"Nor? That is what your friend called you yesterday. The one who gave me the antibiotics." Amira commented. "Nor. Nor, Nor, Nor." She repeated his name a few times, testing it out with a smile as it rolled off her tongue. Her accent added that particular sound to it, flipping the r. "It suits you better than Zar, somehow. At least, the you I have met."
“Yes, Ifer figured me out the moment he looked at me. I could hide nothing from him. He’s actually closer to a forest spirit than anything mortal.” He mused, laughing gently. He smiled as she spoke his name, her accent causing shivers to erupt down his spine.
“Zar is the ruthless and cunning bandit who leads a guild of bloodthirsty criminals. He spares no noble from his wrath and it is said he murdered his wife to be.” Nordali replied, shaking his head. “Zar is the name I hide behind. Nor is the me you know.”
"Did you? Murder your betrothed, I mean." She asked, eyes sparkling with a playful glint that made it obvious she had no doubt he didn't. Of course, she had no clue of knowing that he definitely didn't, because the woman he'd been meant to marry was right there as proof, but that was something to find out later.
“No. I could never. If I wanted to use death as an escape from marriage it wouldn’t be my betrothed who would die. I’d rather slit my throat then harm a lady of such power and status.” He smiled weakly at her, taking her hand in his. “Besides, I had only met my betrothed once, she was beautiful but… deserved much better than me. Not to mention I wanted to marry for love.” He replied, shaking his head. “From the look in her eye, she didn’t want to marry me.”
For just the barest of moments, with that smile on his lips, he looked almost familiar. She was hit with the faintest smell of the poppy flowers in the palace gardens, and the rose scented perfume her servants had doused her with. She blinked once, and the memory was gone, but she couldn't help feeling a peculiar nagging in the back of her mind. "Maybe she would have, had she known or met you under different circumstance. Maybe you would have loved her too. If you both had not met as royals, forced to be married. I wonder….is this really where you see yourself? Would being with me make you as happy as you could be with someone else?"
A scoff left his lips. “The arrogant fool I am? No she would have ran from me. Her adventurous spirit wouldn’t have let her be tied down.” He laughed softly and shook his head, pushing her head closer to his so he could kiss her. “Being with you would make me the happiest being to live. I’ve fallen for you, no other woman nor man could make me this happy or catch my eye. It’s you I want, my lady.”
"You speak like I did not decide to stay with you, despite holding the same kind of heart in my chest." She commented with a laugh, letting him guide her head forward. "You know, the main reason I was willing to leave my life behind?" Humming, she shifted her lips to catch the corner of his, smiling. "Me? And what makes you certain you will not change? I've been told I can be quite the handful."
“Well, you’ve been free for quite some time and you’re very open to the idea of me.” He laughed gently, his full and bright smile returning. “I won’t change that quickly, Amira. Handful or not, I really do like you. Now, tell me the main reason you were able to leave.”
"There are a handful, that pushed me past my breaking point." She said, eyes flickering across his face as that strange nagging returned in her mind. "I met my betrothed once as well, and saw in him the same thing I saw in my own eyes in the mirror. We did not love each other. And I was not about to put someone else through that. So I ran, hoping to give him a chance at his own…happily ever after, I guess, while I made mine. I also did not want my mother's controlling hands in my life any longer."
Nordali was just as clueless as he had always been, noting nothing familiar in Amira’s features except for the way her voice sounded when she spoke in her native tongue.
He had been selfish and arrogant the night he had met her in their past lives of nobility. He had not paid his betrothed much mind, ignoring her pretty features and sulking in his own misery. But he had not been able to block out her beautiful voice, the same one Amira used when speaking her native language.
And yet he too felt that nagging feeling in the back of his mind. He was just too prideful to acknowledge that it meant something.
“You are a kind woman, Amira. And a brilliant one too. Nobles want nothing more than to control everything they see is theirs, and even those things that they cannot have or do not have. Your mother was too controlling, and you left knowing that meant no good will towards your own happiness.” He smiled at her and sighed gently. “I just wish I had left my own controlling parents sooner, and that I had been more experienced and knowledgeable about being on my own before I left…” his finger tips briefly brushed across his throat, the memory of his first encounter with life still scarred him.
“You left when it was right. You left when it was the time for you to realize you needed to leave. And sometimes…that requires leaping headfirst into the water, even with the chance of sharks.” Amira said, eyes drifting shut. She tilted her head back just a smidge, leaving her neck just a bit more vulnerable even as her heart beat picked up the pace. Pushing herself. That’s what she was doing. And this time, there was even more reason to do so, knowing he had a problem with his own neck being touched. She was showing she trusted him, knowing that might help him to one day trust her in that manner. Though, even if he never did, she would continue pushing herself to vulnerable moves. “I was naive and hoped the world was a better place. I believed myself invincible, and then I found myself trapped in an alley and facing the worst of human nature. We learn, sadly, the best when we are forced to. When the universe puts you in a situation that requires learning or death. Such is the way of things, cruel as it is. You…did not deserve whatever happened to you. You very much didn’t. And I’m sorry the universe saw that method as the best way to teach.”
“I’m afraid I leapt right onto a shark.” He admitted, sighing. Her vulnerability relaxed the male. His fingers moved away from his throat instead cupping Amira’s face. His thumb rubbed softly against her cheek. “The universe is cruel and often seems to not care at all, but it does want us to learn. I’m glad I learned how to avoid situations like the ones I’ve been in, but I am also a little bitter that it had to be in the ways it showed me.” He pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, looking over her face with a soft and gentle sigh.
