Kelski blinked at the strength of his conviction to ending slavery in Sunberth. If more people had the sort of conviction Kynier showed, slavery would end in Sunberth. Kelski didn’t believe one person could do something that monumental all on their own. But what Kynier could do was start a movement, begin a change in attitude, gather people together of a like mind and slowly change things for the better… for the future. She hoped he would. Kelski would help him if he asked her too. It was something she had experienced firsthand. And it was definitely something someone could stumble into at any point in their life, freeborn or not. The Kelvic almost flinched at the way Kynier said ‘exotic goods’. She’d once been considered something very much like that. And while she didn’t know precisely when he’d been at the slave market, nor did she ask, she wondered if it was when she’d been ‘missing’.
The problem was, nothing was ever ‘settled’ in Sunberth. Not unless one found themselves dead. Kelski took a deep breath and nodded. At least he hadn’t forgotten …
Kelski liked listening to Kynier. She just wasn’t in the habit of sharing her troubles with him. He had enough of his own. And showing fear, hope, even sharing ideas were things that had been either incredibly discouraged or beaten out of her from early on. Not by Kynier, of course, but in all that had come before him. Only Master Li had given her free rein to ask questions and that was for a very good reason – learning her trade. When Kynier talked to her about magic, he tended to simplify things to the point he made her feel like a small human, the ones that hadn’t been in the world long, making his explanations match that sort of mentality. It was uncomfortable when he did such things, as if he anticipated she couldn’t understand more complex ideas. And maybe she couldn’t until she had the years he had on his soul. But she wanted to try…
In Kelski’s mind, she was ignorant about magic in most ways. And she didn’t talk about it at all because first and foremost she didn’t want to look like a fool in front of a true mage, like Kynier. Secondly, if one never talked about magic, one never got accused of being a mage in Sunberth. To her, it was the truest course, one that made the most sense. So she didn’t. But Kynier didn’t seem to mind speaking of magic, and though she hadn’t asked him the questions truly, he did elaborate more on what Farris didn’t know or didn’t tell her.
“If things live there… truly live there and can escape… then its best we not fill such a place with our trash.” Kelski said abruptly, shaking her head. “Flying, you can always tell when you get close to a place of humans. In the sea, things discarded by them float unattended and often dangerous. Netting from fisherman float and kill arbitrarily. I’ve seen wire big wads of line from fishing poles wrapped around baby birds. It becomes awful. Over the land, trees are cut down, paths are muddy, and there is more discarded. And sure sometimes other things use these discards, but sometimes I think there will be a time when there will be too much. And when people have too much, they are wasteful. Because when you have a lot of something, it starts to mean less and less to you until often it means nothing, even if it is trash. Fire in the woods can mean life and death, but here in Sunberth people have the slag heap so they don’t understand how serious it can be without fire.” The Kelvic observed quietly, shaking her head thoughtfully.
Kelski shook her head, correcting something Kynier said. “Kelvics are not mage crafted. We were born from science and careful breeding and skills that involved the blood and bone and secret things from beyond Mizahar. I know we can be mages, but we aren’t inherently magical. We are something else.” Kelski insisted, knowing the truth of her words. “Master Li told me that so much was lost during the Valterrian. That science is something a lot like magic, but with different rules than magic has. He said it was why many people considered Kelvics magical, but we are not magical beings.” She insisted, knowing they could have magic, but they weren’t of magic. It was a huge difference, an important one to her.
They talked further. Kynier cleaned, and Kelski acted out. She always acted out when he grew silent and pensive and she wasn’t ready for the conversation to be over. The Kelvic was trying to get a reaction from him, more of his honest words, but instead he remained stoically calm like he could be sometimes. And so she gave up and snuggled into his back with more hard words. She had only soft words. She liked curling into his back. She felt safe there, protected, unexposed… and she felt it was a place she could take these things from him without demanding a reaction from him. It was also a place she could love him – giving back - that was safe from his piercing warm gaze that saw too much, his guarded features, and even his knowing hands. It was often easier for her to say things to his back – where he could still hear her – than say things out right to his face.
His back was his warmth, his scent, and his physical strength without his judgement. Or at least that’s how Kelski saw it. She loved nibbling his neck, using her teeth like a beak to pass on her affection, preening invisible feathers and moving his energy around until it transformed into different things. Tension into relaxation. Anger into calm. Exhaustion into sexual interest. Kynier might not like her at his back, but she loved being there. And sure he often turned or rolled over to tuck her into him, wrapping around her… and that was fine too. But it wasn’t as good as his back when she wanted to talk.
She liked pressing him into the sink, holding his arms behind him, making him hear her without having to read those eyes. Those eyes… Kelski half smiled. Kynier could do a lot to her with just his gaze. She hated seeing judgement in them, feared anger, and hated the sadness she often saw.
Yes begging. Not as a starving man begged for food or his life or for a different course in life. But in the way a man with hard cold eyes had them suddenly softened and then set on fire because if he couldn’t touch the one thing he wanted to he would die. She just wanted to see Kynier need her as she needed him. She’d drop to her knees a million times to beg him to need her, to want her, to be happy in a life that made him so incredibly unsatisfied. Especially to be happy. When she was of a mood, she’d give anything to touch him. Just him. He’d ruined her for anyone else.
