Warning --slightly mature content
*not quite mature enough to fall under Mature, BUT if you are uncomfortable with sensuality, you can message me and request a cleaner version of this chapter, and I will be happy to oblige! (Though it may be a hair shorter).
THE SONG, THE SONG!
"You shouldn't feel so guilty," Azabela chided with a click of her tongue as she moved the cutters over Hench's hair, trimming it back into its usual shape. "What a toxic thing to feel. In a world so full of hatred, what a cruel joke it is that we have the capacity to hate ourselves more than any other person ever could." Small hands wandered over Rhalla's head and neck, massaging it lightly as she cut. Small tufts of hair fell to the floor of the woman's living quarters.
"My sister is half purple and all swollen because of me," Hench whispered. "Of course I should feel guilty."
"Did she say that you should?" Azabela already knew the answer. The archer pulled her fingers through the tumble of black hair on the top of Rhalla's head.
Hench sighed. "She didn't."
"Then you're wrong. You don't have to feel bad about the things out of your control. Be gentle with yourself," Azabela said with a smile. "You've always been good."
"Bah, I've always been stubborn," Hench corrected her. "Stubborn enough to take another breath on nights that probably didn't call for them. Stubborn enough to open my eyes and pretend my nightmares weren't actually real."
Azabela chuckled. "And I say embrace that. Not so many are lucky enough to be so persistent."
It was quiet for a long moment. The only sound that could be heard was the clipping of the cutters. After a few minutes, the huntress spoke again. "Do you remember the first time I ever cut your hair?" She ran her hand down the side of the woman's muscular neck.
Hench smiled. "I'll never forget it."
"Neither will I," Azabela reminisced. "It was long after you became a guardian. It was that three day weekend when my grandmother was selling herbs in whatever village that it was. You left the sanctuary and came to stay those nights with me --even if you were only ever allowed to visit your son." The archer's voice was reverent, not holding any of her usual cheekiness. "That very first night, I made dinner. You told me about your job, and I told you about Dane. For that night, you pretended that you were finally past the horrible things that happened to you. You had your dinner, and then you had me. You sang your songs to the evening, and I sang your name into the night."
Azabela finished up cutting her beloved's hair and laid the shears on the desk. "And all I ever wanted was for you to be healed enough inside that I might do the same for you. I wanted to disrobe your body just as your heart. I wanted to do for you what you'd already done so many times for me at that time. I wanted to drown you in nothing but my bare skin and heart," She paused. "But how could I ask to love you like that? To do that to you? How could I ask to take from you what had already been forced away --for love? How could I ever ask to be so close to you?"
The archer knelt and started cleaning the small mess from the floor as she continued her tale. "It was around midnight I believe when I heard the ruckus from the guest room." Pause. "You'd had a nightmare by the sounds I was hearing --the yells I was hearing. I got up and checked on you three times. The third, you weren't sleeping... you were kneeling on the floor with a knife. Your hair was cut unevenly. You were just slashing off hunk after hunk of it, with no rhyme or reason. It was scattered in a mess all around the floor.
You stopped when you noticed me standing there. You dropped the knife and looked at me with your irregular new haircut and wide, tearful eyes, and you apologized. " Azabela chuckled. "Of all the things you might've said, I remember that 'I'm sorry' was the last phrase I expected to hear. Your voice was so small as you said it, and I was never really sure what you really meant by it. It might've been that you were sorry for the mess, you were sorry for waking me up, or perhaps you were sorry for just breaking. You didn't explain yourself. And I didn't have the heart then to ask."
Azabela stood. "Out of shock, I asked you what you'd gone and done to yourself. You looked at me and whispered. 'I'm not afraid to be ugly. I'm afraid to be beautiful.' You said then 'I am so sick of being beautiful'." The huntress grinned. "I knew you meant it, so I told you that I was sick of you being beautiful too, and I cut your hair as you knelt to the ground."
Azabela tilted Hench's chin up during the story, and made it a point to stare right into her eyes. "I suppose the joke was on me. Because no matter what I could've ever done to you, you were beautiful. You were the most beautiful. " The huntress shook her head and dropped Rhalla's chin. "It always radiated from within."
