<USS Avalon> Re: "A War of Wills"
- From: Rowanna Darkwolf <rowannadarkwolf@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: avalon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 12:22:51 -0700 (PDT)
So which of them will break first? Anyone want to lay odds?
great log, Christina.
Own an original piece of Hannah's art.
www.cafepress.com/helpinghanstore
--- On Sat, 8/14/10, camtheinternut <camtheinternut@xxxxxxx> wrote:
From: camtheinternut <camtheinternut@xxxxxxx>
Subject: <USS Avalon> "A War of Wills"
To: avalon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Saturday, August 14, 2010, 1:06 AM
(feat. Eamon Dalanar and Fidelma Kyla, with appearances by Patrick McEntire and
Cailin Danaan)
Fidelma Kyla looked with wide, startled eyes between the two men in the room,
and only noted the presence of Counselor Danaan because the felinoid was
radiating concern.
The men were also radiating concern, both of them staring at her expectantly as
she haltingly stepped inside and allowed the door to close behind her. Mac had
opened his eyes, slowly, to look at her, as if to reassure himself she was
alright (she knew from the thoughts he was projecting that he’d been very much
concerned when he’d felt her emotions go silent), and his relief that she
appeared physically unharmed was palpable. His smile was tentative and his gaze
searching. He knew what Dalanar had done, but only after he had done it had he
been made aware of the lengths to which the Deltan had planned to go. He was
upset that she hadn’t been told beforehand, and was wondering how she was going
to take the change.
From Lt. Dalanar, Fi could feel a number of things. He, too, was relieved to
note with his own eyes that she was whole and well. He was awaiting her
reaction to his choice with no small amount of trepidation, and he was hoping
that she would understand why he had gone about it the way he had.
Well, she didn’t. Fi wanted to know why he hadn’t told her what he was planning
to do, for she discerned from his thoughts (what he was letting her hear, that
is, as she suspected one trained as he was more than capable of preventing
other telepaths from hearing what he didn’t want them to) that he had made the
decision before he’d even left the brig. Why didn’t he say something to her
then? Why hadn’t he searched for other alternatives? Wasn’t the point to end
the bond for both her and Mac?
She ignored her growing intrigue at the other things she felt from him---hope
that she would accept him as a husband (for, according to Deltan tradition,
that’s what he was now, her husband). He actually wanted this. Perhaps not the
way it had come about, but he had wanted to find a woman with whom to bond for
some time now, and he saw her as a more than acceptable mate. He believed her
to be intelligent and caring, and her relative innocence and vulnerability had
awakened his protective instincts. He wanted to take care of her---had
literally been ordered to do so by Mac---and hoped that perhaps one day he
would be worthy of the sacrifice she would be making in accepting him under
these circumstances.
Fi also felt Dalanar’s attraction to her. He found her small, petite form
appealing, thought she had just enough curves in all the right places. He liked
that she had hair. The spike of bond-induced lust (or was it just him? she
wasn’t sure she wanted to know) she felt from him was answered by one of her
own. She felt the need down to her very core, and it was with immense willpower
that she ignored it in favor of being angry.
“What have you done?” she said aloud, though obviously she already knew the
answer.
“I’ve relieved Commander McEntire of his burden,” Dalanar said slowly. “He’s no
longer in any danger.”
She shifted her gaze. “Mac?”
Her new friend (he thought of her as a friend, kind of a kid sister---how could
he not, given that they had been inside each other’s minds?) swallowed, and
speaking slowly and carefully around the lingering pain and nausea, said, “I’m
good. I’ll be fine---worried about you more than me. Are you gonna be alright?”
I can see you’re pissed. I’d give him a beat-down for you, but I’m kinda still
out of it, he thought, knowing she would hear. Hell, knowing Dalanar would too,
and didn’t care. Raincheck?
“I might just take you up on that, when you’re feeling better,” Fi replied
aloud. To Dalanar, she said angrily, “This is not what I wanted. I thought you
were going to help both of us?”
