My best enemy

Maea

The worst of all blessings

Pleased with the immediate agreement he offered, she nodded softly that they had a deal. Listening while she chased a chunk of peach across the plate, her own reply came just as quickly - "Yes. Please do. Yours is a standing invitation - you're always welcome. Is there somewhere you'd like to go?" And just as she had her freedom to go wherever, so of course did he. Though she never seemed to tire of his company, it was probably good for both of them to spend time away every once in a while, for a chance to miss the other and remember to appreciate the times they did share.

Looking up again only when Liam spoke up, the anxious lines around her eyes melted away at the response. That was a huge obstacle out of the way - the kind of difference in needs and wishes that really could break even the most loving of relations. Despite her initial relief however, Maea did shift the plate to her other hand so she could put cool fingers upon his forearm. "Can't say I'm happy about the reason," she admitted, "even if I'm glad we're not at odds about it. But... I think I understand. Could you tell me their names again?" Some other day, she'd take him to the Hollowed Grounds and the ruins of the home she had grown up in. Show the stones raised to remember her own family, and maybe bring a few saplings back of the apple trees her life had revolved around, half a lifetime ago. It could never be the same as being surrounded by her kin, but... perhaps the scent of apples ripening under a Leafchange sun would add a measure of homeliness to this place she already loved.

The most beautiful of curses

Base by Skylark

Who was it that led you on
And makes you want to hurt me so?

Liam grinned at her, delighted by the open invitation and not shy about showing it. "Anywhere, if it's with you," he said with a wink. But then he seemed to truly think about it and added, "There are so many places I've never been, or only been a handful of times. Most of the Wilds, for example. I didn't travel much when I was younger, and then after I moved to the Greatwood, I didn't really want to... but now, things are different." He was different, in no small part because of Maea. "I know it probably sounds..." Absurd. Silly. Ridiculous, even. "I just - I've healed enough to want things again, and traveling is one of those things." Especially, perhaps, with a certain pale Ancient who had agreed to be his.

His stance on children was more difficult to explain, but Maea seemed to accept it all the same, even if he had probably only made himself sound like a fool. Still, he shifted his plate to one hand so that he could cover her fingers with his own, if only briefly. "Maven was my oldest," he said, his eyes softening in that way that grief has. But this time it was tinged with something else, too - acceptance, perhaps, and love, like he truly had started to heal even after all this time. "And Wren was my youngest. Both girls - and some of the best things to ever happen to me." One day, he'd share with her that Maven loved to sing, and that Wren was always painting the walls of their little house with all the colors of the sunrise. He'd tell her stories about the things they did, lament all the things they didn't get to do, and share memories of everything in between.

But for now, their names were enough.

Who do you want to forget?
Who forgot you long ago?

Liam

Maea

The worst of all blessings

"I still haven't spent any real time in the Oerwoud," Maea mused, "or been to Halo since before the war - for obvious reasons. Perhaps we could make a trip south over Deepfrost? Hak Etme is also better during the cold season." Not being in a mindset to travel didn't strike her as silly at all. In her case it had been a compulsion, a futile attempt to escape her inner demons that now felt like an ingrained part of who she was. But for the majority of her knife, she'd been in one place. Knowing nothing about what lay more than a day's journey from home, expecting nothing but the same scenery for the rest of her life. It wasn't ridiculous at all - it simply was.

"Maven," she repeatedly softly, "and Wren. And their mother's name... is Mara." Not three children, then, but three precious family members - and a name she couldn't forget for the eerie similarity to her own. Maea ran her thumb along the side of Liam's hand, lost in thought; contemplating the strange twists of luck and misfortunes that had led to this point. If not for the Voice, then his girls would still be alive. If not for the war, he would never have looked twice at her, content with the love he already had. If she hadn't clung to life and returned from Mort's halls by any means necessary, then they never would have met. Her brother had been right, when he promised there was more to living than she'd experienced by then... and she thought it was high time to visit a shrine and thank him for that. Mort too, and Vi who had gifted Ronin the ability to revive the dead. Come to think of it, a pilgrimage wasn't a bad idea at all...