Azabela began pacing. "After that haircut, you were looking at me like you loved yourself for once in your life. And for some reason, that was so much more profound and gratifying than any loving stare you'd ever given me." Those words made Rhalla beam. Seeing that, Azabela stopped walking and smiled back. "And then, an hour after you'd gone back to bed, you got up, came to my room, and woke me up.
You stood knocking at the door until I was up and facing you. You looked at me and said that you loved me. You had a look about you that told me that something was wrong. I asked if everything was alright, and you told me you were afraid."
Hench picked up the story for a few moments. "I did do that," she chuckled. "And you told me that that was alright, because people only got scared right before they did something truly brave. At that moment, you sounded like a gods damned poet. But hell, I loved you."
Azabela laughed. "And I was right," she whispered. "You walked over and asked me what I wanted of you. I said 'everything you can bear to give'. I remember with great clarity you shut your eyes very tightly and told me to close mine too. I did. And when you told me to open them again, you were sitting on the other side of my bed with your back to me. Your robe was rumpled at your hips, and the moonlight hit the soft skin of your back --the edges of your first-forming muscles and the curvature of your shoulder-blades."
Azabela's hand found Hench's back through her guardian robes, adding effect to her story. "I was so stunned at first to see it. You sat completely still and completely quiet until I ran my hand up your spine. Despite how gentle I tried to be, your hands were trembling at your sides. You were terrified. I pulled away and told you I couldn't ask this of you. You looked over your shoulder and told me to do it again. I could tell you were skittish by the shakiness of your voice, but I obliged.
I asked 'why?' That was all I said: why. Somehow, you knew what that meant. And you said 'I trust you'. You told me that you wanted to know what it meant to be so vulnerable with someone who would be kind --someone who you believed could overwrite some of the bad memories. You told me you should try to be alive at least once before you died. And then, you stood, and you turned to me. Something about the moment you stood completely naked while you stared me in the eyes was so moving, beyond even the obvious reasons. There you were... that day, rewriting your past. Despite all that happened, you found the strength to start living.
Oh, and I'll never forget the exact way you looked. I remember the curve of your hips, your musculature... The divine softness of your mouth and then you... well, you have fantastic breasts. And your eyes found a way to look timid and passionate at the same time, and suddenly I realized that I stood before a goddess." Azabela's mouth tilted into a sincere smile. "I remember the brilliant way it sounded when my name was a shallow breath on your lips. I can still taste the sweetness on my tongue. No, I will never forget that night."
Azabela's story ended. Hench simply sat there, raising a brow. Finally, she snorted, but there was a warm look in the mighty woman's eyes. "Girl, this sounds a lot like you asking for trouble. Do you know that?"
"I'm being serious this time!" she said and ruffled up. "Not that I could ever say no to your kind of trouble," she added with a wink. "There's actually a point to this other than getting you to take off your robes."
Hench stood and kissed her beloved for a solid measure of time. "Then speak it," she finally said.
Azabela stared at the floor for a second. "I want to fight with you --to fight for you." She met Hench's eyes. "When you go to the keep, I want to go."
For a moment, the mighty woman looked surprised. Rhalla took a step back, as if an invisible hand had struck her. "Bela," she whispered. Suddenly, her head was alive with a thousand different deaths that might befall Azabela. The last image in her mind was of the proud huntress, strapped to a table in the red room -- No, shut it out. Shut it out.
"I mean it, Rhalla. Let me help," she insisted. "I am not an archer for nothing. I can do this."
Rhalla pinched the bridge of her nose. "And if you are taken from me?" she asked, not able to help it with the visuals in her head. "I believe in you, my girl. But not all heroes live forever. If you meet us for the attack, and you take an arrow through your heart, what then? Am I supposed to keep on living knowing the baron took not only my childhood and my capacity for sanity, but also the person who taught me how to be a person again?"
