Blinking once, I groan. I blink again and again, each one harsher than the last as my groans elongate and my coarse tongue flicks. My lips smack dried lip down and up on the moisturally barren opposite. Jolting up on my bed, up against my pillows, my gaze shifts around.
A familiar face, a dear friend, I can see her and I am so very glad she's alive.
"Water!" I bark with the strength I can spare for such a crucial task and one hand rises, clenching the open air repeatedly until something comes into it. Nearly bashing my own head in, my pinched lips fly open and water floods my throat, soaking the soil that is my flesh only barely. I hand the thing back and rub my eyes, the sound of precious liquid changing in tune until the familiarity of a glass near-full sings. Water splashes wastefully and I chug it all down again.
"Slow down, you'll drown yourself like that!" my friend insists as I stop and sigh my bliss. Turning to her, I take a final gulp of whatever is left and start to suckle at my bedwear and sheets for more water. The unbecoming survivalist within me is put down and I more gently take in the next great load. Resting into my back, I lean backwards, going into the pillows nearly until the certainty of a bedframe stops me.
"Only thing that's going to drown is my home when I flood the world an even greater All-Coast with how much I will be pissing later!" I bark joyously as my idle hand finds my heart thumping away in it with all of the life I find to be so wonderful. I do not recall hearing any howls or mists with a tint of smoking to them. I am alive.
"Is... Is there something you want to say?" Eratheen chokes out in question as I look at her struggling eyes. I start to nod and her arms rise, the want for a hug all but bewitching her. However, with a firm arm, I stop her, much to her confusion.
"Easy now, nearly died you know." I mutter before finishing off my latest load of water to which I then set the container aside. My eyes return to her and she wobbles half in and half out of her seat. Even with the weight of a mother who has breastfed her beloved daughter above it along with several wrappings of embroidered sheets... I can still see how powerful the beats of her heart are.
A single desire screams out of it with each life-giving pump.
Moving one arm about, I move its fingers and sharpen them, "Come now, come closer."
"Brewbrt, I'm glad to see you are all ri-" she starts to say before I smack her with the back of me hand, not too rough but not too gentle either.
She blinks.
"Gods and goddesses, what was that for!?" she demands to know, hurt more so by the meaning of my attack then the blow itself. I ready my backhand again, more than happy to slice the hooks of me knuckles into her temple on the way to hacking my feelings into her head.
"Oh! No one has to know!" I sing mockingly, making her blush deeply as well as look away with scorn. I laugh heartedly and grab onto her, pulling her in for the hug she so needingly deserves and I carry on chuckling as she strikes me impotently. So much like her daughter enough in all the ways that matter to me and my transferable skill set for teasing.
"I save your life and this is what I get..." she moans bitterly against my wet chest before I adjust my grip to allow her to more properly get into a comfortable position.
"Thank you, Eratheen." I tell her, bringing her eyes up to face mine and making her cheeks redder in the process. I drop her chin and she falls the short distance back into the hug, shocking me for the trouble. I smile once again, a toothy grin coming of it.
"H-How did you know I...?" she starts to ask and I have her sit up properly and away a modest distance so no funny business can come of it. Both her soft, warm hands hold my closest one and the unnatural cold they were afflicted by is naught but a memory.
"Lucky guess." I lie, smiling at how she reacts before I frown and sigh. Turning my head slightly away, I shake it and return it her way.
"Why?"
"Eratheen, we've been over this years ago. We settled -this- years ago." I point out, minding her hand as a lump catches in her throat.
"You know I've always loved you more than I loved him..." she bitterly comments under her breath as if to guilt trip me. My jaw slants on the moment.
"Eratheen!" I snap, not wanting to hear more of this.
"What!? It's true, you know full well I only got together with him to make you jealous!" she chokes as she accusingly jabs a finger towards me. Grabbing it with the hand I was using to drink with, I stop her from escaping to strop at the end of the room.
"And it didn't work. Come on, Eratheen... Don't start this up again. What is he going to think of this the next time he can visit?" I ask, trying to make her understand what will come of this if she keeps up with whatever it is she is trying to do. Hopefully, the past few months have just been getting to her.
Oh, that's a point and a half, should ask how long I've been out... However, a slight brushing of my chin on some nearby skin is quite telling.
"He won't think anything. He was never there for me or Einervaene once this entir-"
"ERATHEEN!" I snap furiously, clearly frightening her if the jump is anything to go by. She looks away, ashamed and down-looking.
"She needs a father... A proper father, not some pen-pal that takes forever to reply to one gods and goddesses damned letter!" Eratheen cries, breaking down into tears as she finishes speaking. Sighing, I lean forward and pull her in, putting her head back onto my chest and stroking her hair.
"We're both married, Eratheen, our word is owed to another."
"The story is that yours left you..." I can feel her sneer and I respond with an instance of unpleasent crushing to warn her. Closing my eyes, I think of my divorced wife and shake my head. The love's still there, it's just too complicated.
"You know full well that Raltarait loves you dearly, you know full well he's done his best but circumstance is circumstance. Life is not as simple as packing up and leaving."
"You did it the moment my daughter came to you!" she almost screams, her face sliding up to the air before mine. Our breath mixes and her tears drop onto my head.
