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 Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 7:10 am
Why was she even here? It was too early, there were too many people, and her head felt as if some little child was beating it with a wooden block. Not only that, but...what did she hope to gain by coming here? Telling Rob that Caroline was seeing another man wasn't the greatest of ideas, especially not after their last run in. She had fled on horseback like a coward. What would ye be doin' otherwise, fool? Lettin' Desmond make breakfast for ye like usual? Except it wouldn't be like usual, and that was the problem. She'd woken up this morning confused as hell, wrapped up in the smith's arms on his couch. Liadain had looked down on her with disapproval and no small amount of 'angry mother hen' attitude. The worst of it...Soibhan couldn't remember a thing... Except for one look, one look that she'd seen in Desmond's eyes as they... Shaking her head, she felt her anger returning. She'd fled this morning too, something she'd never done after a one night stand. Never had she felt the need to leave first, because always she had been a willing participant and always had she picked men that she knew she wouldn't regret waking up to the morning after. But...had she really been unwilling? Did she really regret it? She'd had to think about it for a good long while, but finally she came to the realization that what bothered her the most was that she hadn't initiated. Desmond had. He'd taken control of the situation, and though she didn't want to see it that way...He'd taken advantage of it. Maybe even manipulated the entire night, drinking as much as he had with the knowledge that she would match him drink for drink. Her thoughts were a myriad of emotions and they only served to make her head hurt more, so instead, she trudged through Palisade's market row, taking solace in the knowledge that if her head hurt this badly, Desmond would be in agony, with only his guardian to scowl at him, and Vexation to get in the way of his vomiting. C'mon, Ollie, where are ye? She was being a coward by taking this route as well, but...could she really see Rob again? Tell him to his face that Caroline had been seeing another man all this time, when she herself had slept with....A number she probably shouldn't think about. Including Desmond, the goddamn b*****d.Wanting to crawl under a rock, she very much contemplated turning and going home, but then she heard the familiar, cheerful voice of the big sailor she missed so much and turned to see Ollie at a fish stall. He looked as charming as always, as if trying to woo the ladies shopping his wares. "Ollie!"
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Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 8:37 am
"No, no, no, y'don't want that'un, ma'am, s'all dead-eyed. This fella here, he's lookin' at you all pretty like. Wants you t'take 'im home, he does." Ollie was grinning, taking obvious joy in his customer's mock scandalized look. He winked at her and leaned closer, like two conspirators in the sea of haggled prices and hawked wares. "Tell y'what, Missus Korle, he looks real good on you and th'boss is cuttin' loose some of the catch anyway. I'll give 'im to you for threepence."
The woman bundled off with the fish, and Ollie called after her, "Y'take care now, Missus Korle! We'll see you on Thursday." The boss liked Ollie for the ease with which he handled people. He seemed uniquely suited for the storefront, delighting in interaction. There was a confidence - indeed, a recklessness - to him that allowed him to bend rules and improvise at will, which, it turned out, boosted sales significantly. And if, once in a while, a lady took a fancy to the roguish charm of his perennial grin, his winking, his somehow perfect head of hair, then it simply meant they were guaranteed a repeat customer.
Ollie had just resumed what he had been doing before, laying fish out on the slab of ice McGifford had managed to procure, when he heard a familiar voice. He looked up, dumping the fish back into its bucket, and was vaulting over the ice in the next moment and enveloping her in a hearty bear hug. "'Ey, Soi! S'been a while!" Between his sick mother and working the stand, Ollie had yet to find time to visit the Soibhan at the Swan. He might have had the decency to look bashful, but it wasn't an emotion he felt often.
"Are you lookin' for my fool of a brother? He's down by the dock with Taxes n' Tod. He'll be back with more fish in a tick," he said, loosening his hold and studying her to see if his words would be news or warning. "Rob isn't much of a salesman, see, an' Tod isn't old enough to carry all the fish yet." Luckily, Taxes didn't particularly mind the stink of fish and was more than happy to lend a hand. Unfortunately, it also meant that she had to put up with Tod while he watched and imperiously pretended to be in charge. Taxes' temper for dealing with the youngster was already perilously short and Ollie knew the arrangement would not last long. With luck, Tod would be big enough soon to handle the fish on his own. "She weren't too 'appy about that. Been waitin' for 'im to muck up bad so she'd 'ave an excuse to whale on 'im, she has."