"Ask yourself the same," Azabela came back. "What if something happens to you? What if something happens to you and one of my arrows could have stopped it? You are a force of nature, Rhalla, but you're not invincible --you know you're not invincible." She went on, voice wavering. The archer felt tears pick at her eyes. "I've watched you for so long, since we were children. You were a haunted doll, and like I said, you were broken inside. My grandmother used to tell me after we first found you that you might never get better. I wanted so badly for her to be wrong. And to be true, you improved --but it took years and years. I... after seeing how much you fought for every little happiness, how could I, the woman who loves you, not fight against the ones that did that to you in the first place?"
"Bela." Hench looked mightily stressed.
"No. Don't do that. Don't try to protect me." Azabela stood her ground. "When my mother and father were alive, when he beat her at night, I would hide in my locked bedroom for hours. I would listen from the outside and stay awake until the yelling stopped. Every morning was the same. She'd come out with bruises and sometimes broken bones, and she'd make him breakfast." Pause. "I hid in my room the night that my mother died. If I hadn't have hidden --if I'd stayed, maybe I would have saved her. Maybe she wouldn't be dead now. At the very least, she wouldn't have by died all by herself on the kitchen floor. That's not the way she deserved to go. That's my biggest regret. Do you know that?" Azabela asked. "So don't tell me to hide and stay safe. I can't -- I won't."
The warmth was leeched from Hench's bones. Even to her, Azabela had never really spoke awfully much about her mother. "You killed your father. You won," came her reply.
"That's half true. Indeed, I drug a blade across his throat," the huntress said. "But I didn't win. I was brave --but I was brave too late. And the difference of the two is miles and miles. Being brave a day late doesn't wake Azrella Stryder from her grave." Some sort of resolve hardened in her eyes. "I will not be brave too late for you. Let me fight. Tell me when to be there, and I will. Please, Rhalla."
"I'm sorry," Rhalla apologized. "I'm sorry about your mother. Sometimes I forget that you've been through hard times just as I have."
"Don't do that," Azabela waved off the apology. "There isn't a need to be sorry." She took Hench's hand. "Everything happens for a reason."
Rhalla quirked a brow. "Everything?"
Azabela nodded. "Yes. Everything," she answered. "That's the secret to life. The good days of life are always lifting. Loving another is divine. The way the breeze blows on a sunny day is a healing magic, and having a family that loves you is beautiful. And that's all necessary for life. To keep you going." She paused and chuckled humorlessly. "And then you meet your sadness, your heartbreak. The painful hours we all must live --the rock bottom where everything is broken and no one is beautiful. And those are necessary too. For only when our darkest nights are upon us, do we discover who we really are inside. They define us. And contrary to popular belief, hardship doesn't do shit make us strong. It only makes us prove that we already were, or it breaks us."
Azabela whirled around. "So yes, everything that happened to me, everything that happened to you... happened for a reason." She smiled. "For all those times anyone ever hurt you, perhaps it was to give you your sweet son. To bring you to my grandmother's house for healing --to bring you to me. And if that's not enough, look at who you've grown to be. Sometimes, you have to know that the reward is worth the pain, even if the pain wasn't deserved. We are magic together."
Rhalla's lips twitched. "Very bright side today, I see."
Azabela winked. "Always," she promised. "Can you imagine any other life? Gods, what if you'd stayed in Eda? What if you were some frilly girl that skipped around the market and fluttered your eyelashes at all the boys? What if you were some simple, blushing little hometown lady that married someone proper and had a slew of babies?"
Hench's mouth contorted. "What if."
Silence.
Azabela sobered and returned to her original point with the drop of a hat. "Let me fight for you."
More silence.
"If you must fight for me, then I can't do anything to stop you." The words were painful for Hench to say. "But I must ask: what brought this on all of the sudden?"
Azabela sat down. She hadn't been ready for this part of the conversation. She decided to start the story on a more mild note. "Dane and I are having to stay at my grandmother's until all this with the baron is over."
"Why?"
"It's not safe at our cabin. Not until the baron is dead," Azabela said. "They're looking for me --the baron's men. The Captain --Captain Anderfail, if my memory serves me right, paid me a visit a few days ago at the cabin. He was asking about all the dead militia, asking Dane and I if we'd heard anything over the nights they died."
