, as if she's exasperated by it, but the honesty pushes through. "Gorgeous. It drove me crazy at first, because I didn't want to like you, and from the start, I couldn't get you out of my head. I still can't," she confesses, and this makes her smile curl back up. "Now I just don't want to at all. I don't consider myself a lucky person all things considered, but I have to be at least a little bit one, if I get to see you like this, and touch you."
His smile wavers. “’Talyah,” he says. “Ye’ve been nothing but honest with me, and that’s been… a relief. I know Ren told ye I’ve never…done this before, and it’s true. …And there’s more to it. It’s hard to explain, so bear with me.
“When I’m in armor, I’m a guard. A paladin. When I’m in the clothes ye saw earlier, I’m an Agent on a mission. When I’m in the clothes I threw into the river, I’m Social Lathrik, and when I’m in my underclothes, I’m Home Lathrik. But right now…”
He kneels beside the bed, taking her hand gently in his. As he speaks, he slowly removes his arm from the glowing rune, as if it pains him to do so. “Right now, I’m only wearing one thing, and that is… It’s the curse. I’m the curse.”
There's an immediate shake to her head at the words I'm the curse, and it grows in intensity enough to send her hair moving across her shoulders before she manages to halt the movement, chin down, staring him down, and she reaches out to set her other hand directly, unflinchingly over the glowing rune, as if she's daring it to do anything to her, or him.
When he flinches, she only holds her hand steadier, refusing to give way, her fingers curling protectively against his skin.
"You are not this. You are not the curse. You're just Lathrik," she tells him in a fierce whisper. She brings his hand with hers to her own heart, just above her breast. "You have a curse, but that's not what defines you. It's not what I see when I look at you, Lathrik. It's never going to be what I see as you.
“You're so much more than this. You try to be flippant sometimes, like it doesn't matter, but you're serious about your work, and being a paladin, and for all your devil-may-care armor, your heart breaks from how much you truly do care. You can be impatient and snappy, but never cruel. You're funny, and you can be so sweet and kind, and when it really matters, you hold like you could wait forever if that's what it takes. You protect people, and you try so hard, all the time to do it even when they make it practically impossible for you, and you never expect anyone to take care of you, never let on how much you're really struggling, because that's part of what you think you have to protect people from, too. You just don't give up, even when it's misery."
She shoves at him slightly, that emphatic way that she does sometimes, simultaneously pulling on his hand to press into her. There are tears forming in her eyes that shine against the candlelight, catching the dancing flames, and there's a dare and a challenge in her expression. Her voice rises with a ferocity that makes even the lower tone feel like a shout. "That's what you're wearing. You're wearing that man, and I love him."
Oh. She might not have meant to say that out loud. Too late now.
Lathrik stares at her as though she’s just hit him with another burst of Light, tears shimmering in his own eyes. His free hand, shaking at first, reaches for the one she has on his chest over the rune, his touch growing calmer, steadier, as she goes on, like he’s an empty drawing, and she’s filling him with color. It doesn’t seem like he expected her to see him so clearly, much less accept what she saw. If he’d thought to ask, ‘are you sure,’ at any point, those words have died in his throat.
He is silent for a long, long time after, closing his eyes and struggling to compose himself, so his voice doesn’t break when he next speaks.
“You realize what you’ve done?” he finally asks. It’s rhetorical. He looks up at her, light brown eyes near overflowing with fondness. With love. “Natalyah, you’ve… become my heart. Suppose that means I’ll have to keep you around.” Though the last line is a light tease, there is something behind it, a desperate plea for her never to leave.
She might have stopped breathing there for a bit as he composes himself, and when he looks at her at last, the breath whooshes out, relief and longing and love tangling up wildly in her expression. Her hair is limp around her face, and there are markings of exhaustion around her eyes, but these are only physical frames for the emotions that fuel her.
"Having your heart out and walking around the way I do sounds dangerous," she says, and there's equal parts of witty teasing and intense meaning in them. "That kind of heart takes a certain kind of person willing to turn towards the danger rather than away from it." She pulls on his hand with hers, to try to get him closer, because he's obviously much too far away. "'First one in, last one out, me in the middle.' That's the deal, right?”