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Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 5:28 pm
"I've missed ye," she said, but when he mentioned Rob's impending return, she felt an uncharacteristic amount of panic, though she tried to keep the tension out of her body. "An' it doona surprise me. Wee Tod looked te be a bit o'a handful when I saw him last. Maybe Taxes should whale on the lil bugger." A hundred emotions were running through her, but the most prominent had become a need to flee before Rob returned. "Ah, Ollie. I've go' te go...somewhere...right quick...but could ye pass a, uh, a message to Rob?" She opened her mouth to continue, but then she heard it, the sound of hooves on cobbles, at least two sets, and whirled around, searching the crowd. "He needs te know somethin' about tha' Caroline woman-"
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Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 5:59 pm
"Ah, an' I've missed you right back. But it sounds like you've been gettin' into plenty o' trouble without my help," he said with a knowing smile. Rob had done nothing but curse about her and her inordinate penchant for finding trouble and subsequently running away from it for days after their last meeting. But something had changed in her, Rob had said, and he had suspected that this Edgar fellow she had mentioned had something to do with it. If not for their mother's illness, Ollie had no doubt that his brother would be out hunting for the man in question, if for no other reason than to demand what he had done with the fearless woman they had met in Northport. "But I tell you, if y'can take it and give as good as y'get, keep at it. Life's not worth it without a spot of trouble now an' then. Y'can live like a saint but we all die in the end, so y'best get your due out o' life while y'can."
He noticed the sound of hooves the same time she did, and cast his gaze around for the unmistakable flash of gold that was Taxes plowing unapologetically through the crowd. "An' where d'you think you're off to so quick?" He demanded, turning back to Soibhan. They both knew why she so wanted to be off, but no problems were solved by fleeing. A small frown came across Ollie's face at the mention of Caroline, and it was the only reaction he would permit himself to have when it came to the situation his brother had entangled himself in. He didn't approve, but it was not his business to interfere, and if he had already chosen a side, Rob didn't need to know about it.
He caught her at the crook of her arm and fixed her with a stare. "I try not to get involved with my brother's business, but runnin' away from him now s'not gonna do you much good," he said, listening as the clop of hooves neared. "If y'think he needs to know, y'should tell 'im yourself, Soi. An' if need be, I'll buy you a beer afterward," he added.
A loud bleat announced the arrival of Taxes. The doe's ears pricked in recognition and she bleated again, only to be interrupted by Tod insistently shoving his way in front of her to investigate. Taxes' ears pinned against her head in displeasure and she jabbed an angry bite into the younger deer's flank.
"Ah, leave 'im," Ollie said, with a shake of his head, turning to unload the fish as Rob appeared and slung the last of the catch onto the slab of ice.
"Soibhan," he said, mildly surprised to find her standing there beside the stall. Their last meeting had weighed heavily on his mind. Everything that had been said, everything that had been left unsaid... She was still that fiery, indomitable spirit he had met in Northport to him, and she always would be. "You're lookin' better."
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Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 6:38 pm
"Ollie, no, ye gotta let me-" But it was too late. Even the thought of a beer with the jolly sailor wasn't enough to keep her from wilting just a little as she found herself unable to escape. "s**t..." she murmured under her breath, but then, more loudly she said, "Hey, Rob. Uh, yeah. Jaw's all healed. Good te go." Her fingers briefly touched the spot where Edgar had punched her, fire flashing in her eyes. Then she turned her attention to the two guardians, seeing the annoyance in the doe at the antics of the young buck. "Wee Tod causin' problems?" she asked, walking over to the guardians and raising one hand up to each of them. She wanted to give them some scratches, but last time she'd seen Taxes, the doe had been quite a bit younger. Who knew if her tastes in affection had changed.
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Posted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 9:03 am
"No more fights then, I take it?" He asked, leaving unmentioned that he meant fights with a certain someone who had left her looking much the worse for wear the last time around. It was a relief to see her looking more like her old self, to see some of that old fire back in her eyes. Somewhere inside, the Soibhan he and Ollie knew was still there.
He watched as Taxes nibbled at Soibhan's hand, thoroughly enjoying the extra attention before Tod tried to barge in, walking directly in front of the doe to demand his own scratches. He was looking more and more like a yearling and less like an adorable, gangly-legged baby, and Rob could swear the tips of antlers were starting to bud atop his head. He was growing stronger too and was very aware of it. But a firm n** from Taxes seemed to make him reconsider. He hesitated and before the doe could wheel around to send a well-aimed kick into his side, he took a step back to stop crowding Soibhan.