The silence extended, like a silent minute in honor of the names they'd evoked. Maea hoped Mara could forgive her for caring about this man. Hoped she rested peacefully with Mort, content to wait for him so that Maea could have the remainder of his years to herself. And may they be long, bright, blissful... as much as was ever possible in Caido.

The most beautiful of curses

Base by Skylark

Who was it that led you on
And makes you want to hurt me so?

There were so many places in Caido that Liam had yet to visit, and he found that now he was eager to see them all, especially if it could be at Maea's side. "It's a date," he agreed easily enough, setting his now-empty plate down on the coffee table and reclining against the back of the couch, one arm slung easily across the back behind Maea. "What about Halo? Can you visit in Longheat, or is it still too cold?" And if it was still too cold, as Liam suspected that it might be, then what could he do to fix that for her?

Where Liam might once have shied away from sharing his family life with someone else - particularly someone who was dear to him, for fear of chasing her away or, alternately, somehow overwriting his late wife and children - he now found a quiet joy in sharing it with Maea, who seemed genuinely interested. It was true that, had the world turned differently for the pair of them, they might never have even met, much less formed the foundation upon which to build a relationship - but the dice had fallen how they would, and although it was a complicated thing indeed to consider, he was still glad to have found Maea.

"That's right," he said, watching the Ancient's face as she seemed to commit the names to memory. In his heart, he knew that his late wife would have wanted him to be happy, just as he'd have wanted the same for her, were their roles reversed. But it was no small thing, he knew, to accept that a piece of someone's heart would always belong to someone else. A part of him worried that it might all prove to be too much, but it wasn't a very large part. After all, Maea had known about his family from their first meeting, and if it hadn't scared her off by now, he doubted very much that that was going to change.

After a momentary silence, he tilted his head. "What of your family?" he asked. "I know of your brother, but if you wanted to share more...?"

Who do you want to forget?
Who forgot you long ago?

Liam

Maea

The worst of all blessings

A date. Funny, how such a simple term could sound so enticing. Yesterday she would have interpreted it to mean nothing more than what they always did, roaming and camping and trading points of interest between long hours of companionable silence. After today... even if they didn't do anything differently, it still carried a different meaning, didn't it? Because it would be A Date. "Yeah. I look forward to it already."

Halo, on the other hand, would be more difficult. Shaking her head with a rueful scrunch of her nose, Maea polished off the last bit of pie from the plate. "It's still too cold. Even in Longheat the temperature never rises above freezing. Kiada - another ancient - says she uses an enchanted coat and ring herself with fire and still only manages ten - fifteen minutes before she start to petrify." She set the dish away, before pulling both legs up beneath her and nestled into his side. "Maybe if the majority of the travel was by vessel, like a skyship... it would need to be one of the special Halo ones though. I don't think the regular are insulated enough." So not impossible, just difficult to arrange from outside the region.

Comfortable with being silent and simply savoring his presence, Maea was slow to rise back from her musings. When she did, it was with a gentle hum, as though the recollections had to be raised from some terrible depth. Entombed, sealed and hidden from daylight, lest they grew feet and came back to haunt her. "My mother's name was Mina," she replied softly. "She died soon after giving birth to me - I never met her. My father was Ruben. He was... a complicated man. Upright and one of those gentlemanly figures that can make anyone do something because he's just that charismatic. But he was also strict, and very devout - he would tolerate no insult to the Old Gods, not from anyone. I don't think he exactly blamed me for my mom's death, but he could never quite look me in the eye either. Especially not when I awoke to the magic. Abandoned were not... not shunned in the Grounds the way they were in Stormbreak, but we didn't have much status either. I suppose he was disappointed, that I didn't end up Attuned like my brother."

