Nightshade: Chapter XVIII
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XVIII–The Ancestor and The Study
Orion knocked an arrow as he crouched in the long wet grass of the temperate field, wild yellow and green flowers amongst the brown fox tails waving feathered in the wind. He listened closely as Aren flapped his blue wings up above, casting a shadow on the earth as his master focused in on his target.
As the bird cawed, Orion released, watching the arrow swim straight through the green sunlit blades hitting a white rabbit in its small heart. He let loose again, passing the caught game and sticking another to meet the same fate.
He heightened, putting his bow on his back as he removed his hunting knife and took the rabbits from the shallow wetland puddles.
Aren swooped down beside him, skimming the surface of the grassy water as he grabbed a red water snake within his yellow talons.
Orion watched his eagle eat it quickly as it slithered in protests. “Thanks buddy.” he said, acknowledging his bird's sense of protection over him. Orion ruffled Aren’s feathers at half his height as he passed, removing the arrow from the game.
Aren took off again behind him, his large wings flapping out as he lifted back into the sky. Orion looked upward, spotting grey thunderheads approaching the coast line through the mountain valley.
A storm was brewing in the wind.
And something did not feel right.
He breathed deeply, closing his eyes as he opened his mind. He slowly unwound the pot lid on his gifts, leaning into them gently to not get swept away with the Norns’ bidding. As whispering bated on the wind, chilled air in the once hot and humid day, and mist clouded his mind, he knew he was in touch.
“Show me.” he said aloud, feeling his mind slipping into the vision.
Up high he saw the library tower, its curved path past a window and a dark chair before a wooden map, burned with images of the world.
He smelled bittersweet orange and tasted soft lips.
He pulled back from the vision, his breath coming faster as his mind unclouded. Thunder clapped ahead and a drizzle began to pour, his face to the sky, droplets falling on his cheeks.
Noë rubbed her finger tips with her thumbs as she held her palms out into the gentle rain, sounds of the rivets hitting the castle walls echoing all round her as the leaves in the garden pulled and waved in the stormy daytime.
Lefelgd’s cryptic words had echoed with her for days–longing to be deciphered as she restlessly stayed up long hours wondering if each night was the darkest. But in her heart she knew, each time she looked out a night window and saw a light–any light–that it was not the right time.
She had passed the Bromhillow tree tapestry many times, seeing nothing, not turns or doors between the King's and Orion's living quarters, and with Orion avoiding her since their kiss, she felt like stalker, hoping for a glance at him.
She breathed in the smell of the musk earth, rain and wet stone pacifying her as she chided herself.
“It’s a good place to think.”
She looked over her shoulder, a brief smile passing her lips as she turned back to the scenery of the garden.
Orion waited but as she did not start speaking he continued his approach, resting in the alcove of the window next to her. Her dark hair was swept from her waist today, a dress of royal blue satin falling off her shoulder.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been available to you as of late. I find myself… questioning some things that have more to do with me than they do you.”
Noë lifted her brows with her breath, sighing as her gaze moved to her rain soaked palms. “If I thought they had to do with me, I don’t any longer now that you’ve spoken to me. It’s more than most still do around here.”
He toyed with his signet ring as he sat on the stone and held back a laugh. He looked at her and swallowed. “Funny. Never imagined someone like you would get the reception I do.”
“Why not? Because you’re the only one different? The only one in the entire world, strange or troubled?” She rolled her eyes as she gripped the stone wall by her belly.
He held the quiet that fell between them, sensing now that she was more upset with him than he thought. “Are you trying to suggest that I feel that I’m the only one that’s suffered? Like no one else has ever felt isolated or lost?”
“No, I'm suggesting that you may or not be a coward, and I’m trying to discover which it is you are before I decide whether or not to follow you.” She toyed with the silver boar bracelet on her arm, the small pendant keeping her comfort as it curved underneath her fingerprint.
Orion stood up.
Follow him?
Did she know?
He looked behind them as two maid servants began down the hallway, bowing to them both as they spoke closely just out of reach of the rain.
This was not the place.
“Can I… show you something?”
Noë looked at him now, his hair darkened from being in the fields in the rain, smelling the wildflowers and spice on the air around him. She nodded once.
She followed behind his broad back as he led her through the courtyard and to the eastern wing, past a set of open doors that showed endless shelves of golden bound books, elves in priest robes shuffling between the stacks with bound books on alchemy in their palms and up the winding stairs past a statue of Idunn.
