Songs of Nicholas Roy (Van) [completed]

[Dhanya]

2nd of Summer, 510 A.V.

It was morning and the sun had just begun to rise. The air was still cold and the grass still damp from dew. The Striders were waking, beginning their day by moving closer to Endrykas. Milling among their number was one small, saddled pony, his reins looped over his stirrups to discourage him from roaming. He seemed content to wait, ears pricked as he watched his mistress imbetween looking imperiously at the taller horses around him.

Pygmy quite liked his pride, even though she now understood what she had been told about it coming before a fall. She was leaving the Sea, heading for the desert for a season. She needed the change and she wanted to be as far from Riverfall as she could be. Still, she couldn't go without saying goodbye to Van. She could feel the bond now and wondered how she hadn't seen it before. She needed to cut it before she could feel free again.

Katya had never told her how a Kelvic might break their bonds and she understood why only now. It was going to hurt her more than she could tell but she was willing to face it. She'd been a child playing at being an adult.

She wished for ignorance again, it had been so much simpler. Pygmy had ignored thoughts of the future for a reason. It was difficult to maintain hope in the face of a realistic outlook. She would have to become stronger than that.

She had cut her hair. The strands still lay at her feet in a small bundle, ready for the birds to steal. She had thought it was fitting. Pygmy knew that Van would be out early on the Sea, she was waiting for him.

[Vanator]

Another sleepness night had left Vanator frustrated and fed up.... and curious. Curious that his Strider was waiting outside of his tent, whinnying impatiently. A ride. Riding out of the crowded city sounded like a good idea. Van strapped on the yvas, and within a few chimes Backlash was carrying him through the Knotted Gates. Once the mare hit open grass, she touched the land as only her breed could, a gifting from their mother Semele. She launched across the plains, and Vanator thought that, if he had looked behind him, he would have seen the grass smoldering and smoking beneath the Strider's thundering hooves. But Vanator did not want to look back at Endrykas. He focused his attention on the horizon ahead. But the clever Strider had different plans. In a bone jarring manuever that was true to her name, Backlash bolted aside, turning to the herd of Stiders heading towards the city. The buckskin mare skidded to an abrupt halt that brougt Vanator's backside out of the yvas and nearly vaulted him over the horse's head. As if on cue, the mass of horses parted to reveal a pony and a woman standing amid the noble Drykas mounts. It was Pygmy. Vanator's heart jumped into his throat. He had not seen Mi for ten days, not since he returned to his tent from the marriage arrangement to find Pygmy and all of her stuff gone. After seeing her every day for the entire season, her sudden absence caused Van to miss her acutely. But he did not blame her. In fact, he wouldn't blame her is she hopped on her pony and rode off without a word. At the least, he would certainly be welcomed with a storm of tears and a severe dose of the Kelvic's razor-sharp tongue. But he had to go to her. He was drawn to her. Backlash was tired of waiting, and began to walk over to the girl and her horse. Van studied her with an profound ache in his heart. Pygmy had cut her hair. She had let it grow out over the season, but now it lay in a heap at her feet. She looked older, she looked like a...woman. He didn't know if it was the nature of Kelvic aging, or that she simply had become more of a woman in his eyes. She was attractive and...desirable. He could not quite explain it. He supposed it didn't matter now. All that was ending. The Drykas slid off of the Strider's back to land in the grass several feet from Pygmy. There was nothing he could say to her that could begin to explain his actions, his grief at what he had put the girl through. He uttered one word. It was wrapped in sorrow, repentance, regret and finality. "Mi."

[Dhanya]

Pygmy would have known he had arrived had her ears been deafened and feet off the ground, unable to feel the earth tremble as Backlash approached. She did not look to him at first. She closed her eyes against pull of the bond and the painful relief she could feel at his presence. When the Strider reached her, she turned to touch her muzzle, leaning her forehead against Backlash's brow.