Reaching up to lace her fingers into Liam's hand by her shoulder, she had to regroup to find the thread of her account again. "My brother - Noah - was a fair bit older than me. It was he and my grandpa that raised me in the important ways. Him and his wife, Lianna, were one of those perfect couples that made everyone around roll their eyes at the sweetness of it. Always in synch, hard working, kind – ah, but their kids were menaces! One girl, Ansi, and two boys. Hieram, and Leon. For the Grounds at that time, we were a big family. Well off, by our standards, though we still went hungry at times like everyone else. It's been... eleven years, now, since they died. The youngest would be fifteen now."

Gods. Fifteen? Almost a man grown, yet all she saw when thinking back was a tousle-haired troll of a boy with missing teeth and dirt on his knees. Always tumbling underfoot, tormenting the dogs with an excess of love like kids were wont to do.

The most beautiful of curses

Base by Skylark

Who was it that led you on
And makes you want to hurt me so?

Halo, then, would be tricky, but not impossible to figure out, given enough time. And Liam had time between now and next LongHeat, time in which he surely could put something together. It would be worth it, for Maea to be able to visit Halo if she chose to. For now, though, the southern regions would have to be enough, especially with Deepfrost fast approaching. Thinking of that, Liam frowned slightly, even as Maea nestled into his side. "Will you be alright here, come Deepfrost?" he asked, already worrying. He hated to think of her suffering just to stay in the Greatwood, and would gladly travel with her to warmer climes if it came down to it.

Liam listened as Maea spoke of her family, his fingertips brushing her shoulder until she reached up to lace her fingers with his. It made him ache to imagine her as a child, without a mother and with a father who didn't appear to be very paternal - at least not in the ways that mattered to Liam. It wasn't pity that led him to squeeze her fingers, but a silent encouragement that she could keep going, if she wished to do so. "I'm sorry," he told her. For the losses, of course, but their hardship, too; for all that Maea put a brave face on it, going hungry was one thing that Liam struggled to imagine. "The Grounds sound like a difficult place to grow up."

Who do you want to forget?
Who forgot you long ago?

Liam

Maea

The worst of all blessings

"If I bundle up, yeah," she said. "I hear the snow doesn't settle as deeply here as in the Grounds, and I made it through there. I'll miss the portal directly into the Climb, though." She looked forward to seeing the forest dressed in white, how the colors faded to monochrome and all sounds must mute during snowfall. "Is it strange that it's still my favorite season?" Angling her head back to peer up at Liam, there was an impish look on her face. "I used to throw a mean snowball... Bet I can still manage a few throws before my fingers fall off." It was absolutely a challenge.

But thinking back wasn't only pleasant, and speaking of her childhood meant facing the worst along with whatever glimmer of good she could recall. "It was," she agreed, matter-of-fact, as anything else would have been a lie. "We were dying, along with the land. That was the whole point of it; to trap the Voice and kill her followers. Everyone else was simply collateral damage. If it weren't for the outlanders, we'd still be dying. I'd have been blind by now, or maybe dead - I was always sick as a child, and it took a master healer from another world to fix me."

She hadn't thought about Loren for years, yet his absence was still felt. His, and Amun's, and Weaver and Jigano - even Amalia, for all that they hadn't been friends since they were kids. "You know Evie, Deimos' wife? We and another girl grew up together. Not sure if we were friends, really, or if we still are... anyway, they kept me company because Amalia's mother was a healer. I watched them play outside my window on the bad days, joined them on the better ones..." Her voice trailed off. This was starting to sound very depressing. Rubbing the side of her nose, she drew in a slow breath and fumbled for something else to share, some story that wasn't bleak and dreary and laced through with inferiority complex and poverty. "I used to sneak out at night during the summers," she recalled, actually smiling at that. "I couldn't use magic in the house, so I went out into the orchard - we reared sheep and grew apples - and I played at being a great magician, sometimes until dawn. Sometimes Noah joined me, telling stories and sneaking bottles of grandpa's cider. I don't know how we never got caught, in a house full of people." It amused her now, even though it's had been a dangerous game back then. Not because her father had been violent or anything like that - he never had to raise a hand or even his voice to express his disappointment when they failed to adhere to his rules. That was always worse, somehow. Knowing you'd let him down by not being better.