Dalanar could feel through the bond how upset she was, and was thankful that
neither the silent counselor nor the prone engineer with whom they stood were
telepaths, for they would have known instantly that the intensity of her anger
was turning him on. And being honest with himself, he couldn’t entirely blame
that on the bond, as his people were very much in tune with their sexual
desires.
He liked that she was angry, because it would make their lovemaking all the
more passionate.
Fi allowed her disgust at his desire to flow across the bond, even though her
body was telling her it was more than welcome. His desire was fueling hers, was
fueling the bond and its desire to be completed---she was amazed that she had
any capacity at all to be angry or disgusted given the incredible strength of
her body’s drive to merge with his.
And for that, she was disgusted with herself, hated that she had become nothing
more than a statistic---a victim of her own biology.
“I’m sorry, Fidelma. I know this isn’t what you had in mind, and I wish there
had been time to explain before, but there wasn’t,” Dalanar said slowly, taking
a step toward her.
Fi backed away, and found her back up against the door. “It’s been hardly more
than half an hour since I met you. You couldn’t find one or two minutes in the
space of thirty to tell me that your brilliant plan was to transfer the bond to
yourself?! How is that even possible? Is it even ethical---couldn’t you be
accused of taking advantage of me by taking the bond into yourself when you’re
attracted to me? Kinda makes it easier to get me, doesn’t it, knowing I can’t
ever escape you?”
Dalanar shook his head. “That’s now why I did it, and I think you know that.
You’re inside my head now. I couldn’t lie to you if I tried.”
“No, but you’re a much better trained telepath than I am, Lieutenant,” she
countered. “You might not be able to lie to me, but you can keep me from
hearing and seeing things inside your head. I’d say that’s the same thing.”
He would not argue that with her, because he could understand her perspective.
His ability to shield her from certain thoughts would be seen as hiding
something by someone like her.
“I’m sorry, Fidelma,” Dalanar said again.
“Stop calling me that, you bald-headed bastard!” she shouted, before whirling
around and keying the door open again, and flying as quickly as possible away
from him before she ruined her reputation any further by throwing herself at
him.
Dalanar was so stunned that for a moment he was unable to do anything but stare
after her.
“Hey, you idiot!” Mac said as loud as he dared speak. “Go after her!”
The Deltan blinked and spared him only a glance, before he made his feet move
fast enough to carry him out of the recovery ward. His passage through the
triage center was so quick that he felt almost no influence from the nullifying
presence of T’Leara, who was being examined on a biobed by a doctor and a
nurse. It was only a second or two’s break in the bond before he felt it again,
and so determined was he to find Fi and set things right that he only made a
mental note to research the incident further at a later date.
Out in the corridor he looked first left, and then right, and took off at a
fast clip in that direction when he saw her waiting impatiently for a
turbolift. She was actually tapping a foot on the deck, her hands on her hips,
and whether she had run out of patience or was trying to avoid being caught by
him, Fi suddenly turned and headed off down the perpendicular corridor to her
right. Dalanar followed.
“Fi, wait!” he called out, stepping his pace up to a jog and nearly colliding
with her as she whirled with the sudden decision to confront him.
“How could you do this? I knew you weren’t going to save me! I thought it was
just my fear talking, or maybe the bond not wanting to be broken or something
equally stupid, but I knew it, just knew you weren’t going to save me! I never
should have trusted you!” she all but shouted inches from his face.
Stepping back to give her some space, Dalanar said quietly, “You can trust me.”
“As Humans are so fond of saying---BULLSHIT! I couldn’t even trust you to
explain to me a decision you had made that affected the entire rest of my
natural effing life!”
Dalanar sighed a ragged breath. “Fidel—Fi, I’m sorry. I am truly sorry to have
upset you by doing things this way, and I swear to you if I’d thought there was
any other way---”
“The least you could have done was to tell me what you were going to do!” Fi
interrupted. “It would have taken just seconds to say the words.”
She shook her head, exasperation and anger warring with desire and yearning.