"Thank you for everything." She whispered to her, sad beyond measure that she would likely never see Backlash again. The horse had shown her something beyond her own experience and it would remain treasured for the rest of her life.

She sighed, standing back, "I have to speak to Van now."

Backlash whickered and stepped away, towards the other horses of the plains. She stopped by Pon, who snorted and stamped his foot, almost conversationally. Pygmy did not want to look away from them and towards Van. Her mettle was already being tested.

Still, she did not see herself as a coward. When she finally looked up, her eyes rimmed by dark circles, she was almost gratified to see that he seemed lost and tired as well. Then she felt the bond again and rued how the feel of it made her want to only please him, to make him smile. She was not going to do that.

He was as handsome as he had ever been, though she could see the lines about his face, made deeper by the morning light. She could see his strength and kindness, all the little things that she had been attracted to, all the things that had made him seem like a safe man to love.

It was obvious in hindsight, as a great many things were, he would have been settling for less if he had chosen to be with her. Her face lost its weary expressionless quality and gained a small frown. The world outside Zeltiva was not so different to how it had been within the city. She had been loud and raucous so as to drown that knowledge out. At least some of the time, part of it had been natural inclination.

"You." She said, feeling a burst of painful humour at the pun she had just made. It had always been about him and about how much she had wanted to please him.

She was like a dog. She felt like a dog.

She touched her heart and took a deep breath in, felt the beats from within her chest. She decided to let him lead the conversation. It would be much more comfortable for her and give her time to ready herself for what she was about to do.

[Vanator]

Pygmy did not meet his gaze. The fact was both a relief and a sting. Vanator simply stood and watched as she shared affections with Backlash. The Strider swished her tail, seeming to sense the girl's sorrow. Van could sense it as a wave against his chest. The sadness in her voice, the finality of sighed her words, 'I have to speak to Van now.' Both Drykas and Kelvic watched their mounts interact, both avoiding the inevitable eye contact. Finally Pygmy raised her head to look at Van. Her eyes still fascinated him, now glassy amber irises crossed with narrowed horizontal pupils. The dark rims around them belied the emotional exhaustion Mi had experienced....at Vanator's doing. The horseman gave her a small, half-hearted grin and looked down as she made her joke. Typical Pygmy. He studied her, not having seen her this close for days. Grief had stolen the usual bright, adorable shine from her heart-shaped face. A burning guilt rose from his gut to his chest. He fought the urge to reach for her hand, having missed her touch. Pygmy was holding her peace, forcing him to find words that were difficult to form, and probably pointless to speak. The Kelvic was passionate about her feelings, and Van braced himself for whatever reaction he may get. "Pygmy"...Van sighed, his eyes darting to the sky, then back to her somber goat eyes. Gods...why did he have to do this? The more he looked at her, the more difficult he found to even contemplate letting her go. "I...I didn't plan this. It just happened." How was he going to make is sound anything other than absolute disregard for her feelings? He groaned inside. "I don't know how to make you believe this Pygmy. Oh gods, I did not want you hurt you. You are so special to me..." Again he felt the regret that he did not give her a chance, that he did not allow her to get closer to him. Van woke up everyday and she was there for him. The others, he had seen rarely, but Pygmy was there all the time. Why did he overlook her until now? "I don't expect forgiveness," his eyes darted to the ground before finding hers again, "but I didn't want you to leave before I told you, no matter what has happened, that I have never met anyone like you, that I feel blessed to have had you with me this season." He wanted to say it. He knew it would mean nothing to her, but it was the only way he could describe the feeling that had flourished so recently. "Mi....I do love you."

[Dhanya]

Pygmy considered her words before speaking them. It was uncomfortable for her. She felt far better suited to living on wit and instinct, though it would have been inappropriate to the moment. If she was to end this, she would do so carefully.

"You asked another woman to marry you after living with me for an entire season, just over a day past going to bed with me." She replied, smiling unhappily, framing the experience for the both of them. "That seems less than accidental."

