Post by Moira ap Eiluned on Mar 20, 2013 14:00:12 GMT -8
Saturday had been a nasty but necessary wake-up call. The waking nightmares had been vivid beyond belief; it was only good luck that she hadn’t killed anyone. She’d feared that they might last weeks, but she was fortunate enough to find herself free of them after only a day. Still, the message was clear. She’d spent too long wrapped up in Fae matters, living at the Duke’s Freehold, scouting the county for breakthrough points, mapping areas of magical energy, researching the various mysteries that had been presented to her, and neglecting all but the barest necessities of her mortal life.
Focusing on the mortal wasn’t too hard during the day; she buckled down on some of the commissioned work she had lingering, and hammered it all out in record time, diving into the deliciously frustrating and utterly mundane details of debugging code, riding on waves of caffeinated beverages. One evening she went out, computer in hand, to a local coffee shop, where she met a nice boy named William, and talked with him for a few hours about politics and fracking and his favorite TV shows. She even signed up for volunteer training orientation at PAWS, to work with their wildlife rehabilitation center.
But the nights were hard. The nights, when she would stare at the mirror on the wall, or the flames of the Freehold’s Balefire, or the water in the sink, and fight the urge to look in on Hans, or look back in time upon him, to when they had been happy. The nights, when she would lie in bed alone and imagine his arms around her, his breath in her ear, the scent of his skin, hot metal and musk, filling her nose, imagine it with all her will and memory, until she could almost believe it was real.
She couldn’t bear sleeping alone, but she couldn’t bear the thought of another man in her bed, not even for the simple comfort of a warm body and friendship. She needed…
Moira sat bolt upright, slipped out of bed, grabbed a silk robe and slid into it. Bare feet pattering down the hall, she ran to Duke Marso’s office, where the light coming through the half-open door announced that he was still up, doing paperwork, as usual. Moira stuck her head inside the door, cocked it to look at her Duke, still hunched over his desk and scribbling something in the margins of a document.
“Your Grace, can I get a cat?”
Focusing on the mortal wasn’t too hard during the day; she buckled down on some of the commissioned work she had lingering, and hammered it all out in record time, diving into the deliciously frustrating and utterly mundane details of debugging code, riding on waves of caffeinated beverages. One evening she went out, computer in hand, to a local coffee shop, where she met a nice boy named William, and talked with him for a few hours about politics and fracking and his favorite TV shows. She even signed up for volunteer training orientation at PAWS, to work with their wildlife rehabilitation center.
But the nights were hard. The nights, when she would stare at the mirror on the wall, or the flames of the Freehold’s Balefire, or the water in the sink, and fight the urge to look in on Hans, or look back in time upon him, to when they had been happy. The nights, when she would lie in bed alone and imagine his arms around her, his breath in her ear, the scent of his skin, hot metal and musk, filling her nose, imagine it with all her will and memory, until she could almost believe it was real.
She couldn’t bear sleeping alone, but she couldn’t bear the thought of another man in her bed, not even for the simple comfort of a warm body and friendship. She needed…
Moira sat bolt upright, slipped out of bed, grabbed a silk robe and slid into it. Bare feet pattering down the hall, she ran to Duke Marso’s office, where the light coming through the half-open door announced that he was still up, doing paperwork, as usual. Moira stuck her head inside the door, cocked it to look at her Duke, still hunched over his desk and scribbling something in the margins of a document.
“Your Grace, can I get a cat?”