Her body was still betraying her, and was going to keep doing so until she did
something about it---until she did it with him. While he had openly admitted in
his mind that he was attracted to her, Fi couldn’t honestly say if the
white-hot lust racing through her veins at the very sight of this virtual
stranger was because she felt the same way or because the bond was telling her
to have sex with him. She wanted to have sex---someday. She was looking forward
to giving herself to a man and sharing the experience of making love, but damn
it, she wanted to be in love with the man she was with when that happened!
“I knew there was no way I was going to be able to turn off the bond from your
side of it, and I am sorry if I gave you that impression,” Dalanar was saying.
“Because you hadn’t slept with him---which, as you know in our people is what
seals the bond---I knew that removing the bond from Commander McEntire would be
fairly easy. But just doing that would have left you hanging in the wind facing
madness or death and I couldn’t do that to you. I would never inflict such a
fate on anyone, not willingly or knowingly.”
He sighed and rubbed the smooth cranium that a moment ago she had belittled. “I
couldn’t just take the bond away from him,” he said. “Something had to be done
with it. Bonds are like a line going from Point A to Point B---you, in this
case, are Point A, and once a bond is established, it’s always going to need a
Point B. I couldn’t just break the bond because it could possibly have killed
you. Something had to be done with it.”
“You said that already,” Fi sneered.
“Look, you were in need of another telepath to accept the bond---”
“There are other telepaths on this ship, male telepaths,” she countered. “There
must be.”
Dalanar looked at her. “There may well be over a hundred telepaths of various
class on this ship---not including untested or unregistered telepaths, such as
the children who came aboard when you did---and less than half are male. Most
of that number are Vulcan or Betazoid, and are married or bonded in some way.
Would you really have me ask one of the relatively few unmated telepathic males
on this ship to be your husband out of nowhere? Wouldn’t you rather have it be
someone who volunteered---who wanted to be with you?”
Just then an ensign in engineering gold came out of the turbolift.
Non-telepaths, not knowing how to shield them, were natural thought
broadcasters, and one look at the pair squared off before her brought the term
“lover’s quarrel” immediately to her mind. She was fighting an amused smile
when Fi shot her a searing look that sent her scurrying on to her destination.
When the girl had disappeared around a bend in the corridor, Fi’s angry eyes
found Dalanar’s baleful gaze once more.
“I’d have rather been given a choice in the matter,” she said. “If there really
was no other way to save me from myself, I would have accepted any man willing
to make such a huge sacrifice for a stranger. I might even have accepted you as
a willing volunteer---if you had only given me the option.”
At this she threw up her hands and all but growled in frustration. “But right
now it doesn’t matter to me that you found me attractive before we were bonded,
and it doesn’t matter to me that you’re willing to tie yourself to me for all
eternity for the sake of my sanity, or even my life. What really pisses me off
is that you didn’t include me in the decision-making process, and I can’t just
let that slide. It makes me wonder what other decisions you’ll make without
consulting me, all in the name of doing so with my best interests in mind.”
Just how much this had hurt her was now making itself known, as her ire slowly
but surely began to dissipate into resignation. She’d been given no choice
before, and she was left without one now.
“Fi, I made a promise to take care of you,” Dalanar said, his own sense of
guilt plainly etched on his face. “If you’ll give me a chance to prove it to
you, I’ll be a good husband, a good provider.”
“I don’t need a provider. I think I can take care of myself, Lieutenant,” Fi
told him, walking around him and pressing the call button for the lift again.
This time the door opened immediately, and Dalanar heard her absentminded
thought that it must have already been waiting there after depositing the
engineer. He considered letting her go, but he couldn’t just leave things like
this---even if he wanted to, the bond they shared wouldn’t let him, and so he
hurried to catch the door before it closed between them.
“I am so sorry,” he apologized, stepping into the lift. “You’re right---it was
wrong of me to not at least tell you what I was going to do. But I honestly
didn’t think I could waste the time arguing with you like we are now.”
She looked at him and frowned. “Was Mac really in that much danger of dying?”
Please state your destination, requested the computer.
