I slammed the door in his face behind me, there was no way that he was getting away with this. He could have told me it was going to be Finvarra and then I would have had time to tell him that there was no way in hell he was going to convince me that it was a good idea, let alone convince me that I had to meet with him outside of command performances.
The door opened behind me as I began tugging the riding gloves off of my hands before turning and tossing them at Raven. He swatted them to the ground and began to make his way towards me.
"Mila you're being childish," he stepped through the heavy doors closing them gently behind him, "Would you stand still!" Raven shouted running to catch up to me.
His hand wrapped around my forearm stopping me dead in my tracks, my fingers loosened from the fist. Looking from his hand to his face we both seemed a little surprised. The urge to throttle him until he passed out was still lingering, I was working on not acting on my first thought. The effort really showed when I had to deal with Raven pulling political cards on me.
He released my arm just a quickly taking a step back, his shoulders heaved heavily as he tried to gather himself and catch his breath. Raven ran his hand through his scarlet hair tossing the annoyingly long bangs from over his eyes, he looked just as tired as I felt if not worse. The look was disarming, and he didn't even know it.
"He's been bothering me for a month now for a single meeting with you, alone. I was able to at least convince him to allow me there." He spoke slowly keeping eye contact but keeping a fair distance.
"Then why didn't you just tell me he had been harassing you?" I tossed my arms out to the sides, I had helped him out with every other single thing that had come up. It was a little insulting that he didn't feel comfortable telling me straight out, I would have been a hell of a lot calmer hearing in advance.
He looked me dead in the eyes, "You wouldn't have agreed if I had told you. I know you Mila, you despise Finvarra. But he has the right to ask for your council, you'll have to meet with him." Raven was being reasonable, too bad I wasn't in the mood to be reasonable or adult.
I went to argue with him more but caught quite a bit of movement in my peripherals. The open courtyard was beginning to turn into spectator stands as people began to peer through windows and off of archway platforms. Raven and I arguing wasn't new to them but it had been at least three months since we had gone at it.
"I want to finish this inside please." I held out my hand, despite being furious with him about Finvarra I still wanted to hold his hand. The complex emotions that filled my head were disturbing and boggling.
He reached out taking my hand stepping beside me, "Hit me and I'll push you into the pond." The grin was devilish and was another one of those disarming looks. It took me a few heartbeats to catch up and find my voice.
"I know where you sleep, I'd be careful" I poked the center of his chest returning his gaze.
Raven rolled his eyes before tugging me to the inner doors, they opened for us without so much as a gesture or word. The pampering was going to go straight to my head if I wasn't careful and kept my guard up. As they shut behind us the heavy wood scraping along the stone floor, another act of wonderful design and concept. I wonder if any castle builder thought of really big sliding French doors, or at least something a little more appropriately sized for the people actually living here now.
As I was caught up in my little monologue internally I let Raven lead us. It was when we got to the steps and I tripped that I was torn from the frustrating thought of trying to clean giant sliding French doors. The smudges alone would be a herculean task.
"Hey!" I shouted pulling my hand away from him, "I'm pissed at you."
"You can't say no to meeting with him!" Raven shouted back throwing his hands in the air, "You even admit it. If I had flat out asked you to meet with him by yourself, you would have refused. Your opinion is one of the reasons I need you here. I had hoped that it was something a little more than rumors and small talk." He deflated as he spoke as if it used all the will in his body to put this argument forward.
"Fair enough, I'm stubborn and a bitch more than ninety percent of the time. But you've been trusting me more. I just didn't think you felt the need to mislead me like that." I made this difficult and I couldn't and wouldn't undo it, he called it upon himself. He had no idea who I was, what I was like normally, and that situation was anything but normal even for me. "I gave up my best-friend for you, I think we could have handled an argument about meeting Finvarra." That wasn't a complete lie, although I can't remember very much of Jocey she hadn't given up on me.
He reached out to take my hand I pulled it back keeping enough space between us that he couldn't easily touch me. He was disarming. The look of hurt in his eyes dark violet eyes was no longer my favorite thing to see. It made my palms sweaty, and my chest tightened.
"But we didn't have to argue about it, we met with him and nothing happened." He argued with me, the irony seemed to be a little light for him to see.
"We're arguing now though. I don't like Finvarra, I can't change that fact unless his entire personality does a 360. You know this, you could have gone yourself to meet him."
With a heartbeat, his soft hurt eyes solidified, "And risked lying to you about that. I made my decision Mila, and just like you always say I can't change it."