“That’s the deal. It seems you already know what kind of man I am,” Lathrik murmurs, drawing closer to her, his knees resting on the edge of the bed as he seeks her neck for a kiss. “And if my heart’s a little wild, a little dangerous, it shows she’s really mine.”
Teasing and metaphors aside, he draws her into his arms, his lips stopping near her ear, and whispers with emotion so strong that it makes his voice tremble, “Thank you. I love you.”
She makes a pleased sound, rich and sweet as vanilla cream coffee, as she holds onto him tightly, deliberately falling back further onto the bed and taking him with her.
"I wanted this to be perfect for you," she tells him from the comfort of his arms, her hands roving over the hard expanse of his back. "For a lot of reasons. But I saw you go tonight and — " There's a sigh against him, into his neck. "I realized I'd rather it be perfect because it's with you, not wait for perfect everything else."
There's something in her voice that has that sound like she's waiting for something, an answer to a question she hasn't exactly asked.
“I’ve no need for perfect,” Lathrik says, pressing her hard against him. “Nothing we’ve done has been perfect, and I wouldn’t know what to do with it. I want you, and if you’ll have me, that’s all I need to hear.”
“Lathrik, I want you, and I’ll have you any way that I can.” Well, that’s settled then. She continues, “And I also know some things about what I prefer, what I like.” There's a conflicting blend of daredevil confidence and some crushing trepidation with the words. “I like telling someone what to do, when to do it, how to do it to me. I really like watching a man have to restrain himself, hold himself back, until I say so. And I like teasing a man up to the edge and not letting him fall over it until I'm ready to see him there.” There's a sweet intoxicating hue to her words, dark chocolate and whiskey.
And then it falls into real fear, cold and desperate as she pushes against his chest as if to try to impress her words there, conflicting with the way she keeps her arm wrapped around him, a simultaneous push and pull. “But I need to know – I need to know that no matter what it looks like sometimes, no matter what I say, that you know that I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do. That you can tell me at any time and I won't be mad, I won't get upset. You can tell me no. Or slow down or less or – or anything.” That faint lupine high pitched whine, and a tremble of her face like she might start to cry, and she's trying to convince him that she won't, that she's too confident to cry. “I don't ever want to hurt you.”
Lathrik shifts one hand to cradle her head, his thumb gently stroking her cheek. She can probably feel his heart, beating faster in anticipation. “’Talyah, I can take whatever you do to me,” he says seriously. “But I know that if you hurt me, it will hurt you, and that is something I will not allow.” The Light flares up around him, as if to demonstrate the conviction behind his words. “Command me as you like, just know I have never been one to take orders unquestioningly.”
If there was an answer that could be the most right of all, it's obvious from her reaction that this was it. She doesn't have anywhere to really go in forward momentum, or in pulling him to her, but that sweeping tempest of her is palpable, a bursting dam of happiness overflowing past some brim of an attempt to contain herself within limits, as she presses electric kisses to his face, his neck, his chest of what she can reach having already set themselves to near melding points of closeness.
"I love you," she tells him ecstatically. Of all the things she is, stingy with her affection is not one of them. "I love you so much." If the tears do overflow a little onto her cheeks, they're not from sorrow, and they're not from pain. The expression on her face is a purer joy than he's seen, unconflicted. She meets his eyes with her own dark and soulful. "I'm going to show you how much."
It's not even a threat. It's a promise.
Time Passes
It's much later into the evening when how much has been shown in a way deemed sufficient by the lepidopterist, and she is an exacting scientist with an attention best described as terrifyingly thorough. In fact, technically, it is no longer evening at all, or Friday; it's moved into Saturday, the very wee hours of the morning, where the summer heat has fully cooled down, small chirps of crickets dot the air, and strange flickering lights haunt the Cathedral graveyard in the north of the city. In this part of Stormwind, it's peaceful and mostly quiet even from the stray cats roaming the streets, though no one in this house is asleep. Not yet, anyway.