“Deck six,” said both occupants at the same time, and feeling a great deal of
the tension between them melt away, Dalanar chuckled. Nearly every scientist on
the ship was quartered on Deck 6, and apparently there had been room for one
more (he had learned from his reading of her mind that she was a botanist).
Fi leaned back against the wall with her eyes closed as the lift began to take
them up one level. “Was he?” she asked again.
“Yes,” Dalanar answered, “but that’s not precisely why I acted the way I did.
I’m sure you suspect I scanned your mind during our interview.”
She nodded. “I may not be as highly trained as you are—I’ve never quite
mastered shielding much to my parents’ dismay---but I knew you were rooting
around in there. You know more about me than I do about you.” She chuckled
mirthlessly. “Gods know I’m afraid to ask what you found.”
His next words caught her by surprise.
“You should be.”
Fi opened her eyes as the lift came to a halt and the door opened, but she made
no move to step out. Every trace of amusement, of pleading hope, had slipped
from his countenance, and all she found there was a solid, stoic expression
that would make a Vulcan green with envy…
…if such a thing were possible.
“What do you mean I should be?” she asked cautiously.
“May we continue this conversation in a more appropriate location?” he asked.
“I’ll explain everything to you, you have my word. But I don’t want to get
caught standing out in the corridor again, and I do believe you’re going to
want to sit down for this.”
A new series of questions flooded her mind, and he heard every one of them.
I’ll answer every one of your questions, if you’ll take a chance on trusting me
again, he told her silently.
I’m afraid to trust you, replied Fi in the same fashion. You’ve already broken
my trust once---I don’t even know if I can ever trust you again.
But you do know, he said with a solemn look in his eyes. We’re connected now.
All you have to do is use that connection to tell you whether or not I can be
trusted. I can’t lie to you, remember?
You can still hide things from me. You’re already hiding something from me.
I’m about to reveal it to you. I’m going to tell you everything I learned about
you, Fidelma, and then there will be no more secrets between us.
He saw---and felt---her resolve to know the truth as she stood straight and
squared her shoulders. “Fine,” she said aloud. “Just stop calling me Fidelma. I
love my grandmother but I hate that name.”
“Why?” he asked. “It’s a good, strong name. It means ‘constant,’ which can also
be interpreted to mean ‘faithful,’ as it is closely related to the word
‘fidelity.’”
Fi rolled her eyes as she stepped past him and into the corridor. “Spare me the
etymology lesson. I know what it means. But it’s an old-fashioned name---too
old-fashioned for my taste. How many Fidelmas can you actually say you know?”
“Just one.”
Obviously he could not help himself---he smiled at her when she turned and
narrowed her eyes at him over her shoulder. He laughed lightly and lifted a
hand, indicating that she could take the lead. Fi started to walk away and then
suddenly stopped.
“I have—” she began.
“---a roommate,” he finished for her.
Don’t do that, she thought at him.
Finishing each other’s sentences will become second nature unless we
concentrate on not doing it, he replied.
“Then concentrate on not doing it, Baldy McStalker,” Fi said snidely. “Don’t
let this calm façade fool you---I’m still really pissed at you.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I’m aware of that,” he said drily.
Fi rolled her eyes again. Smartass, she thought. “What I was getting at is that
Mickey might not want or need to hear whatever it is you have to tell me.”
He nodded. “Good point. And as it is best discussed in private, I’m afraid my
quarters are the alternative.”
“Ooh, and I bet you just can’t wait to get me alone, can you?”
This time it was he who narrowed his eyes. “Since by my rank and position I
rate private quarters, yes, we will be alone. And yes, I want to be alone with
you. I’d like to do a great many things to you that you’ve only dreamed of, but
for right this moment, I’ll settle for you hearing me out. I’m a grown up,
Fidelma, I’m sure I can keep my hands to myself.”
He stepped past her and started down the corridor. Fi growled at his back and
followed. “I told you—”
“---to stop calling you that,” he said over his shoulder, turning down a side
corridor and leading her into another. “But I don’t think I will, at least not
yet. I find myself quite amused with how much it annoys you.”