Nodding my head slowly I began to back up the stairs, "You're right, but understand that the next time you do something like this – especially with Finvarra – you better be prepared for me to kick the ever-living shit out of you."
"I was prepared for you to do that today," He admitted breaking a smile, "I'm pleasantly surprised by your mild reaction."
Thinking about fighting him only made me feel the weight of exhaustion, "Honestly I'm too tired to fight, and that's saying a lot for me." The work that Avalon needed was too much for Raven and I to handle on our own.
"Mila" He hurried up the steps to catch up with me, "If you need to lay down I can handle today."
I appreciated the offer, it wasn't something I was used to and he was the only one who offered. Shaking my head, I gazed into his eyes. Noting the discoloration of the skin and fine creases that were beginning to appear striking down from his violet eyes. He looked a little tired. But the lucky bastard always looked so well rested and nubile, even when running on two hours of sleep in the span of three days. I was still struggling to see through Glamour but it was a lot harder than I would have expected. Magic was confusing and complicated, and Fae made it look super easy.
"Don't baby me Tinkerbell. I can handle losing a few hours of sleep." Pressing my hand against his chest I kept an arms-length between us, "We have a lot to do. I have new Drills to present, and a couple meetings with the Seelie Fae ambassadors." The list began to grow and my head began to ache.
Raven moved my hand and stepped closer once again, "Kebber can handle the Drills for today, I don't have any meetings until this evening so I can tag along with you to the Ambassadors, as well as the lunch with my Mother."
I all but deflated on the stairs as he reminded me of the lunch with his mom, once a week I was subjected to a dinner, lunch or breakfast outing with his mother from hell. The woman despised me, but I think at this point she had given up on trying to get me out. She was now referring to me as the Bamboo under her nails, with every day that passes I torture her just by being here.
"Back up, Is the option to cancel today on the table?" He let out a deep breath.
"Not canceling today, I can handle the meetings Mila. You look dead on your feet." I laughed out loud, what a lovely thing to say to somebody trying to help.
I prepared to make a snide comment back but instead let out a sigh, "Thank you Ra, I'll be sleeping if you want to come join later." He smiled nodding his head.
"Go before you collapse, and remember to take the boots off." He very gently began to nudge me up the stairs.
"Alright I'm going, I'll see you later." I waved before putting my last burst of effort into getting me up the large daunting staircase and then through the messy maze of hallways.
I felt a little bit of guilt leaving him with all the work for the day, but I was tired and I didn't ask for this. Besides most of the problems he could have fixed long ago and just for some reason ignored them in light of joking news and rumors.
"Emillianna!" I froze in the hallway, the bedroom door in my line of sight.
"Tatiana, What an unexpected pleasure." I turned on my heel trying very hard to smile, "What can I do for you today."
There was already a grumpy scowl on her face, her glamour was powerful and nearly impossible for me to see through and yet she kept herself aging. With the amount of care and pampering she has I thought she would just glamour herself young again.
"Where's Raven?" Her eyes darted behind me to the bedroom door.
"He offered to handle today, I'm letting him handle it." Considering I was talking to the Queen I suppose I should be more respectful.
"Good," She nodded her head, "Then you can tell me what Finvarra wanted to tell you so badly."
I had to do a double take on her, she wasn't one to gossip and normally didn't could care less about what I did. If it had anything to do with me she tended to ignore it. That coupled with how much I knew she hated Finvarra mentioning both of us in one sentence had to be tough to swallow for her.
"Pardon?" I stammered.
Her eyes narrowed at me, "I did not stutter, and My diction was impeccable. Now answer my question, what did Finvarra tell you?"
"He asked me to refuse Unseelie members from the Guard. I refused his request." Her eyes widened for a moment.
She looked away from me her face creasing with confusion, something clicked and she looked up very slowly. The interaction was more dreamlike than most of my dreams were, Raven's family was complicated. His father couldn't understand what personal space was about and his mother was runner up for next world dominator.
"Good, Thank you." She murmured turning and walking away, ending the exchange just as abruptly as she had started it.
A part of me wanted to go after her demanding answers, but I knew better than to demand anything of the Queen. Still it bothered me a little why she wanted to know Finvarra's request so badly. Jhebret had mentioned something about Unseelie blood in her, could Finvarra have a thing against Unseelie Fae? This made my skin crawl, things had been a little crazy but this felt different. Staring at the Queen's back I felt a twinge deep in my gut, I couldn't piece it together.