Rosaline
I didn't know what woke me. I could have been the sweet sunlight filtering through the thin tent walls or the brawl that was taking place just outside.
I woke with a groan, the pain of death and punches hitting me hard like I had crashed into a concrete wall. My hands were too tired to jerk up to my face and feel the bruise I knew had formed on my cheek. Looking over at Finn's sleeping form it seemed wrong to believe he had hit me. But I had forgiven him and the past was in the past (as was I). A soft smile formed on my face.
I ran my finger tips over his face; gently over his eyelids, careful not to wake him yet. Then over his strong nose and surrounding cheekbones. And last his lips before replacing my fingers with my mouth, placing the most lightest of kisses upon them, my hand caressing his face tenderly.
I went to pull away but Finn's hands had found themselves wound in my hair and he pressed my face, and lips, closer to his as he deepened the kiss, entwining our tongues and bodies. Pushing me on my back, Finn over powered me and hovered above me, running his fingers over my face.
"Does it hurt?" He mumbled as he dipped his head closer to mine and placed a single kiss on top of the blackening bruise. It was so light that I thought he had only hovered above me, our two bodies not touching.
"Only a little." I replied. I had wanted to say no, to spare him the hurt of knowing he caused me pain and tell him I felt nothing but I knew he wouldn't want to be lied to.
"I'm sorry." He said softly.
"I know," I replied, a soft smile playing on my lips as I looked up at him, "You are forgiven."
"Can I ask ye a question?" Finn said and I nodded for him to continue, "what are relationships like where you come from?"
It was a packed question and I hesitated for a moment trying to think how to get a full wikipedia page of information into something smaller and easier to understand. "Well, most people have many relationships before they get married, starting young, and they often sleep with most of them too but there are laws saying you can't have sex under the age of sixteen."
"There are laws restricting sex?" Finn asked, his brows rising.
"Yes, not that people follow them. I know many people who had sex under age. My friend lost her virginity on her fifteenth birthday."
"But ye were not one of them." Finn stated, a smirk on his face.
"No, I wasn't."
"What else can ye tell me?"
"Well when we get married and it doesn't work we get divorced, I know that that's probably something that never happens here, but the wife and husband split up and in most cases split their property and money in half."
"Here ye would get naething if we were to separate," Finn said, "good thing I'm not letting ye go. Again." He hesitated for a moment before continuing, "do ye miss yer home?"
"I wont lie," I replied, "I do, but I'll get over it soon, make my new home here. I wont ever forget it but I'll lose the longing to be there." Finn smiled in contempt at my answer and pressed a kiss to my lips. Just as we were deepening the kiss a large shout came from outside the tent and the commotion Finn and I were able to avoid until now.
Pulling apart, Finn was the first to leave before I followed swiftly, my green dress crumpled and sagging from sleep and wear and tear. Pulling the tents opening aside swiftly, I exited the tent to find my name being thrown about like a football in a match to the death.
"Ye won't touch Rose!" Graham was taller, scarier and meaner than I had ever seen him before. He stood near seven feet tall, his back arches as he looked down with scorn and hatred and the furious, yet shaking, cluster of warriors.
There were at lest five, seven at the most, but I couldn't see exactly how many as they were currently battling the other warriors and seemed to meld together until the enemy couldn't be told apart from the ally.
The man Graham was shouting at lunged for him and fists went flying in all directions but it wasn't long till I realised Graham had the upper hand and the other smaller, stockier warrior was tiring.
But just as Graham was going to land the final blow he was attacked from behind. Another warrior had launched himself on Graham's back, pressing a dagger hard against Graham's throat.
"One more move and ye die." He hissed in Graham's ear. Graham went rigid but the look of pure anger was still evident on his face. He dropped his own sword and less than a second later it was caught by Finn who swung it at the assailant and cut him down, a thin line of red on his back indicating where he had been hit.
The man fell to the ground unmoving. Blood seeped from the wound and his eyes were open, dead but open. No one moved to stop Finn as he attacked the other men fighting. He struck down two more men before the fighting stopped and those against my life and those for it retreated to opposite sides.
"Rose needs to die!" One of the men shouted to the crowd around us like a preacher to the villagers. Some nodded and joined his small group while the other's looked warily around or shouted back, telling them to shut up.