“And my annoyance is a turn on. I’m aware of that. Perhaps I should allow you
to keep calling me Fidelma for the simple fact that eventually, the shiny
newness will wear off.”
Dalanar stopped in front of cabin R-612 and turned to face her. “You know, a
lot of men would say at this moment that they preferred you when you were all
scared and guilty and nervous.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “But not you?” she queried.
“Oh, hell no. Absolutely not,” he replied with a grin. “I’m finding this
prickly demeanor of yours quite … stimulating. I’ve always loved a woman with
backbone. It’s nice to see yours.”
With that, he turned and keyed the door to his home away from home open,
knowing she had no choice but to follow.
Fi pointedly stomped loudly over the threshold behind him, and suddenly heard
her mother’s voice in her head, telling her she was acting like a child. A
small part of her was ashamed to know that her conscience was right---she was
being childish---but the angry part didn’t give a damn. No sentient being liked
having his or her (or it’s) choices taken away, and Dalanar had stripped her of
one of the most profound decisions she would ever make.
“I’m sorry,” he said, responding to her thoughts as he stopped and turned to
face her.
“You keep saying that,” Fi said as she brushed past him and stalked over to a
window, noting absently that the ship must be at high warp given she could
barely see the points of light that were distant stars streaking past them (and
she was mildly jealous that he even had windows; the quarters she shared with a
Resurgence security officer were not on the outer hull, and thus had none).
“And you know I mean it, whether you acknowledge it or not,” Dalanar returned.
She shrugged as she turned around. “I prefer thinking about how much of a jerk
you are. Then I don’t have to think about what being bonded to you means. Anger
is making me feel a whole lot better.”
Dalanar stepped closer, mildly surprised that she didn’t back away. More
backbone, he mused. She was choosing to stand up to him in the only way left to
her.
Very well. If she wanted to play, he was supplying the deck.
“You do realize that anger is passion, don’t you? It simply resides on the
negative end of the spectrum,” he said slowly. “How mad you are is a measure of
how much passion I’ve inspired in you.”
Fi’s eyes bulged in surprise, then narrowed. “Do not flatter yourself,
Lieutenant. Passionate is hardly the word I’d choose to describe how I feel
right now.”
“You don’t have to admit it, but you know I’m right,” her companion said
mildly.
“Why don’t you just get to the point of why I’m here so I can leave?” she asked
tartly, ignoring the split second of disappointment she felt from him. He
quickly tamped it down, reassuring himself that this was not the last time they
would be alone together.
“As you wish,” Dalanar said with a curt nod. “You know that telepaths are
classed from 1 to 6 based on the strength of their power, I assume?”
“Of course I do,” Fi replied. “And no, I don’t need you to tell me I’m a poorly
trained Class 3.”
“No you’re not,” he said, his tone serious enough to make her lower her arms.
“You’re a Class 6.”
Fi snorted. “Impossible. I’ve been through the entire battery of aptitude
tests, and they all concluded I would never get beyond Class 3. Besides,
there’s a reason there are fewer than five Class 6 telepaths in the known
galaxy---everyone else who tested Class 6 committed suicide or was killed,
because the power was too much for their minds to cope with and they went nuts.
The rest of them are confined for their own safety and the safety of others.”
“Which may well be why your mother and father had a Healer establish a
psi-block in your mind. I’d say it’s been there for many years, quite possibly
since you were very young.”
Fi shook her head defiantly. “No way. There’s no way, because my mom and dad
would have told me if they’d had a psi-block---”
“Not if the reason for that psi-block was to protect you from losing your mind
or hurting someone,” Dalanar stressed.
“No,” she argued, shaking her head more forcefully. “I don’t believe you.
Betazoids and Deltans both don’t come into their psionic gifts until puberty.
If my parents had needed to take me to a Healer, I’d remember it.”
“Not if they did it when you were too young to remember. On rare occasions,
persons from both species are born with the paracortex already
active---remember the ‘horror stories’ you heard as a kid? Your parents grew up
hearing them too, and I’ve no doubt that you displayed the symptoms of an
active paracortex when you were very young,” Dalanar went on. “There is
definitely a psi-block, Fidelma, I know how to recognize one. But it’s
beginning to fail. I suspect your pheromone suppressants played a role in
maintaining it, but you went without them for several days, and that enabled
the metaphysical dam to crack.”