They were things she couldn’t convey to him properly though, not even to his back. And so she just leaned into him, enjoyed his warmth, his scent, and his security for the tick or two he allowed before she was stepping backwards and giving him space. The need to bond was back, light in its touch, as if a first blade of new bright green grass pressing up through the snow in the earliest part of spring. And she backed away only to find herself captured lightly by his grip. She tugged at it, but even though he caged her arm gently, it was a firm iron grasp. He came forward, closing the distance again, and she froze in her typical predatory fashion. Was there danger here? Was there something she hadn’t foreseen? Had she missed something he said in the haze of the moment of just being with him?
Her cool silver gaze met his warm hazel eyes, widening abruptly. He could tell she wanted to fly, more afraid than he would have ever guessed. She would have been clear across the room in a heartbeat had he allowed it. She would have taken to her wings to put the sky between her and his earth-bound form. But he held her. When his other hand touched her neck, it was as if he were completing a circuit and making a conscious choice. His warm words washed over the coldness in her and she tried unsuccessfully to hold back what rushed forward.
It wasn’t just her. It was him as well, enabled by her presence. Tendrils of light and power burst from both of them, unseen but clearly felt as they wrapped around each other and the two souls linked up. Kelski had dreamed of the moment all her life, not knowing what to expect, terrified of being found wanting. As her life force wove tightly with his, her awareness expanded taking on a more human flavor that filled her mind with the man’s emotions that stood before her. They washed through her in a powerful tsunami of all at once reckoning that the sudden and powerful bond created. Kelski cried out with it even as Kynier’s lips captured her own. He’d suddenly got closer to her, pressing her body into his, even as he felt the decision bring him peace and the link bring him her.
And she was the cool wind of the sea, laced with salt and brine and the pine of the high mountains. In that moment he felt Kelski as he never could have unbonded to her. She was so different than the form she presented the world – the calm curious intelligent woman that held secrets. There was a feral fierceness to her that washed through him along with the sense of her. She was virtually fearless and bold beyond measure, with no concept of ‘impossible’. Rebellion ran deep in her, a startling depth that one never would suspect staring into her soft silver eyes. She had a burning almost obsessive need to be successful. And though she had emotions like a human, her mind was absolutely alien, though he could feel every corner of it with her this close. He couldn’t read her thoughts, but her emotions were as clear as thoughts as they washed over and threw him to the point he could not tell which were hers and which were his.
In that moment, she was full of incredible wonder and depthless love, yet she was terrified of disappointing him, and eager to explore the link and its bounds. Her curiosity was a smoldering flame within her, calling her a liar to every single time she’d feigned indifference or had not asked further on something she’d been wanting to know. She felt like power, like true raw magic, and because the bond was so new and so much like a deep sudden wound before it began to hurt. Kynier could also feel, through Kelski, the living building all around them and its awareness and deliberate focused attention on the two newly bonded locked in a kiss. It was strange, so very strange, having an encompassing awareness – something like that of an inhuman child – studying the pair with careful bright attention.
But there was more. His body was on fire for him… no that was Kelski and her body on fire… aroused. The kiss had tipped the scale from her simply needing his attention to her needing him. He could tell how much his scent beckoned her… but he could feel her banking it to listen to him, to hear his words… she paid close attention to what he said and he realized that what Kelski felt for him was always there, always ready to come forth, yet she kept a careful control on it and really worked hard to pretend to be human. His mate had amazing self-control and self-awareness.
The self control allowed her to drag in a single breath, pulling her own awareness out of his mind to hear him, locking her curiosity within her iron will. Outwardly, she looked calm and unphased. But he could feel every emotion rolling through her, woven into the wonder and incredible love she felt for him. Nothing outwardly showed except the slight tremble of her wrist. And he only felt it because he still had hers caged in his own.
And standing there, looking at her, while the bond finished forming, solidifying around them, gave him the in most acute insight of something he already knew. Kelski absolutely wasn’t human. She didn’t react to things like humans did. And while it was easy to forget she what she was standing outside her, while he was crawling around inside her mind within the confines of the bond, he could feel her otherness acutely. Her emotions weren’t at all the same as his. And he saw her flaws… her deep dark horrible flaws.
There were a lot of things floating around in her head that he could pick up on, but the flaws surrounding Kynier were the ones that stood out to him the most. She was deceptive around him, hiding her insatiable curiosity for magic. He could tell by the way she banished emotions immediately when they arose regarding magic. She didn’t seem to crave power like other mages did. But she had a wonder for possibilities and was eager borderline obsessed to know more. Her thinking wasn’t linear and random, like a human, but her emotions manifested as almost three-dimensional shapes which would indicate that her thoughts did too.
She thought in vivid images, patterns, and diagrams… not in a running dialog in her mind like other people did. It made her a great jeweler, but a terrible partner to a mage when she was trying to feign indifference to his arts. He was also acutely aware how much she was self-conscious about her looks being not human. It was something he already had picked up, but the depth she felt insecure about her dark tissues and ombre hair was far deeper than he might have realized. And she was hyper aware of her surroundings. He could sense a part of her that was always scanning the immediate area, listening, watching for danger. It was a predatory unconscious act that she did over and over again. Even her focus at her jewelers’ bench must be a lie because he could sense the awareness, the scanning, the searching for danger at the back of her mind as long as he was looking for it.
There were other things he could learn if he just focused. And by her stillness and avid attention, even as she stole a taste of him off her lips with the tip of her tongue, he knew she was gathering just as much information about him. And in experimenting, he could dampen the bond down or open it wide up. And by the widening in her silver gaze and the astonishment he felt through the bond, he could tell she was learning a lot about him as well.
Count: 2541