The honesty was going to hurt Van, she knew it would but it hurt her as well. It went against everything her mother had told her about treating a bondmate, it went against her every inclination, except for the most important one. Pygmy believed that she was worth loving. All the ensorcelled animal logic she possessed could not yet beat that one conviction. She would say her lot because if she did not, she might stop believing that she deserved as much, even if she was unlikely to ever get it.

She finally looked at Van. For all he had come to know her, he could not see what was hiding in her gaze. Even if she had possessed human eyes, he would not have been able to see what was hiding there. It was a storm that she was having great difficulty riding out.

"You don't know what it's like to love someone more than they will ever love you." She said, her voice now wavering slightly, the bitterness beginning to creep in more strongly. "I am... resigned to my fate. I trusted you not to disrespect that."

Her small hands were now fists by her side. She felt so young and so outside of herself. She could see how she had ignored what had been right in front of her, the reality of not being human or some other, nobler race. Kelvics had love and adoration, loyalty that did not consider logic. They were bred to be stupid when it came to finer judgement, so ready to accept what their loved ones told them, taking it on trust. Pygmy was a goat. If there were a less trusting animal alive, it was probably still impressed by goats. She would not be taken advantage of, even though the only thing she had to offer was her dedication, which was worth less than breeding or skill.

"You had to have known how much I cared about you." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "It was more important to seal a marriage with someone than it was to tell me that you were considering it first. I am your after thought."

It was easier to see it now. The clipped inflection around every word, the thickness of her accent returning. When she was upset she fell back into ways of speaking she had long left behind, into patterns that she had been taught from birth. She was being careful in a way that was most likely jarring to Van, who had only seen something like it once before, when she had met his parents.

"I am worth much more than that."

[Vanator]

The tone of her voice, the sobriety of her words, were the coherent expressions of a woman. He had underestimated Pygmy. True to her open nature, the Kelvic spoke her mind and heart without padding. No one else had put voice to the facts of the matter, to lay out the crux of his crime. He was defenseless. Not all she assumed was entirely true, but in the end it did not change the facts. She was no longer the young, child-like goat that threw tantrums when she did not get her way. She was as well-spoken in her accusations as an Ankal arguing the Law. Not that she was without emotion, it was just that Van could not read what those emotions really were. His soul sunk into blackness as she spoke the finely aimed arrows, plainly laying out for his own ears exactly what he had done to her. But her last statement sparked something, a small consolation in the dark mess he has wrought. Pygmy did realize her value. She knew she was worthy of more than he had given, or not given to her. "I blew it with you Pygmy, I know. Its true, I knew how you felt about me, almost from the first day you came to Endrykas." There was no sense in being anything but truthful with her, she deserved it, deserved to know it all along. "I didn't know what to do, I had never met a Kelvic before, you were so...different. It...scared me a bit I guess. But as we spent more time together, there was something that drew me to you. I resisted, for several reasons." He would not tell her about the feelings between he and Khiara, what he had told the Vantha just the day before. "Pygmy....I have no excuses. I didn't regret spending the night with you. I would have done it stone sober because I wanted to. But I will tell you I never planned to get married. I went to that meeting thinking it was some clan business. But when I found out what my family had planned, I saw that I knew the woman, had met her early in the season and didn't know if I would ever see her again. Thats why I never told you about her. I never did see her until that meeting. But I loved her Mi, and when I saw her all I was thinking about was me." His confession evoked a self-loathing that far exceeded that which Khiara's rant had raised. He had to admit that he had minimized the girl, that is actions proved that he did not take into account her feelings, did not value her enough to even discuss it with her. Gods, they had finally opened up to one another. He bit back the words he wanted to say, because it would only sound hollow if he told her he loved her now. Van could not have felt smaller or more of a worm. While yesterday he defended himself vehemently against Khiara, he had nothing left to fight for here. He wanted to kneel before the woman and offer his neck to her.