She kept close up the stairs behind him, stopping in front of what looked to be a wooden closet door. “A closet? You want to show me a closet?”
He gave her a look of impatience and opened the door, revealing a room that looked like a hidden study, dark wood furnishings and mounds of parchment rolled and unrolled with a desk of mahogany under a high window overlooking the valley outside of the gates and a wooden map hanging on the black stone wall with etchings burnt into it, marked as if someone were checking off a list.
“This was my grandfather’s study. He used to bring me here when I was a boy, tell me of his travels long past, that sort of thing.” He toyed with the keys in his hand as he looked around, stuck in the doorway. “I haven’t been in here since he passed.”
He followed her further in as she touched the paper on the wall, examining the words in swirling elvish as he spoke behind her.
“I thought that you might like to see it. Maybe… it would allow you to know some peace, find a story–a writ about your family–maybe.”
Noë looked at him as he shifted nervously, his skin brightening red. “That was thoughtful. Thank you.”
He firmed and gave her a stiff nod.
She crossed the room, the floorboards creaking under her deft feet. “Does it look as you remember it?”
Orion walked closer to the window, looking out as the storm clouds came further in. “No.” he looked back within the room and looked at the wooden map on the wall. “This was not here before.”
He came closer to it, feeling energy emitting from it as the air around it felt thick. It smelled kind of like…
He reached out, his fingers feeling burnt brown ridges in the tan board where a land formation made a crescent. It came to his surprise as he felt cool grass and cold rocky shores. Smoke and rain smelled of his grandfather, a half vision being shown to him as he felt his spirit within his heart.
Noë heard it, her senses filled with a spirit, light and cheery around her. She came closer to the board and touched his still arm, sharing the vision with him.
Together they saw Derkot, young as Lefelgd was, drifting ashore in a small boat led with a lantern, touching the lunar shores of the land at the peak of night with few crewmen. She could feel his spirit of adventure, hear his voice, smell the tobacco weed he liked, hot and sweet.
They pulled back, seeing each other in the study as they stared at one another in wonder.
“Did you see that too?” Orion questioned, his half vision becoming complete when she joined her mind to his.
Noë nodded. “What is that we keep doing?” she felt the warmth in her chest as she breathed heavily, Orion’s body seeming closer now than when she entered his vision.
He slid his hand closer to hers and took her left hand in his right, pulling her gently further to the board in front of his chest.
“Feel it again.” he whispered, this time guiding her hand to the spot he felt, her fingers brushing against it gingerly as his fingers laid over hers.
She felt his warm breath on her cheek, the heat of his hand guiding her to a land mass across the sea from the crescent round and bulbous, its jagged curves almost like rays of sun.
A vision overcame her and she felt the scalding sand and felt the scorched air against her cheeks. She saw Derkot again, his blond hair and his blind eyes bright as he trekked in desert clothing.
Orion flexed his palm against her, feeling every line, every divet of her knuckle as they stood joined, the warmth passing through his body and settling beneath his hips.
Seeing Derkot as a young elf, travelling the world as a crown prince instead of a king, smiling in the face of the sun shook him, flustering his sense of time. “I’ve never seen him this way. This board… he must have left it for me to see and embedded his memories within it.”
She looked up to the sun that felt as if it was really there, and shielded her eyes from its bright rays. “You can do that?”
He had long stopped questioning what was possible. He had seen many things in the power of the Norns, futures and pasts undreamed of in their world. He pulled them from the vision and held her in place. “You can do anything.”
She felt her face warm at his encouragement as she stood against him. “Maybe you can too.” she felt his hold on her tighten, his arm slipping further on her waist as he held her to his hips.
“You enhance my visions, and I…I was meant to be more to you than what I may be capable of being.”
She placed her hand over his and looked out of the window past the map. “You and your father are so alike.”
“Why is that?” He savoured her hand on top of his as she turned her neck further toward him in submission.
She sighed. “You’re both cryptic and irritating.” She listened to his quiet laugh in his throat as he pressed his cheek into her hair. “If you don’t like me, just tell me instead of elusively saying you can’t be more to me or that I’d be incapable of being independent in your presence. What does any of that mean?”
“It means that you’re dealing with people who know how dangerous it is interfering with fate. There are things that you just don’t know yet–”
“So tell me.” she said in challenge as she turned into him, leaning against the wall in front of him.