The three dead men lay on the ground in between the two groups at at the centre of the circle of observers surrounding us. No one moved them, no one mourned them. We were all silent for a moment.
"No one else dies. Especially Rose." Finlay barked at the group of men. One surged forwards but their leader held him back and replied, "She came back from the dead! What part of that doesn't scream trouble and danger to ye?"
"I don't care," Finn bit back, "and neither should you. Yer mission is to take down McKenzie and that's it."
"How can we do that when we have a witch in our ranks? She's meant to be dead not alive! We just have to kill her, put her in the ground where she's meant to be." The man shouted back, his face was red and puffy with anger and his fist was enclosed around the hilt of his sword.
"I'll put ye on the ground before ye even lay a finger on her." Finn growled taking a threatening step forwards. "I don't want to kill anymore men. If ye even have the slightest feeling or thoughts of killing Rose then ye leave now. If ye try to kill her then I kill ye."
The group of men hesitated for a moment, surprised that their Laird and leader was picking a woman over them but they picked up their fallen swords and bags before storming out of the camp and deep into the forest. A few others from the crowd surrounding us left but most stood rigid, watching the others leave.
Calum stepped forwards and Finn turned to him, "What about ye?"
"She is my cousin's betrothed. I wouldn't touch her. I swear it." Calum replied with a curt no before stepping back into the crowd. His change in behaviour and attitude was surprising as when we first met he called me a whore multiple times and tried to get Finn to sell me to slave traders.
"Pack up men. We leave now." Finn said and turned from them, grabbing my upper arm to haul me behind him as he left the circle of warriors and dead men behind.
My feet dragged and I had to jog or risk losing my arm. Trying to pull from him I shouted at him to let me go, the warriors around us looking at Finn as he hauled me back to the tent. They didn't interfere. I was angry at Finn, at him pulling and tugging me around like he dictated where I went, where my life went. I may only be young but I was still in control of my won life, or at least I thought I was.
"Let go Finn! Don't push me around!" I shouted at Finn as he pulled me closer to the tent. I didn't like him pushing me around and telling me what to do. Yes that might have been what they do here but it wasn't what I believed in. I believed I had just as much rights and power in a relationship as him. Obviously he didn't.
Pushed roughly into the tent, I fell to the floor with a thud and cried out as my hip hit the ground harshly. Finn didn't seem to register this and turned to me with anger as he closed the tent opening behind him. My heart sped up with fear, more fear from when Finn had seen me wake from the dead earlier.
"What did I do to deserve this?" I demanded, bewildered by his sudden antagonism and roughness towards me.
"I was trying to help ye. I was taking you back here to safety and ye demand me to let ye go?" Finn shouted at me, I pulled away from him and crawled towards to back of the tent, "Ye don't get to tell me what to do! I am a Laird, a man! Ye will listen to me if you know what's good for ye!" With every word Finn started to drag himself closer to me, bent down and looking at me with intimidation.
"No I don't! I am a woman and I can do what I want, I don't have to listen to you!" I poked my finger at his chest and continued, "You don't get to pull me around where I want! Thank you for protecting me but you don't get to tug me to wherever you want to go!"
"If I had left ye out there who knows who else might have attacked ye!" Finn argued.
"I can protect myself very well thank you, I don't need your help!" I shouted back and Finn let out a loud laugh, tipping his head back to emphasise how ridiculous he thought my statement was. This only angered me more and my fists clenched and I pulled myself on my knees, still small and weak looking under Finn's strong frame.
A threat on my life had turned into a battle between partners.
With fury raging inside me before Finn could react my hand shot up and slapped him hard across the face. Whilst he looked at me with shock, and slight annoyance, I pulled the stupid golden band from my finger and threw it at him. He didn't try to catch it and it landed at his feet.
"You want to protect me, I get that, but what if I'm alone? I felt like I had no one when I found out the baby was gone. I relied on my self! I thought I could go to you but it was something I had to face on my own." Emotion filled me and I didn't acknowledge half of what I was saying. "I need you to understand that whether I'm with you or not I can look after myself. But you are so...so...big headed to see that! I'm not going to marry or fake marry or whatever the hell we are going anymore. You can take that ring back and my promise to wait for after the battle! I'm leaving and I swear to God if you try to follow me and make me go with you I'll kill you!" Standing up swiftly I shouldered past Finn who was stood immobile and looked back at him once before leaving the tent.