The candles in the other room have mostly all burned out, leaving only the single light in the bedroom still glowing in its gentle flickering, enough to see clearly enough by, but with an intimacy inherent within this small heat.
Natalyah is spread out along her belly lengthwise on the bed, closer to the wall than the free edge of it, the scars from her side mostly covered but for the peeks of them along her ribs, her head propped up on her own arms under her pillow, still smiling with a wicked contentment at Lathrik. The layered tendrils of her hair are completely untamed, wild things, spread out around her in a dark halo, some of the tresses curling up into themselves along her shoulders, and down the curve of her spine. She's not getting dressed yet, in no small part because her nighttime ritual of light bathing remains to be seen to, though the offer to have Lathrik follow through in assisting her with it has been made, and the rest of the parts might be that she may have no intention of dressing again at all any time soon. Who can say?
Lathrik rests beside her on his back, looking as though some great tension in him has finally been released, and he is more relaxed than he’s ever been. It takes a great effort for him to muster himself to climb back out of bed, but he does it, sending a fond smile back to Natalyah as he reaches for the bucket and cloth he’d brought in earlier. “Believe I still owe ye a proper cleaning,” he says.
There is a snuffle of agreement from outside; Lathrik probably doesn’t hear it.
Natalyah goes from a deep drowsy to a briefly alert twitch, looking towards the sound, before she blows out a breath up along her face. "Nobody asked you, Risk," she mutters tartly at the horse, before tossing her head not unlike a mare, back to smiling at Lathrik. "Believe you do." Then she adds, "Your horse is back from his trip and he's sassing me. He's not your secret third brother, Risk Jinx Whatever, cursed to be a horse or something, is he?"
An amused smile plays at Lathrik’s lips. “Jinx, hm? That’ll be the next horse.” He shakes his head. “Nah, Risk is a brother in name and bond, not blood. Seems he managed to avoid the Guard, coming back.” He pulls the bucket closer and dips the cloth in, wringing out most of the water. “Ready?”
There's a strange flicker, something of a shuddering flinch around her shoulders, that seems to be a reflex to the sound of the preparation, some memory attached to something about it, perhaps, an old wound never fully healed. Her smile remains unchanged though, and she deliberately stretches out a little more, as she moves her arms out from under the pillow to rest above her head, a greater expanse of the smooth golden brown skin. "Mmhmm."
She inhales like she's testing a scent in the room, or possibly outside from a window cracked open for the night breeze. "He's a smart horse. Loyal. Like a very good brother. He doesn't shy away from me as long as you're there. That's not true of a lot of horses." Because she's a worgen or because she's Natalyah? Unclear.
“Aye, he’s a quick learner,” Lathrik says proudly, dragging the cloth along one of her arms.
There's a low sound of pleasure at the coolness of the cloth along her skin.
“Not bred for it, perhaps, but he’s as good as any Paladin Charger.” He might be a little biased.
She shifts her head a little more to keep him in her sight as she continues, her mind still obviously on names, "I know why it can't be 'Farrens,' obviously. But what is 'Dinnsfield' from? It's not just random, is it?"
When she asks about his name, he pauses, the cloth on her arm halting as well. “Ye sure ye want the answer to that?”
Natalyah's left brow arches up, even as she says, without hesitation, "Yes. That's why I asked." There's a touch of that lemon tartness to her voice, but she leans her head closer towards his hand, to swipe a kiss at what she can reach. Her tone grows more sincere, and gentler. "There isn't an answer you can give me that's going to scare me away, or have me swooning from shock, or making me think less of you."
And then the sharper wit pops back into existence. "I wasn't bred for it, perhaps, but I can assure you I'm as good as any creature born with an actual spine, rare as they might be among the nobility."
Lathrik chuckles and resumes washing, bringing the cloth across her shoulders before starting on the other arm. “As ye say. I was a child when I chose it,” he says. “And one of the few things I was told about my father was what a noisy bastard he was on the battlefield. S’pose that’s where I had the idea.”