The most beautiful of curses

Base by Skylark

Who was it that led you on
And makes you want to hurt me so?

"Yeah, the trees protect us from the worst of the snow," Liam mused. "You have to be careful out in the forest, though - sometimes the boughs get overloaded and snap." Ask him how he knew. As for a snowball fight, the soldier barked a laugh. "We'll have to get you enchanted gloves or something," he teased. "Otherwise it won't be a fair fight, with your missing fingers and all." Still, he looked forward to experiencing it all with Maea - snowball fight included. He'd never been one to back down from a challenge, after all.

The more he listened to Maea talk, the more he realized how close they'd come to never meeting. From her time as a sickly child to her multiple brushes with death - there were so many times that she might have perished for good. It made him ache to think of it, and he had to resist the urge to pull her closer and never let her go.

There were so many things he wanted to commit to memory - both the good and the bad - from the type of apples in her family's orchard to the name of the healer who had helped her, if only to be able to give thanks for them later. But he let her talk on, listening with rapt attention, as if he could absorb everything she wanted to share to keep with him always. "Remind me - what magic did you have, back then?"

Who do you want to forget?
Who forgot you long ago?

Liam

Maea

The worst of all blessings

Her expression turned ever so slightly greedy at the notion of cold-resistant gloves. "Not a bad idea! Would that I still had Ludo's rags. I used to be able to walk barefoot through the Citadel with those over my shoulders. The good old days," she lamented, with a wistful little sigh. "Good point about the branches, though. Did you, uh, break anything?" she added, off hand and entirely innocent as though the image of him being assaulted by falling branches wasn't the least bit funny. 

Her voice brightened back up as the topic turned to magic, expression turning lively as she replied. "Telekinesis. I made leaf boats and juggled stones, and when Noah was there we played out battles from his stories. He lined up sticks into armies, and I got the sweet part - usually a dragon or sparkbird that wreaked havoc on everyone else." Twigs had flied, rocks clashed, and one glorious night in the flickering light of a lantern she had managed to 'bless' the entire battlefield with a storm of feathers stolen from a grandmother's precious down pillow. It had been amazing - until they had to frantically collect the flighty fuckers in a race against the daylight. That one... had not ended well.

"What kind of games did you play as a kid?" she wondered, absently tracing the callouses of his fingers with featherlight fingers. "Did you always want to be a dragoon?"

The most beautiful of curses

Base by Skylark

Who was it that led you on
And makes you want to hurt me so?

Liam made a mental note to see if such a thing were possible - preferably sooner than later, given the rapidly approaching winter. Perhaps it would be something that he could surprise Maea with, so that they could have that snowball fight without worrying about her losing any important body parts. At her innocent question, Liam snorted. "No, but it was a close call. My first Deepfrost here, nobody warned me about the branches, so I went out like I always do and, uh - I think I still have a scar, actually," he mused, wincing faintly at the memory.

While many in Stormbreak had looked down upon Abandoned, Liam had never been that way. He may not ever have gone hungry, but his family were certainly not considered well off in the Stormbreak scheme of things, and his parents had always taught him not to judge others, no matter their race or history. If anything, he was fascinated by the idea of magic, and while he'd never actively wanted it for himself, he'd often wondered what it was like all the same. "That sounds amazing," he chuckled, thinking of how often he'd played out similar scenarios with friends - although none of them had magic to make things more interesting.

"Oh, this and that," Liam said of his own childhood. "The usual things - hide and seek, tag. I didn't have siblings, so I played with the other children on our street. Most of us liked to pretend to be Dragoons. Sometimes we'd go to the Dragon's Nest and watch them train. Some of us would bring sticks and pretend they were swords and try to mimic the Dragoons in training." He smiled at the memory, shaking his head at his younger self. "So, yes - I suppose I did always want to be a Dragoon. At the time, it seemed like the best thing I could do - to serve my region and its people, to protect those who couldn't protect themselves."