She searched his clear blue eyes as they caught the rays of sun poking through the grey clouds. “Just tell me what it is that everyone seems to know that’s meant for my life that I don’t?”
He made a fist with his palm on the wall, knocking it gently twice. “I…can’t. Just trust me when I say it to you–I can’t.”
“I don’t want to have to trust you, I want to know on my own. I don’t want to go from relying on my aunt to relying on you. I have to do things for myself some time.” she pouted as he stood above her, his eyes begging her to simply heed his words.
He exhaled and took her shoulders in his hands. “I know you want to prove yourself. It’s why I like you. You’re brave and your spirit is…compelling. But what’s coming is bigger than you, bigger than me–or any of us. And fate is not your friend. It does not bend, it does not break in the face of pressure. You can only cater to its patience as it fulfils what was intended for you.”
He saw her concern as he spoke and tried to be clearer. “I understand your impatience. It is not seldom that I feel it myself. But it is better to act of your own accord than try to maintain fighting fate. You are the only one who loses.”
“And what about you? Do you win? Or do you lose?” she whispered close to him as he held her gaze.
She looked on as his eyes harboured hers, the same dark blues seas of the vision in his sapphire eyes as he leaned over her lips, taking them softly with a wet click, their mouths meeting once more as they kissed slowly. Noë’s hands swept the tops of his shoulders as he gathered her waist, pressing her against himself.
Small and wound in his arms she felt his kiss, a quivering in her body as he crossed his tongue with her own. She felt his large hand settle under her rear cheek, cupping the soft round flesh he found there through the dress as her chest pressed into his core.
He lifted her and sat on the table in front of the window, her back leaning on the window wall edge, birds flying inland behind them as they felt one another through their clothes on the storm’s wind.
Orion felt the curve of her waist, and held the smell of her hair within his palms, heavy breathing thickening the air as he stepped between her legs, her thighs locking around his waist as he leaned over her, her clinging hands pulling at his red velvet gambeson.
Noë felt sweltering heat between her thighs as he removed his cloak, her own hands undoing the brown belt around his top as she yearned for more. She felt his cool palms move over her shoulders, undressing her as she did him, tugging the dress top, spilling out her brown breasts as he held her apex against the bulge in his pants.
She let loose a shaking moan as she felt his thickness through his pants, his head dipping to her chest as his pink tongue circled her nipple, taking it into his mouth. His hand held her still, her reach restrained with his palms on her biceps to keep her from hindering his access to her chest.
She ground her wet heat against him, groaning in time with him as feeling him clothed against her hips relieved some of the tension building between them.
He lifted his lips back to her mouth, eager to kiss her hard as she ground against him, rubbing her soft body along him.
“Wait, Orion–” Noë broke their kiss, panting with him with his gambeson unbuttoned, his well worked chest revealed in the ‘V’ of his divine lean physique. She felt her nerves overtaking her passion as he held her. “I haven’t…I’ve never…” she led hoping he would not make her say it aloud.
He scoffed lightly in disbelief. How is that one so pleasing, so full of beauty and sun as she had never experienced physical love?
He kissed the tip of her nose as she began to look worried. “We can just kiss. There does not have to be more.”
She lifted her hand to his neck, pulling the short hair there between her finger tips and kissed his lips briefly. “Have you…ever...?”
He rubbed her nose with his own, craving more of her space as their skin pressed together. “Once. It wasn’t very good.” He smiled with her laughter and gripped a handful of her rear. He was sure with Noë all would fall in place, not awkward or irregular as they met body to body.
She felt the raised white scar of the cut down his jaw and onto the reddening of his skin. She held his gaze as he set his head in her small hand, her finger swiping through the cream of his cheeks as his blue eyes peered at her. “What is it exactly that makes your eyes change? Sometimes they look misty, like they’re full of clouds.”
“It’s my connection to the Norns. When they’re misted their presence is with me and they become my sight. It's like living in the realm of our visions constantly, nothing feels or tastes real because I share my vessel with them.” his breath hesitated as her palms met his bare chest for the first time, his heart beating eagerly underneath her touch. “The thilreed helps me to feel and think clearly, suppress their presence and give me better control over them in my mind. The vision that made you faint was them overwhelming you.”
She traced the lines in his body as she learned each inch. “You feel that way constantly? That’s terrible. I can’t imagine.”