Natalyah might be doing some math in her head as she closes her eyes. The deeper languor of her body language, the way she arches her back and sinks into the sensation of his ministrations, however, makes it even more obvious she's at vague estimations and roundings of numbers levels of math. "Ren said he knew you when you were young. So, when you say as a child, you mean you chose it as a young child, for how far this goes back." She sighs, and moves closer to Lathrik.
"That's sweet, and sad both, trying to hold onto a memory of your father so young, and for so long. And honestly, you could have done far worse. Could have been something like Powersworder or Bigpounder or some horrible combination that would sound reasonable to a young boy and in the here and now mean you never give anyone your last name, not just ladies you meet out in the woods." Her eyes open once more, heavy lidded, but staring up at him. "Are you going to look for him, your father, dead or alive as he might be?"
“Aye, I was young,” Lathrik says, “but Ren and I didn’t ask after each others’ last names. All I knew was he was from Kul Tiras, and all he knew was I was a street orphan of some sort. I looked into him once, but felt bad about it after.” He refreshes the water on the cloth then pulls her hair aside, sliding it across the back of her neck.
“I gave up my father’s name, Farrens. Could be I wanted to feel I still had some connection to him,” he says. “The name might’ve been worse, if I didn’t have Peril for a brother.” When he reaches her back he stops, taking a breath. “The information on that desk, in the Count’s manor. Some of those notes were recent. ‘Fore I decide anything, I’ll need a word with the man.”
Natalyah frowns at the words, but melts at the touch, creating an odd combination of frustrated ruffling and content soothing all in one. "And how are you going to do that for this? Are you going to confess to being there, after everything? What's the plan here?" She moves an arm down so she can touch along his closer leg, as if to prevent him getting up right then and there.
“Not so directly, no,” Lathrik says, pulling the sheets away to access her more easily. “First we wait for his move. It’ll be suspicious for us to try anything further so soon. If it comes up, most I’ll do is suggest I know what happened. Feel him out. Direct confessions leave no room for escape.”
He wipes down her back with long, gentle strokes. “Doubt I’d win a battle of wits with the man, though. May have to call in some allies. I’m open to suggestions. It’s as ye say, we weren’t meant to reach this point.”
"I think we should go about it through the woman that the assassin was really meant for," Natalyah says, a blend of tartness of I know we weren't mixed with a sweetness for having been asked for her suggestions. "Elmeriania or whatever it was. If we can figure out why she was targeted, or help her more directly, then we might have a better in for the Count that isn't so confrontational or reveals everything and hope he isn't completely crazy, and it's not like you're not going to help her anyway. That's who you are, and what you do. I don't know if he wants to protect her or keep her for some Collection, but for this purpose it doesn't matter, as long as we approach with that we want to help keep her safe. You know, 'win the game,' or however he described it. Collectors are weird and creepy, but they're still serious about protecting what they think is theirs.”
“He was at the Aspenwood wedding, the Count,” Lathrik says conversationally. “Ye see him? Came with a lady friend.”
Natalyah flinches at the mention of the wedding, and shrugs both it and the question off, moving her head more into the pillow, but there's no denying the defensive tension of her back. "No," she says, a bitter hue to her voice. "But I wasn't looking. I was actually trying to not look around all the people there who were with their family and friends and loved ones and packs, of a life I used to have and be welcome in, while I was there alone, largely unremembered and unwanted." Her hand on his leg shifts to curl around his thigh, holding onto him as she huffs out a breath. "Why? Who was the 'lady friend?' Do you know already or are you asking me to find out? Because I can just ask Birdie or Scilla about it."
Lathrik’s brows draw together slightly. “Sorry to have ye recall something so unpleasant,” he says. “Aye, I know of her. She was a key witness in the defense of the death knight during his murder trial. Couldn’t tell ye how she ended up on the arm of a Count. Almeiria Fey is her name. Sounds like our lass, hm?”
Natalyah turns her head to look back at him, and he can see her lips moving on the syllables of Al-mei-ria, as if testing out the shapes. She nods. "Yes, that has to be it. That fits. So, someone who matters to him, and if we come at him through her, we might avoid some of the worst of his attention."
“Aye…” Lathrik says, though there’s a sense of apprehension in his voice, and his hand once again pauses on her. “If I’m being honest, she makes me uncomfortable.”
