Found:
Resourcefulness in the face of tedium!
The days blur into one at this point. I sit, I rest, I stare at walls and try so very hard not to daydream. The healer comes to check on me, makes her sour faces and sarcastic comments, pokes, prods and leaves. Dagramir comes, sometimes just to see if I'm still where I should be, sometimes for a chat. It's all so boring.
As a way of staving it off, I'd dragged my behind back out to retrieve ropes from Steel's saddlebags and spent an hour or two determinedly throwing the damned things into and over the rafters. It's makeshift, unstable and far from ideal, but it allows me to keep active even whilst bed-bound. The last thing I want is to lose my conditioning through inactivity and, although I know I'll not be as strong when I leave this bed as I was before my beating, at least I'll have something to work from.
Still, it's not all been tedium.
Dagramir came to see me last night with a bottle of whisky in hand. He happened to come by just as I was in the midst of exercising, so naturally he had comments to make about my half-dressed and slightly sweaty state. Banter turned to betting and it wasn't long before he'd agreed to a game of strip die with me. Nothing bad ever came from a mixture of alcohol and gambling, after all!
Besides, I was bored, he's very very pretty and, although I've seen it all several times before, I was perfectly happy to see it all again. At least until the combination of whisky, tension, attraction and nudity became overwhelming.
He'd already won the game of dice when we started play-fighting over the bottle. I'd had little of the drink, but enough to make me feel a bit tipsy. He'd been knocking it back like water, though. I was trying to wrest it from his grasp when a sharp tug from him caused me to fall gracelessly forward onto his lap. It was all I could do to prevent myself sailing off the bed!
Perhaps I should have. Yes, flying past him to crash down on the floorboards may have exacerbated, or even caused further injury, but better that than what really happened, surely?
I sat there on his lap, my arm around his shoulders. Though I still can't feel much below my waist, I can certainly feel everything above it and the sensation of his warm skin pressed close to mine was more heady than any wine. His scent - whisky, sweat and desire - assailed my nostrils and when those azure eyes, so blue as to be twin skies trapped inside pearls, locked upon mine... I almost forgot.
I almost forgot about his Raven. I almost forgot that I had long since vowed not to become alike my father. I almost forgot that he wasn't mine to have and never would be. I wanted him so much!
I pulled away. I had to. It didn't help. He pulled me back and when our lips touched, I wanted nothing more than to give in. I yearned for him. I craved him. I needed him, his taste, his touch, his attention, more than I needed breath in my lungs.
I pushed him away again, reluctantly uttering those two little words that would damn me to be a "good woman," those two little words that we both knew for truth.
We can't.
I saw something in him break then. I think he realised what he had been about to do and he hated himself for it and despite what my heart screamed, I knew that I had done the right thing.
When did I start caring about what is or isn't right?
He asked if he could just lie next to me for the night and, without hesitation, I agreed. What does it matter that having him so close is akin to torture? What does it matter that his presence is like fire and his departure is like losing a limb? At that moment he needed comfort of a platonic nature and so I offered it, despite the pain it caused me to do so.
Gah! When did I become so weak?
It was never like this with Eordion. Even in the beginning when I was keeping a careful distance because of his recent loss, I was never so consumed with my desire for him. I came and I left, and I came and I left, a tsunami reduced to a tide. Now I am as a rock pool; still and serene, just awaiting the next great wave to refresh me. But why should I wait? Why can I not be the ocean again?
Before he departed this morning, he told me that a certain pretty little lady had been asking after me. Perhaps a visit from the delectable Neyaa is exactly what I need; a distraction to keep my mind from my current predicament. Better a man perhaps, to ease certain frustrations left behind, but I can't see Dagramir providing me with that release, be it personally or from a replacement.
Perhaps, if I am careful, I might enlist Little Miss Lovely to aid in my bid for freedom.