"A bit, but nothin' Taxes an' I can't handle," Rob said, noticing Tod's ears sweep backwards with slight uncertainty. But the fawn stayed where he was and allowed Soibhan to resume petting Taxes. "Jus' needs to know who's in charge, he does." Which was not easy on a ship full of sailors convinced that Tod was just a harmless baby. Most of them let him get away with far too much, and Ollie had elected to take a hands-off approach in Tod's education, preferring to ignore the young Guardian regardless of right or wrong.
"So... why are you here, Soibhan?" He asked after several moments of watching her pet the two Guardians. Somehow, he wasn't inclined to believe she had stopped by for the fish.
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Posted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 12:13 pm
"Haven't been in a position te initiate em, no," she said with a snarl, not aimed at Rob, but at the unmentioned name. It seemed for a moment that Taxes would teach young Tod a painful lesson, but the buck seemed smarter than he let on and when both guardians were in the right places, she was able to give them both a good scratching. It made her heart happier to know that Taxes remembered her. Before either man could complain, she pulled two sugar cubes from her pocket and handed one to each deer. "If he ever gets too full o' himself, I'll come show him who's boss," she said with a grin, patting his neck. A small, moving shadow caught her eye and she glanced up to see Comghan flying circles high above them, the hawk relishing in his freedom now that his wings were finally healed. Using the sight of him as a chance to find her courage, she pondered how she would answer that last question. But in the end, there was no way to avoid it now that she was here. And she was sick of running from Rob. "When was the last time ye saw yer wee flower o' a woman?"
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Posted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 9:59 pm
"Let's hope that never 'appens," Rob said, shaking his head as Tod snatched the sugar cube unceremoniously from Soibhan's hand, narrowly missing her fingers. Taxes shot him a narrow-eyed look of disapproval, taking hers with uncharacteristic poise, as if determined to prove that she was nothing like her smaller companion.
He followed her gaze up to the circling hawk. Taking advantage of the moment, Ollie quietly gestured to Taxes and Chosen and Guardian discreetly melted away into the crowd, leaving Rob and Soibhan to their talk.
"Caroline?" Rob said, shifting his attention back to Soibhan, The look on his face became more guarded, as if he expected nothing good to come out of the conversation. How could it, after all, when this was Soibhan he was talking to and Caroline they were talking about? "The... Masque, I s'ppose," he said cautiously, remembering all too well their meeting all those months ago. Part of him knew he wouldn't want to hear what came next, though he had few ideas as to what that might be.
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 5:22 am
She would give Ollie a solid punch to the gut later for abandoning her to her fate, having wanted him there so badly as a buffer. But as he slipped away, she cursed him and hoped Comghan shat on his head. Tod remained before her, as if expecting more scratches. She obliged him, running her short nails gently along either side of his wedge-shaped head, up behind his ears, back and forth. She'd started this conversation, but she had no idea how to continue. But, like many things, she just dove into it. "I was in Oldcastle fer Samhain, an' I saw somethin' tha' migh' be....pertinent--," she'd learned that word from Raj, "--te know abou' Caroline an' wha' she's been up te fer the las' few months." Waiting for him to answer would have been the polite action, but it also could have been the most awkward. So instead, she rushed ahead and said, "Caro's been seein' another man, Rob."
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 8:05 am
He knew the moment she reached "Oldcastle" that he didn't want to hear it. Whatever Soibhan had discovered at Samhain was information better kept to herself, divulged perhaps to some impartial party if she felt inclined to get it off her chest, but certainly not to him. He had no interest in knowing, no need to find out.
"Stop, stop it," he started to say, trying to halt whatever pertinent information she had about Caroline. This was a discussion that they shouldn't be h aving when Caroline was not present to defend herself. But this was Soibhan before him, after all, and she had barreled on before he could do any more to stop her.
And then she said it.
He wasn't sure what his first reaction ought to be: anger, hurt, denial... and yet, somehow, what he felt was a deep and burning conviction that she was wrong. She was a biased player in this twisted game of broken affection. Was it so difficult to imagine that she might have taken any situation for more than face value, read into it more than actually existed?