Now her hand moves more protectively on him, sliding over the thick muscle of his thigh with a firm pressure, and she pushes up onto her other forearm, frowning at this revelation. "Why?"
“There’s something about her. A scent no one else can smell, almost,” Lathrik says, his gaze growing distant. “Somehow… reminds me of my mother on that day. It’s… hard to explain. Shadow, perhaps?”
Natalyah doesn't growl, but there's a rumble deep enough in her throat to just barely register as sound, and she moves over from being on her pillow to covering half of Lathrik's lap instead, her hair brushing up against his bare skin with soft, silken teases as she rubs her cheek against him. "That would make sense, given the assassin that came after her. Maybe she's meddled in things she shouldn't. She might be dangerous, but if it's Shadow dangerous and not politically dangerous, then I can handle her," Natalyah says with far too much confidence for someone who has never met Almeiria. "I could talk to her. You wouldn't have to."
“I wouldn’t send ye alone,” Lathrik says. “May be time to contact a certain friend. I’ve questions for him, besides. I’m sure not all death knights know each other, but there are a couple things I need confirmed, and he’s my best resource.” Her closeness seems to remind him of his job, and he resumes the cleaning again.
"Harvey Morningdew?" It's not really a guess. Lathrik only knows one death knight as far as she knows. "Are there really that many death knights that they wouldn't recognize another one? Aren't they all part of that society group, the Ebon Blade? Even if your friend doesn't recognize the one you saw today, someone probably would, right? Even Society is large and you can always find someone who knows who someone is."
“Couldn’t tell ye how many there are, I wasn’t at Light’s Hope when they attacked,” Lathrik says. “But aye, Harvey. Thought he’d be back after the war, but I’ve heard nothing of him. His little lady’s back with the Fallons, saw her at the wedding, too, but no sign of the damn dog. I’ll write him. He’s…probably not dead.” He takes a deep breath. Look how not worried he is, see?
"You're worried about him," Natalyah says, dragging the subtext out into text, and she cuddles in closer, wiggling slightly. Keep your hand with a cool cloth going down her body, Lathrik. It is not a trap. "If you let him know it's serious, would he show up, or do they all go somewhere, a convention or whatever, that you could show up at to find him?"
“A paladin showing up at a death knight convention? That’d go well,” Lathrik says, his lips twitching into a slight smile, a joke to hide the worry she just pointed out. “If he gets my letter, he’ll come if he’s able.” He moves the cloth to her side. “Trial destroyed him a bit. Tried to get me to go with him back to Northrend. Said he needed me.”
"He was found innocent, though. They're not all 'oh no, I have been found innocent, my entire dark aesthetic has been ruined,' or something are they?" Natalyah shifts over more onto her side, resting her cheek against his thigh.
“He was a paladin, too, before,” Lathrik says, resting his free hand on her head. “And a noble of Lordaeron. Seemed he was trying to win over the living, get back to how things were, or at least convince people he had good intentions. The trial destroyed whatever confidence he had, painted him as an unwitting pawn of his enemy, and shredded what reputation he had to work with. They tore him apart in front of his friends, and even though he was declared innocent, he came away from it broken. Went straight back to Northrend, after, so I’ve no idea how he is.”
She frowns, even as she stretches into his hand, turning over now fully so she can look up at him. The scars on her side are obvious now in the light and open air. "That's terrible," she says. "He shouldn't just give up though. That was ages ago now. Society is too fickle to care that long about a scandal when there's a new one, and worgens alone should be strange and disconcerting enough to make all of that into Old News. And if not, maybe Peril and I can do something about making something more interesting seeming than a notorious death knight coming back into town. What if there was a sudden influx of foreign cheeses that would crash the delicate balance of the cheese market? There won't be, but what if?" Oh, that impish smile. She would do it, too, if it would help a friend of Lathrik's.
“Does it have to be cheeses?” Lathrik asks distractedly, running the cloth over her scars as though doing so too roughly could reopen them somehow. There is a light frown on his face. “Elling Trias is not a man to mess with, and I couldn’t tell ye if he’s got a sense of humor.”