Her eyes widened, and he felt the first trickle of fear make its way down her
spine. “A mental floodgate…” she said breathily.
Dalanar nodded. “Indeed. I took a peek behind the block when I was reading your
mind,” he said, “and I know no other way to describe what I saw there except to
say that there is an incredible amount of raw power. I’ve only ever seen
anything like it in a Class 6 telepath.”
“You… you’ve examined a Class 6 before?”
He let out a heavy breath. “Once. He was a mental patient back on Delta IV that
I had to examine as a part of my training as a Healer. I almost gave up my
cause after that, but…” Shaking his head again, he said, “It was a very scary
experience, to say the least. His mind was so incredibly chaotic that I really
can’t describe it, nor would I even try.”
“Is that what my parents were afraid of?” she asked meekly, once again the
frightened girl of an hour before.
Dalanar wanted to go to her, to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he
knew what that would lead to, and knew he had to handle her very carefully. “I
can’t say for sure. They may not even know your true potential, and were simply
afraid you’d have a very difficult life, if indeed you were born with an active
paracortex. It would probably be wise to speak to them as soon as possible and
get the full story behind the activation of the psi-block.”
“Why didn’t you do that before? Like before you did the bond transfer?” she
asked. “Maybe they would have known a way to stop it, or repair the block or
whatever.”
“There wasn’t time,” he insisted. “Commander McEntire’s condition was worsening
with each passing minute---a decision had to be made and carried out before the
damage to his cerebral cortex became irreversible. I think the power that is
already leaking from behind the block is what caused the bond to form to begin
with, when you were stranded on the planet. Once you linked with him
psionically earlier this evening, the power began degrading his mind at an
almost exponential rate, and surely even you know that a bond with a psi-neg
doesn’t degenerate the mind that quickly.”
At long last, she stepped to her right and dropped heavily on the end of his
couch, bracing her elbows on her knees and dropping her head into her hands.
“And you’re sure there is no way you could have returned the link to me
somehow, or repaired the block so that I didn’t have to be bonded to anyone?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. If this had just been a case of an accidental bonding,
which does happen, I might have been able to simply dissolve the bond. But with
the block breaking down, I…” Dalanar sighed, expelling another ragged breath.
“I’m sorry, I just didn’t think I---”
“Had the time,” she finished for him, looking up with a weary expression. “What
happens now? You were very insistent before that I needed another telepath to
accept the bond. What good is being bonded to another telepath going to do for
me?”
He walked over to where she sat, and skirting the low table in front of the
couch, sat on the opposite end. “I’m a Class 5 telepath, and a trained psychic
healer. I honestly think I am the only person available who is equipped to help
you deal with the release of the psi-block.”
She looked at him incredulously. “You told me I should be afraid of this power
that I didn’t even know I had, and now you’re saying you want to let it out?
Are you sure you’re not nuts yourself?”
He laughed at that. “No, I don’t think I’m crazy---but then, no crazy person
ever does, do they? What I mean is that I do think it needs to be released, a
little bit at a time. If we do it incrementally, I can train you in several
techniques that can help you handle the metaphysical weight of the power, so
that it won’t be dangerous to you or anyone else. It won’t be easy, but it can
be done. Class 5’s like myself do it every day, albeit on a somewhat smaller
scale.”
“You couldn’t just tutor me?” Fi asked with a pointed stare.
“Fi, the chance that something like this could happen again, with worse
consequences, is far too great to take the risk. With my training, I can guide
you better through being bonded than if I just instructed you.”
“And you don’t think that doing it your way is going to drive me crazy? I mean,
isn’t there still a chance of that? That the power could destroy my mind?”
He looked over. “I believe,” he began, “that being bonded to another powerful
telepath can only help you. I can support you better through being bonded.