[Dhanya]

Pygmy closed her eyes. Feeling some relief that Van at least acknowledged that he had been considering himself first. It was not as if Pygmy had never been guilty of the same, though not to such an extent. It was painful but at least it promised closure. She felt a pang at the thought that he did not regret spending the night with her. It was as if he were saying he was pleased that he had exploited her, though she knew his words did not reflect his intent, even if they did display the result.

"What do you know about me?" She shook her head, that hadn't been what she had meant to say. "What do you know about Kelvics?"

She could feel the bond more keenly now and she took a moment to feel it, as if it were her own djed. She imagined it to be a rope between them, shaping it into something she could cut away in her own mind.

She would tell him, then she would be able to break away and be free again.

[Vanator]

"There are a lot of things I don't know about you Pygmy. I don't know why you left Zeltiva, I don't know anything about Kelvics, I never took the time to find out. There's a lot you don't know about me either." Van did bristled a bit when he ended his statement. If Pygmy cared so much about him, why did she never ask about the Lacun mark? She had seen him plenty of times bare chested? When did she ever ask why his sisters left the pavilion? They were both guilty of not reaching out to the other. Not that that would help him now. He paused. There was more, but he didn't know what. Van fell silent and gave Pygmy room to get it all out at him.

[Dhanya]

Pygmy raised her shoulders in a small shrug. The point was quickly becoming moot. She hadn't asked because she hadn't known there was anything to it and had there been something, it would have brought conversation back to her eventually. She didn't speak of her past because she was afraid that a runaway slave could become a slave again all too quickly. She didn't want to be returned like lost property.

"We need other people. Like dogs need a master, that's how it is for us. We're made that way and there's nothing we can do about it. We live short lives and we die young and we need a master." Pygmy took a deep breath. "I've never lived with anyone before. Ever since I,"

She almost said something she would have regretted.

"Since I left home, I've moved around every few weeks, away from Zeltiva. I stopped because of you. You were kind to me and I was doing everything I could to please you, just because of that. I wanted to do whatever it was that would make you happy. I thought that maybe you might..."

That dream was gone. All the contentment of being bonded to another person had leapt away as well. She was ready to tear the bond away, though she was shaking now from the fear and the lingering unease that came with defying her instincts.

"I can't stay bonded to you because I would always be your servant and I don't want to stay with you just because it would be convenient for you. I adore you in the face of everything else and I have no reason to want you so, except that I'm made to serve others. I don't want to want that, it's insane and hurtful and destructive."

She looked him in the eye, "I have to go but I need to break this bond first, can you even feel it?"

It pierced her like a knife. She wondered if perhaps he could not even sense it, this tie that had so strongly overpowered her.

[Vanator]

Van listened carefully as Pygmy explained the truth of her Kelvic nature. It made him uncomfortable, the way she talked about Kelvics, about herself, like she was an animal. Well, he knew she was, but he never saw her that way. Master? Servant? The Drykas knew only that Kelvic's could bond with people. He never thought about it, he rarely thought of her as anything but Pygmy, like she was some unique creature, not part of a strange race of shifting animals. His brows furrowed in confusion. So, did she really love him at all, or was it all this bond thing? Who was hiding what from whom? Vanator thought back over the season, how he found himself drawn to Pygmy, remember how he thought it felt strange, but assuming it was affection growing for the girl. Had this bond affected him and she knew it, and never told him? His self-hatred gave way to anger at the perceived manipulation, but he kept his peace. He could see the turmoil on Pygmy's face. This was more than just about love gone wrong. It was about who she was at her core, about defying her own nature and being her own person. He could not deny her that. Vanator looked at the Kelvic, a new respect for her lacing his tone. "Yes, I guess I did Pygmy. I didn't know what it was, but even now it draws me to you. I don't know now if what I felt for you was real, or if it was this...bond." Knowing the truth only made that draw more powerful, and he resisted stepping closer. "If there is a bond between, us, it has to be broken." Van agreed.