"Oh, Elling," Natalyah scoffs. "He's just grumpy because he's always certain the next apocalypse is right around the corner and he keeps being right. Elaine's sweet, and she does have a sense of humor. But, no, it doesn't have to be cheese. It could be…" She trails off in thought, and then half-closes her eyes as he moves his hand over her. She might no longer be thinking up schemes.
Or maybe she still is.
"Evil bananas," she says at last. "Although there's no other kind, really." It's been a long day, and she is tired. And possibly a little hungry. Why are all these schemes food related?
“Evil bananas,” Lathrik repeats. He doesn’t make any suggestions about how ridiculous that might sound; perhaps he’s hoping she’ll come to that conclusion herself, after hearing the words echoed back to her.
But he doesn’t wait for that realization.
“Can I ask ye what the scars are from? You don’t have to answer.”
The question clearly takes her by surprise, and by some reflex she reaches up a hand to touch her skin as her eyes go from sleepy to wide, and startled.
What's odd, what might immediately occur to him, is that she doesn't set her hands at her left side where the faint, old white scars around her ribs and torso are, but to her right shoulder by her neck, her fingers grasping as if trying to feel something under her skin. The second odd thing is that he might think, for a moment, that there is something there between her fingers — a jagged ripping puncture dragging up as if something has torn through her — a blink and then no, nothing; it's the same smooth expanse of skin he's used to seeing, as has always been there.
She exhales shakily, and then, and only then does her hand drop down to where his is, where the old scars are. "Oh. These," she says, as if there were any other possible choices. "Yes. I mean, it's not anything that bothers me. They're from when I was young, an accident," she starts.
Lathrik takes in her reaction silently, his expression mild. He may not bring it up, or even acknowledge that he saw it, but the information is now tucked away in his mind. “An accident?” he prompts, refreshing the water on the cloth and dragging it along her torso in long, soothing strokes.
The touching works exactly as advertised, soothing something in her as she relaxes back into him, half-closing her eyes again, but there's a curling up against him more reminiscent of how she sleeps as a worgen than before. "Mmhm. I was nine." She moves her hand off her scars and back onto him, tracing a nebulous shape at his left hip. "I told you before, I was born like this, missing most of a leg. So, when I was a baby, I couldn't walk or anything. I was just moved from place to place, picked up and set down and that was all I could do. I got older, and eventually I was too heavy to move around so easily, and I learned to try to roll places, so I was put in a chair." She pauses, and there's old, tired anger growing in her face, a bitter tartness to her voice.
"A wheeled chair that my family controlled, of where I was allowed to be. I wasn't able to do anything for myself. I couldn't decide anywhere I wanted to be or go. Sometimes they would move me somewhere and just leave me there for most of the day. Even if I was hot or cold or wanted to look at anything else besides the walls of the room around me, I couldn't." She clears her throat from the emotions that recollection evokes, a dark storm on her face, and she moves her hand from his hip down to his leg, caressing it as if petting him might help her.
It does.
"When I was seven, I was brought out to a party my family threw, and I saw a man walking with a cane with a leg that didn't seem to work right. It gave me the idea that if I had something like that, I could maybe walk, too. I asked for one, but I was told that I wouldn't be able to, having never walked before, and that my leg was too weak to support anything. So I spent the next two years forcing my leg to move, to try to grow stronger, and practicing with it. Eventually, I decided I was ready. My parents were out at a party for the day, and I was left alone in my room. I stood up and I tried to move around as I had planned, with an umbrella I had stolen some time before, thinking I could use it as a cane.
"It wasn't a complete success," she says, her voice dry. "Obviously. I made it a few steps, and then crashed onto the low table with a vase, which broke under me as I hit the table, shattering it into my ribs. Since I was mostly alone in the house, there wasn't anyone to hear me scr — yelling, for help, and I could not get up myself. I just had to wait until they came back. That's why there are scars. By the time they called the healer, it had set." She shrugs, like it no longer matters, but the look on her face says it very much still does, old pain twisting her lips, but also a deeply stubborn pride.