We’ll both be stronger emotionally and mentally, even psionically, because
we’re bonded.”
Dalanar waited while she considered that, shielding himself to allow her the
privacy of her own thoughts. He wanted her to think this through on her own.
Fi looked at him then. “Say it doesn’t work, and I start going postal anyway.
What will happen to you?” she asked.
“Then the same thing will happen to me.”
Her eyebrows rose. “You mean to tell me that you are risking your mind and
maybe even your life by bonding with me? A potential psych bomb?”
“The risk is worth the rewards.”
“What rewards? I have a prickly demeanor and I hate you,” she said.
Her host chuckled, shaking his head. “You don’t hate me, Fidelma. I can feel
your frustration, a little bit of fear, and yeah, some anger’s still there, but
you don’t hate me. And you’re---”
“Don’t you dare say I’m grateful,” Fi warned. “I’m glad there’s a remote chance
I’m not going to go insane and murder the entire crew before turning the phaser
on myself, but I would still rather have known what you were going to do. I’d
still have rather had the opportunity to tell you yes or no, or find another
alternative---as long as Mac was saved, of course---and I would sure as hell
have rather chosen my husband myself.”
“I was going to say that you are worth the risk,” he told her.
“You don’t even know me,” she replied.
Dalanar smiled. “I know more about you than you do about me, if you’ll recall,
but that can change. You have but to ask me a question and I will answer it. Or
you can open yourself up to the bond, and link your mind to mine.”
Fi jumped up, suddenly nervous. “No. I can’t.”
Dalanar stood as well. “Why not?”
“Because it will lead to something else.”
“Would that be such a bad thing? To explore each other’s bodies and experience
the pleasure that our people are known for? We’re both consenting adults, and
we’re the same species. There’s no risk of either of us hurting anyone, so no
one can stop us from doing what we want.”
He moved around the coffee table and came to stand in front of her. “What is it
that you’re really afraid of, Fi? I know you’re still a virgin. I’ll be
careful---”
“That’s not it,” she said, shaking her head. “Well, that part does scare me a
little, but that’s not it.”
“Then what is it?” he persisted, stepping closer.
Fi looked away from him and hugged herself again, this time because she was
nervous. His explanation of why he had acted the way he did made sense, and by
reading his emotions and thoughts she knew he was telling her the truth. He had
really done the only thing he thought he had the time to do. He hadn’t meant to
hurt her in the process of trying to save her, and even though it still made
her mad, she realized she was already beginning to forgive him. After all, by
transferring the bond to himself he had put himself in harm’s way---he was as
much at risk of suffering the backlash of her blocked power as she was. He was
making a sacrifice for her sake, for a virtual stranger he had only met that
evening.
And in truth, he had also given up having his choice of mates.
“I have always looked to the love and respect my parents have for each other as
an example,” she said after a while. “I want what they have with each other,
that same kind of magical relationship.”
“We could have that,” Dalanar said, taking another step closer.
She shook her head. “No we can’t.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “What makes you think so?” Another step.
Fi looked up. “Because we’re not in love,” she said sadly. “I wanted my first
time to be with a man I loved, who loved me.”
He stopped, but just for a moment. The rational part of Dalanar’s mind told him
that now would be a good time to back off, to give her the time and space she
clearly needed, that if he did she would eventually come to him on her own. But
they were so close to each other now, so close that he could smell the light,
fruity scent of her shampoo despite how tightly her hair was bound. He’d never
met a Deltan with hair---his people being naturally bald---and right then all
he wanted was to pull the pins out and run his hands through it. To bury his
face in it and breathe her in so deep that he never forgot what she smelled
like.
He was so wrapped up in how the bond was making him feel, in what it was making
him want to do, that he’d forgotten to keep his mental shield up. The sharp
increase of Fi’s heartbeat, the shallowness of her breathing, told him she had
heard every thought he’d just had. He could also feel her struggling with her
own desire to just give in to the bond and deal with the consequences later.
It was just a matter of which one of them broke first.
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- » <USS Avalon> Re: "A War of Wills" - Rowanna Darkwolf