"I heard that name at the meeting." Rhalla immediately went on the fence. "Did he touch you? Hurt you?"
"No," Azabela answered quickly. "But he was suspicious of me... of Dane. The way he stared at us... he knew something was wrong. He promised to return once he'd found more details on the deaths. I knew that that meant he'd be back for blood. Or worse. He seemed to know that I had something to do with it the deaths --he seemed to know I wasn't really married to Dane."
Hench spluttered, automatically distracted. "Huh?" She shook her head. "You weren't married to Dane? What's that supposed to mean?"
Azabela snorted at that part of the story. "He's very clever, our son, and a better liar than he should be. He wanted to protect me, I guess, and he cast me to look the innocent housewife. I could only play along once he'd gone and said it." The huntress cringed at the memory. "It was kind of him to do what he did for me, but I'll have nightmares for weeks."
Despite it all, Rhalla let out a breathy laugh. "You pretended to be married to my son?"
"I had no choice in the matter," Azabela sniffed, glad that the mood had lightened a little. "It was that or turn Dane into a liar."
Hench looked amused. "And you managed to be convincing?"
"Not hardly enough," Azabela said, shaking her head. "The captain asked us to prove the marriage."
Rhalla looked upset, remembering suddenly that she'd left her amulet of matrimony with Dane on her last visit. "Tell me you didn't see your amulet ahead of time."
Azabela gaped. "No. But that would have been a good gods damned idea! Did Dane know where that was?" She huffed a breath and backpedaled. "I mean, the ruined surprise would have been awful. But it might've spared me the pain of..." Despite it all, laughter bubbled up in the archer for a moment. "Perhaps it might have saved me the nightmare of Dane kissing me for the better part of a minute."
"Wh-," came the stunned exhalation, and something of a smile grew on Hench's face. When Azabela only looked horrified, Rhalla finally came to terms with her words. Oh, she howled. The laughter that erupted from the pit of the mighty woman's stomach was almost loud enough to knock the walls down. Azabela just pursed her lips impishly, and could only watch as her betrothed cackled herself to the point where she was doubled over with tears in her eyes, and no actual sound could be heard from her throat.
"Have your laughs," Azabela rolled her eyes with a grin of her own. Gods, Hench was lovely when she smiled like that. "It's all fun and games until it happens to you. And then it's something only a hammer to the head might fix."
Hench laughed harder at that. After another minute of gut-wrenching amusement, Hench finally got out, "What--kind--of--family--are--we?"
Finally, Rhalla got out the rest of it. By the time it was over, ah, she might as well have exercised her abdomen. It burned from the work out. She sobered then, but not without a few more chuckles. "Oh, I needed that," she spoke to no one in particular. Finally, her eyes softened. "Sorry to laugh at your expense."
"I've done the same to you many a time," Azabela said. "I'm glad someone found it hilarious."
Hench cleared her throat and took a deep breath. "And kissing your own son made you want to fight? Is that what started it."
Azabela shook her head. She frowned, figuring now was as good as time as any to break the news. "No, it was that I have it in me to defend my family and our home. To defend Dane. And I --I suppose I was just faced with a man who had... hurt you. A man who hurt you and then came into my home and threatened us like he owned us."
"They are stains on this world, all of them." Hench tilted her head, anger growing like a weed inside her. She saved it for later. Now was not the time for rage, after all. "Take comfort, my girl, there's no way of knowing specifically who did or didn't hurt me at the estate."
"They're all the same no matter what," Azabela hissed. "But still... this one hurt you. I know he did."
"How can you know that?"
"Because of his face... his eyes made of charcoal..." The huntress looked horrified. She met Hench's eyes. "Rhalla, he looked exactly like your son."
A/N -- Heh. So this chapter was something to write. In all aspects. Hope you enjoyed. UNEDITED sorta.
ALREADY GOT TWO SUBMISSIONS IN FOR THE COMPETITION! WHOOP! Can't wait for more!
Also, yay for the fanart! Thank you so much @CanisLupisRiley for the second drawing. <3