"It was after that they realized they could no longer control me or what I did by just putting me where they wanted me, so they would have to help. I was allowed to start seeing a doctor to work on walking, which I did, and six months later, when I was ten, they assigned Rhodes to me, to prevent future accidents of their helpless daughter."
The gentle stroking continues, and Lathrik seems to be relying on it to keep his emotions in check. “They treated you like a doll,” he says flatly. “Left to sit wherever it would trouble them the least. You were right to claim your freedom.” It sounds conclusive, but from the strain in his voice, there are things he is holding back, leaving unsaid.
She smiles at him, that mischievous grin like she has a secret and only he gets to know it, as she pushes up into a sit so she can kiss him, a seeking movement as if she might try to sip the unsaid words from his lips directly.
Lathrik takes the kiss from her, and while it isn’t painful, it is a hard, angry pressure, and the arms that wrap around her shake with barely restrained rage. The answer to her seeking is not given in words, but in raw emotion. What he would do to her family if he encountered them, if rationality failed him and anger won over, melting into desperate, pleading love; what he would have wished for her, what should have happened, who she should have had in her life.
But none of that changes anything, and so, at the end of the kiss, Lathrik resumes the cleaning, wiping down her leg with the cloth.
“I don’t like your family,” he says. It might be an understatement.
Natalyah has a drowsy electricity to her, zaps and jolts of stirred passion at war with a deep satiation from earlier, underscored by exhaustion from stress. She could keep kissing him all night, except that really, she can't, physically. Her stamina is not on par with his.
She makes an amused sort of snort as she leans forward to set her arms around his neck. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm not really especially fond of them myself, to be honest." It doesn't sound like a new thing she's said or come to terms with. "I realized it in Gilneas, after a year, noticing how little I missed them, how much I felt better not under their roof. When I came back to them, it really was because there was nowhere else to go." She raises her brow, smiling at him fondly, that impish tilt of her lips. "Or so I thought. It's strange to say, but they did me a favor in the end, really. If I had been back in that cage, I might not have met you properly. I'd have been Lady Natalyah, probably already halfway through hasty marriage negotiations with some third rate nobleman willing to take me on despite my 'advanced age.'" The face she pulls at this is an obvious indictment of that possible alternative future. Ew. Groce.
She doesn't wait more than a beat before she moves a hand to poke at the scar on his shoulder. "What about you? Do you even remember where all these are from?"
Lathrik glances at the scar she’s indicating, and his expression deepens into one that looks slightly brooding. “That one’s recent,” he says. “Southshore. It was an arrow from a Dark Ranger. Disabled my sword arm. I started to lose consciousness not long after I realized it, and after that…” He shrugs.
She is immediately and obviously chagrined, leaning towards it to press a kiss over the scar, smoothing her fingers over it like the kiss can retroactively work to heal the scar now, and she trails her hand down his sword arm, frowning a little as if caught on a memory from the words. Sure enough, she slides past various others long healed scars to the one from Duskwood, rubbing it with her thumb, frowning harder as she sighs, leaning her head into his shoulder, the soft silk of her hair brushing against his chest from the way she bows her head.
"This one's from me, isn't it? 'Sword arm can't catch a break,'" she says, and this time when she repeats it, there's no mockery or flippancy as there was in Duskwood, but a deep penitence.
Lathrik watches her with soft fondness as she kisses the scar, his eyes following her to the next.
“Oi. You didn’t give me the wound, Natalyah,” he says, his free arm sliding around her waist. “This one we both earned, and I will never regret it. But aye, I’d only recently been cleared for duty again, when I met ye in Duskwood, which is why seeing another injury there so soon was a bit of a nuisance. Wouldn’t’ve happened if I’d been more capable.”
"Don't," she orders him, in that fierce way of hers, that same tone from when he apologized for not feeding her. "Don't do that. Sinners and martyrs, Lathrik. You had to rush into an unexpected situation rapidly escalating, where you fought off and killed three feral worgen, two of which you did after being injured, all the meanwhile defending a mouthy, troublesome civilian who looked like the worgen you were fighting." Once again that urge to defend Lathrik overrides her own defense.