"Why are you telling me this, Soibhan?" He said finally, wearily. "What if you're wrong? What if..." He stopped, shook his head. What if she was doing this on purpose, without quite realizing it, for her own ends? Part of him, he knew, longed for that to be the answer, for her to give him a reason, finally, to abandon whatever duty or obligation he felt to Caroline so he could grab her and kiss her and feel the fire between their bodies pressed tight together again. A sweet, sweet song that would be.
But the other part almost hated himself for thinking that way.
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 9:00 am
She saw in his eyes that he didn't want to believe her, and that hurt. Even after everything, they were still friends, weren't they? Friends didn't question each other on matters such as this. Unless he thought she was purposefully lying to him out of a sense of spite towards Caroline. That thought made her bristle and gone was her uncertainty, replaced by a familiar anger. "How can ye tell me I'm wrong? It's no' somethin' ye would catch anyway, the way ye run ou' te sea te escape everything, Rob Tiller. I'm tellin' ye this," she continued, stepping closer to him, getting into his space so that he would listen to her, "so tha' ye stop wastin' yer sense o' duty an' honor on a woman tha's playin' ye like a fiddle." Thorne seemed like a nice fellow too. It angered her that Caroline was being so indifferent to Rob's moral high ground.
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 9:58 am
"Not ever'thing is an escape, Soibhan," he replied, caught between a sudden, aching weariness and rising anger. He could tell she was feeling the same, a knowledge that both spurred his own simmering rage and made him want to control himself for fear of turning this meeting into yet another argument. If anything was to be familiar about her, he would prefer it not be this. "That's my life, innit? That's my job. Not everyone has the luxury to sit around in Palisade training rogue armies and chasing spirits! The sea is where I've always been. Y'can't blame for not abandoning that for a song we never played!"
And there it was. Always, it came back to that, to the night that could have been, and he knew it was something neither of them had ever quite let go. Because for all that poor timing had kept them from making good on a beautiful opportunity, it also kept them inexplicably linked to each other and Rob had to believe there was a reason why. He hadn't quite unearthed it yet, but he understood then that because it was Soibhan, he could believe anything she said, if she but said it to him enough times. And that made him wary. Knowing she had that sort of power over him also made him twice as critical of everything she might say, especially when it came to this.
Because everything she was saying was something he didn't want to believe. He didn't want to think that someone as proper, as poised, as put-together as Caroline might have her own weaknesses as well. That she might not be perfect. It scared him; what hope did the rest of them have if she was so flawed? What was the point of bettering himself if he would always only fall short?
"Just stop. I can't listen to-- don't keep saying that," he growled. The idea that he could be wasting his time and honor on someone who seemed to be made of the stuff didn't quite fit into his idea of the how the world worked. It had nothing to do with the idea of being played - he had known plenty of women who were interested in nothing more - but the possibility that certain convictions he held might have been wrong.
"Look, it doesn't matter, does it?" He said, almost in desperation to keep her from continuing. "You an' I've both done it before. S'not important... is it?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 12:14 pm
She growled as he said it, the thing that she didn't ever really want to think about. Not because it hadn't happened, but because she'd been so stuck on him since that night, like a burr in a curly cat's coat. He'd been on her mind more than he hadn't, and that bothered her. They'd shared nothing more than a drink and an unspoken desire. That was it. Why did she care so much? "It matters," she said, vehement, stepping even more into his space, "because if ye keep goin' on this path with her, it only leads te sadness. She's go' someone, Rob. They've been seein' each other since the Masque. Hell, they saw each other tha' same day!" She barrelled forward, unwilling to give him any chances at stopping her. He didn't want to hear it, but he needed to, and she wouldn't let him silence her. Contrary to what he might think, she wasn't doing this for herself, and even if she was, it was only a small part. She saw it exactly how she said it; it was a waste. He was trying to protect the honor of a woman that already had her honor protected, a woman that hadn't even had the gall to tell Rob the situation herself. "An' I've slept around, aye, bu' I've never led a guy on, no' even Des." She froze then, eyes going wide. Her mouth dropped open and she wished she could take the last part back. Rob didn't need to know that she'd slept with Des. It was inconsequential. But than why had she even said it? Why had her brain spit that out at that exact moment, in that tone, unless it did matter, somewhere. Somehow. Had she, deep down, wanted to make Rob jealous? Soibhan didn't even know and stood there, for once, speechless. s**t.
