In search of... (part 2)

[bitterguardian]

After years of living in his subterranean home around the vault, Horvath is unused to being woken by sunlight. To fall asleep comfortably sunk deep in a plush chair is familiar, but the chair is not his own, and to wake with a cat sleeping on him, and another running around playing is familiar, but these are not his cats and there are more than two. Also he rarely has the foresight to pull a blanket over himself. To feel so much at home in a place that is not his home comes as a strange surprise.

Last night before he dozed off in the chair, however, he had a great deal of food and alcohol, and his body would urgently like to remind him of that fact. He's grateful for the new set of crutches in easy reach, and he hauls himself up on them and swings along off to the bathroom, letting the cats scatter in his wake.

Once he's tended to the basics, and ascertained that while he is hung over, it's not a bad one, he notices the note from his host conveniently stabbed through on a prong of the antlers around the bathroom mirror. She had some foresight, indeed.

Bonjour Max! I hope that your sleep was a deep, healing one and that you woke to a better day! I had an errand to run early this morn, and might not make it back in time to be there when you wake. So! There is food, coffee, tea - and I shall return with fresh eggs for breakfast if you sleep so long.
Mara

The towels from yesterday have been replaced with clean ones, his clothes are washed and mended on the bed, and there's the salve still waiting back on the footstool beside the chair in which he slept. Thanks to the ambient light of day waking him, it's not late by any means, so he takes time to wash, to put salve and a bandage over the blistered stump of his leg, and to dress in his own clothes once more. When he emerges to investigate the kitchen, Horvath feels more like himself than he has since his encounter with Shub niggurath sent him questing. Pantleg folded up and tucked neatly (a trick he learned back in the army hospital when he was first learning to adapt to the amputation), moving faster on the new crutches than he can with a cane, he murmurs to the cats, and seeks out a cup of tea to help drive away the vestiges of a headache that's not strong enough to dampen a good mood.

Comments

[sunandshadows]

Part of her wants to go (away, away e'er break of day!) but she holds that part down tight, unwilling to let it loose now. Soon yes, but not now.

She looks down at Horvath silently with large eyes and tangled hair, and then carefully kneels down right in front of him. Close enough to reach out and touch. Close enough to hug.

"Maxim" She whispers as she opens her arms wide and leans forward. Reaching out for him, to hug him close and feel his strength and his warmth once more. "C'nes pas au revoir. C'est a tout a l'heure! It is not goodbye. I shall see you again, and soon." She squeezes him tight as she rests her cheek on his, whispering in his ear.

"And I shall care for your gift as I would my own. I promise you this truthfully with no bargaining; nothing asked for and nothing offered but the chance to see you once more; the chance for you to come and visit, and to rest in safety a while. For you travel far, and the day is long." Pulling back just a bit, she lifts her head and looks into his eyes.

Slowly, not looking away, the faeling lifts her forefinger up to her mouth. Kissing her finger, Mara reaches out toward the sorcerer to gently press her kiss to his skin.

[bitterguardian]

Very soon, because whoever does the leaving first probably has the easier job, and he needs his tea still, and a quiet space, even if he's not sure that's what he wants, anymore.

Something in his heart- and his expression eases a little when she kneels close by him. One last hug is all he could ask for, if he knew how to ask for that at all. The way he's quick to draw her in and wrap long arms around her says enough, though. Maxim Horvath is warm and solid and steady, a little weathered from the long ages, but enough of a rock to have endured that history and still come through it all very much himself. He holds on for a good long moment, taking as much reassurance from the lithe little figure in his arms as she seems to take from him, and lets her go very gently, hands sliding down her arms before he lets go. "Thank you. You've been a sanctuary I didn't know I needed." This time his smile comes easier, even if it is just a little sad. The journey he's on is painfully long, but her gifts have helped him immensely, enough to ease the weight of time on him for a good while to come.

When she presses the kissed finger to his face, there's the familiar little sheepish edge to his smile, but he tilts his face into the touch. "Thank you. Go dance, for me, and scatter your light through the forest. I'll be back for you soon."

[sunandshadows]

"I shall, and shall dance for you all the dances that you had not the time to see on this journey of yours. But there may be other quests in our future, Maxim. Oh oui, there may yet be others to come."

Rocking back on her heels, the faeling slips out of his arms and back - up - and away. If she had thought about it, she would have liked to have gone stately, like a lady. But no, the sun was bright, the autumn day was warm. The wind brought the tang of oak leaves to dance in, the distant scent of almost over-ripened wild fruit to find and eat with berry-stained fingers and berry-stained lips, and the promise of an afternoon of watching the birds fly south from the branch of a high, old tree that swayed in the winds.

She begins to hum. The hum turns to a song as Mara walks, then skips, then dances out of sight. Snatches of girlish giggles and a few lines of a song are echoed back to him, until they too fade into the forest deep.

"...Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight..."

And she is gone.

[bitterguardian]

If she'd gone slow and stately, he would have worried, but seeing her dance and skip makes it easier to watch her go. He'll carry the memory of her bouncing along with the autumn leaves on the breeze, and it keeps his heart lighter than it has been. Horvath watches her until she's out of sight, and listens to the fading voice, and tends his fire.

The tea is made in silence, but he's at peace, rather than gloomy, and when he drinks it inside a ritual circle, he thinks of the other aglaophotis flowers, growing and blooming in her hair. Horvath stays with the fire, letting it die down of its own accord as the afternoon lengthens into evening. There's the whisper of a chill on the wind, winter to come, but he's still warm enough. When there are only embers left, he buries them neatly, and makes a thorough effort to remove all traces of his presence.

Well away from the still-growing bush, Horvath opens the doorway to home, pulls it around him, and steps forward to reunite with his cats, with Bel if he's around, and to reheat the food she's sent him with for an easy dinner. It will be good to be home, but tonight he'll dream of the wild woods, and a lilting voice echoing through them.