She pulls back from his shoulder enough to be able to look at him, exasperated indignation at war with sweet love on her face. "I don't know that it can ever really be measured against what you carry, or if it means enough when it's only one person, but you have to know it: you've saved me, Lathrik. Not just then, but a dozen ways since. You say you're not good at protecting, but you're wrong. You protect me, and I let you, because you do it right. So give yourself the credit you deserve," she tells him, and it's an oddly protective threat.
Lathrik’s brow furrows at her defense of him. “I won’t improve if I ignore my shortcomings,” he says. “Your critique that day was justified. I shouldn’t’ve have been injured there. If it had been inflicted with teeth instead of claws, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. I’m grateful it turned out the way it did. That I was able to save you. Sometimes… I worry I might lead you into danger, and fail to pull you back out. If that happens, no matter how many times you claim I’ve saved you… it won’t be enough. That’s why I must face my failures.”
Natalyah reaches to grab his right hand and hold it up between them. "I'm not asking you to ignore it when you could do better, or when you do fail, because everyone fails sometimes. But ignoring your successes isn't helping you either. I'm not going to stop reminding you of them until the day you look me in the eyes and show me that when you turn the compassion you have for me in the Light onto yourself, it doesn't go out. I'll give you mine until you can do that, but someday, Lathrik, you're going to do it, and that kind of day won't ever repeat itself." She tosses her head and points her finger out towards his chest. "Not the least because I can't have you meeting stunning and fascinating women out in the woods all over the place. That was a one time thing."
He gazes at his hand in hers, and pulls on a distant, lazy smile. “Aye, someday,” he agrees. “But I don’t think I’ll be findin’ any other stunning, fascinating women in the woods. You’re unique in that.”
She pokes a finger at the edge of his lazy smile, a little like someone with a pin popping a balloon. "Don't you try to sweet-talk me, Lathrik," she warns tartly (technically for the second time of the night, unbeknownst to him), but it's also too obvious that it's extremely effective, and she's preening under the warning. She's also, a moment after the words, yawning with a near-bone cracking intensity, and sagging after the yawn back onto him.
"I have to sleep," she tells him, unnecessarily, and sleepily. "So do you. You have your mana potion for the morning?" Fuss, fuss.
“I do,” he says, holding her supportingly. There is a brief moment of anxiety where he glances towards the other room, his eyes seeking his clothes, but he gives up on that in favor of keeping her close. “Let’s get some sleep then, aye?”
He's not the only one with a touch of anxiety on his face, although in her case, her glance is down, at herself and what she is still wearing — her human form. She huffs out a sigh. "It's times like these I really wish this was really me," she admits, something bitter in her voice. "It's not all bad, the curse. I always wanted to know what it felt like to actually run, and to just always have the option to get up and move whenever I wanted, to not always need something to help me. Having teeth and claws on demand really doesn't have a downside, either. But this?" She pulls back from him a little more, in preparation for the fact that she's about to become a whole lot bigger before she lies down fully. "This is definitely a cost."
The black silk fur encases her, and their size difference swaps. The fur covers her fully, thick and very soft. If there are places within the fur that hide deep, four-year-old scars, it would take someone really sinking their fingers into those places to find them; they don't show on the surface.
Lathrik lies down on his back, though one hand still seeks her, finding her side and gently petting the surface of her fur, smoothing it down. He is not searching for any scars, instead simply enjoying her presence. “I love you no matter the form, Natalyah, I hope you know it. And if not, I just told ye.” His eyelids half close. Maybe he’s getting sleepy too.
She watches him for just a moment longer before she leans over, blows out the candle, and curls up tightly next to him. It's similar to how she has the past several weeks, except much closer, pressed fully against his side, under his arm, her head resting on his shoulder rather than his chest. The petting smooths more than her fur; whatever anxiety she had seems to have vanished under his touch and his words. One long arm pulls the blankets over them both, a claw snagging only briefly on the fabric. She curls her hands in, tucks them carefully against herself to not scratch him in the night.
"I know it," she says as she closes her eyes, to fall asleep next to him, both of them wearing nothing but their curses in the darkness.