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Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 7:42 pm
She was so close, and it was distracting. The way she spoke to him now reminded him of that night, when she'd spoken with such conviction. She was so certain of what she was saying, so certain that she must be right and so determined to steer him away from what she saw as a waste. She almost had him then. Part of him wanted to go ahead and believe her. Another part wanted to turn her closeness into something else, wondering if she would just shut up already if he kissed her.
He looked down at her wild blonde hair and listened to her barreling on and thought just how simple it would be to hush her with a word and lift her chin and press his lips to hers. He thought about how right it felt with the two of them, that for all that they argued they were still the same, he and this girl who could stand in this marketplace, boots covered in grime, smelling like fish, and still be more concerned about him wasting his time. And he started to think that if Caroline did have another man, if she had seen him at the Masque, then perhaps she was already safe, perhaps she had found a refuge from her fiance anyway, and perhaps... perhaps he could concern himself with the now. With Soibhan and how he suddenly - or perhaps had all long? - just wanted that fire in her, wanted to feel her hot breath on his neck and her hands on him, tearing at his clothes.
And then... then she kept speaking. That was always her problem, he thought bitterly, a moment before what she had said registered.
His entire body seemed to tense, every muscle coiled as if waiting unleash some primal fury into the world, onto some unfortunate recipient of his wrath. Dimly, he found himself wondering why those words had had such a sudden and powerful effect on him. It wasn't as if he expected her not to have slept with anyone since they had met. The fact that she might have been with several other men didn't surprise him. Maybe he even expected it. But it was the way she had said it, the way she jabbed it at him as if expecting it to sting. And in that moment, it stung.
His face went blank. He moved away, stepping around her and into the stall. "Your smith friend, innit? The one you call a pansy?" The tension in his body demanded that he lash out at something, someone, but instead he grabbed the bucket of fish and began to slap more of them onto the ice with a vengeance that suggested the fish themselves had wronged him somehow. "Didn't lead 'im on, did you? Is that why you're here with me instead of there with 'im? Maybe y'oughter tell him he's wastin' his time on a woman who's in love with another man!" Maybe it was presumptuous of him. He didn't really know how she felt about him, and he certainly had no right to determine it, but smacking fish onto a slab of ice was doing little to release his pent-up anger. Had he been on a boat, he would have flung himself into working the ship with silent abandon, climbing the rigging or hoisting the sails, putting every once of energy into it. Here, all he wanted to do was take a fish and slap it repeatedly against the ground until it was no longer recognizable as a fish.
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Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2013 7:09 am
Fire blazed within her. Sure, she had called Desmond a pansy before, but it had been a long time since she had. He'd changed a lot in the months she'd known him, and for the better. He was her friend, a friend who had been there more than Rob ever had. Growling, she grabbed a smaller fish out of the bucket and threw it at him. It smacked him right in the face with a wet noise. "How dare ye, Rob Tiller." She was furious, her fingers clenching into tight fists. Wanting to hit him was an understatement, but her feet felt rooted to the ground. "I didna lead him on. If anythin', he took advantage o' the situation, bu' I'm no' gonna fault him fer it. Ye wanna know why?" Her hand darted forward, snatching another fish, a bigger one. This one hit his chest so hard it left a wet smear on his shirt. "He's been there fer me. Since the beginnin'. Through all the bullshit I've been through, all the snide remarks from those tha' doona believe I can lead them. Kept me calm when the man I'd been waitin' fer ended up discardin' me fer another. He's taken my abuse quietly, as I take all m'anger ou' on him." She looked down at her fists, feeling tears p***k in her eyes. "He takes me home when I'm so drunk I canna remember any o' the pain I feel everyday. An' no, it's no' all pain from yer blind arse." When her gaze lifted to his, he could see the whirl of emotions in her expressive eyes. "Why'd I even come here? Ye willna listen. This was a waste o' both our time." Reaching a hand out to Tod, she gave him one last scratch, murmuring softly to the young buck, "I was hopin' te see ye grow, little 'un. Try an' be a good boy." She turned, knowing that she was running away again. Some would say she was just admitting defeat, but that wasn't acceptable either. But if the alternative was standing here yelling at a man that she still wanted as a friend, than walking away seemed like the better option.
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