“Would you like to know what happened to me? You told me yours it’s only fair I tell you mine.”
“Only if you want to tell me. If you are comfortable doing so, then I will gladly listen. If not….there will be other times, hallaski.” She said softly, eyes still closed and expression soft. She opened them slowly, meeting his gaze and smiling encouragingly. “It is your choice, no matter that I would like to hear and maybe lend you support. It will always be your choice.”
“I think I am ready. I’m more embarrassed by the fact I was caught so quickly and so easily.” He admitted, laughing nervously.
“It wasn’t too long after I ran away from home, actually. The first group of people I came across were a small caravan. They told me they were on their way to a new place to call home, asked if I wanted to join them. Of course I agreed to, it was too good of an opportunity to turn away.
“I got to know them over the night, and they asked about my powers, about my race and such, what I could do, if there was anything that harmed me, what they should keep away from me. Unfortunately they didn’t want to know that out of curiosity, they weren’t a normal caravan.
“They trafficked people and creatures like us. They were all humans who sought money from selling magical slaves.” He growled under his breath and drew closer to her. “It was too late when I found out their true intentions. But they didn’t sell me right away.
“They used me more like a magic detector than a living being. I lived in iron chains, wore a blindfold nearly all the time, was given nearly nothing to eat and drink, and was tormented daily. Some days they’d toss me around like I was nothing.
“I was treated more like an animal than an intelligent being. I was kept in iron chains, that burned my skin - take note I’m partially Fae - and put in a muzzle that kept me from speaking out of turn.
“If I disobeyed they’d set the dogs and wolves after me, only calling them off after I had been bitten a good few times or my throat had nearly been ripped open.”
He fell silent, scowling as he rubbed at the scars on his arm. “Then one day, I fell ill. I couldn’t stand or walk on my own, the wounds their dogs had inflicted were infected. The chains were heavy and had burned good sized wounds into my skin. When I fell into the dirt and refused to get up, the group pulled their weapons on me, threatened to cut my head off and feed me to the dogs.” That last part was only part of the truth… the caravan group had found out that he was the missing prince, and conspired to receive a heavy ransom for his head… and they meant that quite literally. They wouldn’t return him alive. Just his severed head. The rest of his body would have to be bought for an even higher ransom.
“I panicked and… the forest listened to my cries of help. I’ve never been able to replicate that power ever again. I could hear the trees as they groaned, and their roots as they broke free of the ground.
“I was still blindfolded, and so I didn’t see exactly what happened. All I remember is blacking out to the sounds of screams, and then waking up to the soft voices of a group of women. They removed the heavy chains and cloth bound across my eyes and the muzzle from my mouth. Then they treated my wounds and starvation.”
Amira's eyes widened slowly as she listened to him talk. Each word out of his mouth filled her with a sense of dread, and by the end, her heart was aching something fierce. The lesson the universe had decided to teach him had been as harsh as the tutor she had when she was around eleven, who had taken it upon himself to teach her what disobedient children were worth. But this…felt worse. So much worse.
"Oh. Oh, hallaski." She said softly, cupping his face gently, oh so carefully. "I am so sorry. That-no one should ever have to face such a nightmare as that, let alone someone as kind-hearted as you…"
“I’m here now. That is all I care about at the moment. I am alive and here with you.” He replied softly, hugging her gently. “Life taught me that the world is cruel. It taught me to fear anything that neared my neck. But it also taught me to be more careful and much more caring about life.”
She lowered her hands to loop them around his shoulders, avoiding his neck habitually. Using that, she clung tightly to him, standing on her toes to press light kisses all over his face. "You are strong, is what you are, hallaski. The world is cruel, yes. But it is not all bad. Someday, you may find that things near your neck are not half as scary as they are now. Just remember to live, as well."
Nordali hummed gently as she kissed his face, turning his head with a soft laugh. “You are correct in all ways, my lady. I won’t forget to live, I’ll be sure I live. Especially if you are here to help me remember.”
"Of course I will. You will have me by your side and at your back, wherever is needed." Amira promised, trailing a line of kisses to his ear, and gently placing one on his lobe, so featherlight that it came nowhere near his neck, and was gone so fast. "We will see the world together, you and I. I will help you remember to live."
Nordali gently cupped her face and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “I’ll gladly follow you around the world. Why don’t you and I free the world of nobility?” He chuckled lightly at that and grinned wickedly.
That would mean ridding the world of me. And of my sister. But on the other side, it would mean getting rid of my mother. Amira let out a laugh, covering the flicker in her expression as she nipped playfully at his lip. "All of them? Or just the horrid ones? Because, to be fair, I can count the number of major royalty on one hand that are decent and fair. But we can decide while we traverse the continents. You and I, together."
"Ah, just the horrible ones." He replied, playfully tilting his head away from her as she nipped. He looked amused by her reaction, the male's lips curving into something that was not-quite a smile but definitely there. "I love the idea of you and I. I love my guild to death but you are something I cherish far more than anything."
“Why not stay with both, until you think there is something more out there for you?” She asked, tracing the frame of his face with her fingers. “Then you and I can face the world and find what we are meant to. Other than each other, of course. We have already found that.”
Nordali’s eyes slipped closed. Her touch was welcomed and he even leaned more into it. “That would be wonderful. I could stay just long enough to appoint another leader, and you and I could go off into the world.”
"We could. I would not want to draw you away from something this important until you were ready to leave." Amira said, tracing his cheekbones, then his jawline, then his browbone and on again. "But when you are, I will be there to see the world with you. I can show you the places I have been, and vice versa."