"I'm a founding-lord of a ravineer settlement, your husband is a colonial governor!" I sternly remind her seen as in this silly little case of the alonesomes she is forgetting that fact.
"It's been years since he has held me and you know it..." she sobs, holding me tight as I rest my cheek on her well-made scalp of soft hair. Honestly, I prefer it even to the pillows behind me.
"Have him step down you silly old girl. You are The Lady Bosphama are you not? He's not going to damn well struggle to find employment again and it's not like his wages are going to your family much anyway with how much distance there is." I suggest, and maybe, it is as simple as that. Damn well better be, what kind of non-inheritable political position is for life without the option to step down? Preposterous nonsense certainly fits the bill.
"You're here now... Einervaene knows you, you've protected her for years now against many who would harm her and you've just set the continent ablaze with your vanquishing of a thunder-shogun and that destructive stupidity of yours."
"All that mattered is that Einervaene got to you. I did my part and I was willing to make peace with that." I explain, receiving a right vicious smack for the trouble. Shifting my jaw about, I wait for the sting to subside before daring to open my mouth again. She settles back down on my chest.
"Don't ever talk like that to me again... Much as you have been telling me about settled conversations you should remember yours." Eratheen reminds me with freezing bitterness that is quite eager to dig into my skin.
"Old habits die hard." I remark, ooo-ing some of my lingering pain out as the memory of my hard fall comes back to me. I think, given the experience as well, I much prefer my hugs to be like this and not involving a long and short sword sparking with lightning.
"She will be very happy to know you have finally woken up."
"How long?"
"Months." Eratheen is quick to answer as she reinvigorates her part of the bedlaying hug. I smile warmly at the welcome lines of it pressing down on me. The blast of heated air as the pockets of it escape her clothes with each clothy thud.
"Had a feeling." I quip, looking out to the peculiarly non-stormy day. Eratheen, unfortunately, shifts out of our hug and sits upright closer to my knees. She sighs and looks away.
"I am sorry for what I did... You are right. It doesn't excuse it but, to get it off my chest... I've been very lonely this whole ordeal. Oorika, Joastelan and my staff have done their best but when you are a mother with a living husband it's... It gets hard." she mutters with increasing quietness. I nod and quickly check under the sheets before going to her side, the quilt in my hands. Wrapping us both in it, she tucks in her side of it and we join together for comfort.
"Remember how we used to sit like this by the fires out on our adventures?" I ask, feeling nostalgic seeing as we have been digging up one thing from our shared past.
"I remember how I used to feel so miserable sleeping out at night with you. Hear I was, Lady-Heir to the great Bosphama clan in the prime of her post-childhood youth and I'm spending it with a foreigner out in the wild."
"Harsh." I chuckle as she snuggles in closer.
"I remember how that gradually shifted into something better, something forged so well it will last until the world finally joins the rest of the nothing that makes up creation into oblivion."
"Remember how the blanket we shared got too small?"
"Only because everyone else decided on wanting to share it with us." Eratheen sneers, giggling about it shortly after.
"I quite enjoyed it, personally. Not so much Clockwork's cogs or Rosa's bow and so on, but, I enjoyed us all being there at the end of the night. Another payday maybe gained, us all safe and sound of keeping the one who wasn't safe healthy and strong."
"It's alright, I won't make fun of you for admitting to the fact you were the one who was often huddled up for safety." she giggles as she runs a finger down the shirt hiding my scar-covered chest. Don't get enough magic into your system quick enough and your body will mark itself right out, or if the wounder is strong enough. Guess I got a fair few more since coming to this continent, nowadays.
Thankfully, not one near or in my eye. Bloody night-attacking assassins, buggers the lot of them. Spitting on their graves is the least I can do. Makes the gore I left them as more tolerable.
The door behind us opens and I turn with Eratheen, smiling at the young woman with skin of gold and silky hair much the same. She smiles back at us, her heartwarming so scorchingly hot with relief, but, she is withheld. Getting up, I walk around to meet Einervaene and open my arms up for a hug to offer. Initially, nothing.
"Well, that's-"
Einervaene latches on as tightly as she can, as quiet as the corpses I've just been thinking about.
"I... I'm glad you are well." I struggle to hear as Eratheen comes around, her clothes having been sorted before she did so.
"Did you save your mother?" I ask, prompting a gentle shove from her before she steps back, nervous as a little girl.
"It's getting there... Mother, nearly time for it." Einervaene cryptically states as her fingers press up against the other, her divine power surging the bridge.
"What's goin' on?" I ask, stepping back a little, dumbfounded as I properly take in how well-dressed the pair are now that I am actually paying attention.
"Einervaene is to be crowned."
"Eh?"
"After I called Lightning to prove I am not some bastard or poorly-conceived child, my name started spreading and I've somehow been declared the Thunderess, Heir to Thunder." Einervaene explains, huffing in amusement as she looks lovingly at her thankful mother.
"Huh?"
"She's to be given the title by the Emperor himself!" Eratheen giddies over as Einervaene ruins her golden skin with the deep crimson of her cheeks.
"EH!?" I go, louder, completely lost.