Pulling myself together and making my mind up I stormed from the tent, leaving a confused Finn behind. Striding across the field, with the early sun beating down on me, I held my head high and kept the tears in as I walked past the warriors gathered around the tent obviously listening in to our argument.
Striding fast and strong I walked into the woods, not realising how deep I had ventured in until all I could here was a symphony of birds and the crunching of leaved beneath my feet. No warriors stood around me now, only a clan of thick, cark trees with low swooping branches waiting to hit my head as I pass by.
What was I doing? I loved Finn. I wanted to be with Finn but the differences between the past and present were startlingly scary and I didn't know if I would ever be able to change my thoughts and values to those of a woman during this era.
Deciding I was too far gone to try and find my way back I kept walking forwards until there was a sudden commotion behind me and I faltered as I heard Finn's broken voice, "Rose. Gone?"
He had followed me.
A single tear fell as the realisation of my own earlier statement hit me. The baby was gone. It was only after I woke up from death that I realised that Finn's comments about me being pregnant were true but it was too late and the baby was gone. I felt an emptiness and when my hand had hovered over it I realised the warmth I had felt there before was gone.
I nodded one in reply to Finn's question, still not turning to look at him.
Arms snaked their way around my waist and a head fell on my shoulders, surprising me and I jumped slightly before recognising the warmth and smell of masculinity and wood that enveloped me.
Still standing rigid I had to fight hard not to fall into Finn's arms and find serenity in his embrace.
Lowering his lips to my ear, his nose gently brushing my hair, he whispered, "I'm sorry lass. Ye and I are so different. We were bound to butt heads one day."
I nodded in response, my silent apology for how I acted and the words spoken between us. I allowed myself to relax and forced myself to realise that we were both from different worlds and although I didn't want to I had to realise that women were treated differently here but that didn't mean that he didn't love me any less than.
"I'm sorry, everything has been too much. My life was never meant to be as dangerous and complicated as this. I was meant to grow up and get a stable job not frolic through the hills with some hot highlander." I turned so his arms know rested on my hips and I was looking up at his face.
Finn sniggered, "Ye think I'm warm?"
Laughing, my mood now much lighter and happier, I replied, "Hot means I think you are good looking, very handsome."
"Oh!" Finn's face lit up with realisation, and then something much more sly and sneaky, "So ye think I am handsome?"
"Any woman with eyes would." I replied, biting my lip.
Finn leant closer so his lips tickled my ear, "Well I think ye are a very beautiful woman. My woman."
"And you are my highlander." I replied before placing a gentle kiss on his lips.
"Let me do one thing." Finn asked me and I asked him, "what?"
Instead of answering Finn slung me over his shoulder, so fast I let out a shriek of fear and surprise followed by his hollow laugh.
"Put me down!" I shouted at him, the same issues from earlier coming to mind.
"Let me carry ye back like this," Finn replied and before I could ask why, as if reading my mind he continued, "I don't want the men thinking I gave into ye."
I huffed in annoyance but didn't fight as he carried me back through the forest, his hand slapping my bum every time I complained about how uncomfortable I was.
It wasn't long when we broke through the edge of the trees and into the clearing and Finn slung me back on the floor in front of the warriors, a few jeering out. I caught Finn send a sly smile their way and I held back from slapping him again. I'd let him have this one.
"If ye two are done I recall my Laird saying we were leaving." Graham interrupted us (which seemed to be a habit of his) and Finn and I pulled apart, our hands still entwined. Finn walked me over to Ares, hauling me on before leaving to sort some business with the warriors.
Alistair, on his own horse, trotted over to me until our horses with side by side. "Ye seem to have forgiven him easily, and him ye."
"Sometimes we have to make compromises. If it means that I have to take a little possessiveness now and then to be happy then I accept." I told him. Alistair's face was a dark ashen look of sadness and only slight contempt. It had been like that for a while now.
"But are the compromises always worth it?" Alistair asked.
"For him? Yes." I replied.
"Well then," Alistair's horse started to walk away, "I hope everything works out for ye."
"So do I."