He did not hesitate to agree. And although his mother disapproved not knowing how it aided him, he had done well to keep many of his afflictions from her to avoid the worry it pressed her with.
He would continue to use it, until…
Until a more permanent way to silence them was found.
“Your void…what does it feel like within you?”
She touched her tummy idly as the rain began again. “It feels like a cold wind, swirling within me, sometimes telling me to do or say things unlike myself. Pressing me into doing things to harm others, like icicle spikes in my veins.” She felt it within her, pulsating at its mention. “Sometimes it slips and I read a mind or say something I shouldn’t. But I do fair in keeping it controlled. There was only once that I felt myself slip away when I was a child. I felt overwhelmed and I lost control.”
He saw the far away look in her eye and took her cheek in his palm, feeling the vision overcome him.
There they stood, a small Noë, her black hair tied with several ribbons as Dahlia kneeled beside her, playing in the lemon ferns in the blue wildflower grass. She touched a doe and her fawn gingerly as Dahlia smiled, petting their soft brown hides with the child, her silver eyes shining with wonder as she giggled, allowing it to eat grass from her hand.
It was then that an arrow pierced the doe in the neck, fresh red blood splattering across the child's clothes as Dahlia scooped her behind her body, readying herself with a knife on her belt as a man revealed himself, human and clothed tightly for the cold and scarcity of Fimbulwinter, his cheeks sunken with malnourishment.
Orion saw Noë’s eyes change to blue, her hair swirling into a ghostly white that looked like mist itself, projecting and ethereal as the hunter stiffened, walking closer as if forced.
Commanded to bring his own demise, he pulled the arrow from the doe with a squelch and stuffed it directly into his soft flesh, piercing beneath his Adam's apple as he choked on his own blood in front of the divine child.
Dahlia gasped in terror, shaking her niece as her eyes turned back to silver, her hair retreating back to black as she began to cry at the sight she caused.
He felt Noë’s presence next to him, shamed at what she had done. “It was likely the first deer he had found in a year. The game in the area liked our garden and visited often. I felt like they were my friends and he killed one of them. The whispers began and I could see and want nothing but his blood on my hands, and all he wanted was to eat.”
He pulled them from the vision as she shed a tear on the table in front of him. He swept it away. “You were a child. Your father slipped once as well.”
She shook away his explanation. She had heard the same story from Dahlia. Kirk too had struggled with living in the void, his despair driven by the lonely cold it caused within him. But in his tale he had not pushed his subject far enough to kill them. Noë had.
Her father may not have had the power to push past extremes, but Noë did. She would do anything, go to any length to right what she felt was wrong.
And that terrified her.
The apple had not fallen far from Hel’s tree after all.
“Feeding into the void feels…like home, like all is made right when I’m in its presence.” Noë looked up into Orion’s eyes as his forehead took to her own. “What does that say about who I really am versus who my father was? If my abilities–my wants lie so closely to Hel’s?”
He ran a hand down her back. “Hel’s power is not even a tenth of yours.” He took her palm and opened them facing upwards. “Your light–your fire–is more blessed than any curse she could conjure. I’ve seen what you can do with it. You are more than her blood. And the void is yours. That’s why she wishes for you–has searched for you all of your life. If she has you she controls the void, and through it makes anything that she desires.” He looked into her eyes. “You cannot let her have it. Swear to me. Even if she comes to you–finds you. You will not trust her, or go to her.”
She felt her breath shake as he begged her, concern layering his voice at a low pitch.
Why would she purposefully seek her out?
This much she had heard from Dahlia. What Hel wanted was all the worlds to be her domain, to rob Yggdrasil of its life. As long as she was in her right mind, she would not fall to Hel’s demands.
“I swear.”
He released the breath he was holding as she swore. “When you do come to understand what was meant for you–then we can speak clearly on our bond. It is not fair for me to feel this closeness with you when you aren’t sure why you feel drawn to me.” She felt her disappointment rise in her silent throat as he lifted the straps of her dress and rebound his own clothes. “But I do find myself caring very much for you.”
She helped him bind his belt and kissed him gently. “I care for you too. Will you avoid me still until this divine purpose falls into my lap?”
He grinned at her fire swelling in her gaze. She was timid, kind, passionate, and searing all at once. “Make light if you wish. But you will know when the time is right. It will come to you.” He held her as he looked out of the window.
He had seen it.
Whatever it was was coming on this storm.
And coming with a vengeance.
To be continued...