Who do you want to forget?
Who forgot you long ago?

Liam

Maea

The worst of all blessings

"Really?" The amused quirk of her lips immediately faded and she sat up, scanning his face for any traces of the incident. If she'd known he'd actually been hurt, she would not have laughed. "Where? Show me - " Not asking so much as demanding to examine the mark, the concern was a few years too late and somewhat misplaced - clearly he was doing perfectly fine - but she gazed expectantly at him anyway.

His early life sounded peaceful and happy, especially compared to hers. A year ago she might have been envious, even dismissive as if enduring hardship somehow made you more resilient - a load of crap at the best of days - but the Maea of right now was only relieved. The kind of darkness she'd grown up with wasn't something she wished on anyone. Him least of all.

"I wanted to be a caretaker for the Aetheneum, but as I couldn't read and had really bad eyesight, it wasn't really possible." she murmured, impressed with the tenacity he had shown by making his dream a reality. How painful it must have been, too, to watch that dream fall apart, crumbling to dust in his hands. Family gone, all purpose taken away, lost in the bottom of a bottle and just conscious enough to be aware of the slow descent into ruin.
"Did you like it, before it went downhill with the drinking and such?"

The most beautiful of curses

Base by Skylark

Who was it that led you on
And makes you want to hurt me so?

”It wasn’t serious -“ Liam hastened to assure Maea, but it was too late - she was already sitting at attention, demanding to see the injury. Holding out his right arm, he showed her a long, thin scar tracing from wrist to elbow on the outside of his forearm. It would easily be mistaken for some kind of scar from training, or perhaps from the war - but alas, this one didn’t have such a story to go with it. ”It probably wouldn’t have scarred,” he explained. ”But I was the only one out here. There weren’t any healers, and the fae didn’t trust me enough yet to be of much help - so I had to stitch it myself.” A painful experience, and one that Liam had no desire to repeat.

It was strange to think of how long ago that had been now - so long ago that, at times, it felt like another life entirely. It was similar to his childhood, in some ways; he was no longer the same person that he’d been all those years ago, and he had to admit that in many ways, the changes were improvements.

He thought back on his days as a Dragoon - the early days, at least, back before the war. ”I did,” he said. ”It was hard, don’t get me wrong. There were cases that stuck with me, even before the war. People I couldn’t save. But the ones I could help? They made it worthwhile.” He’d felt like he was really making a difference, contributing to a cause bigger than himself. It was one thing he missed about those days - that feeling of satisfaction at the end of the day, that sense that he was doing something worthwhile with his life. Not that he could complain about life at present - but he did sometimes wonder if he would ever be able to make a difference like that again.

Who do you want to forget?
Who forgot you long ago?

Liam

Maea

The worst of all blessings

Grasping his arm gently between both her hands, Maea examined the scar. The light didn't exactly fade from her eyes, but the playful mockery evaporated like morning mist as the extent of the injury became clear. Given the nature of some abilities she had, Maea was familiar with cuts and self treatments, knew the resolve it took to turn a sharpened edge upon oneself - whether blade or needle hardly mattered, the pain was the same.
Tenderly, almost reverent, Maea traced a fingertip along the pale line. Followed its path down sun-kissed skin like she had to commit it to memory, only to claim his hand in both of hers. "Stitching your own wound - that's remarkable," she murmured. "I'm glad it wasn't worse, still – yeah. I'll be very careful." Of falling branches, of getting injured - of leaving the kind of marks on skin that might make his gut drop the way hers just had. At present, the only ones she did carry were the burns on her hands, wax-like as though half melted skin had solidified in erratic bumps and swirls. That she still had full range of motion and any feeling in her hands was a miracle, honestly.

Lifting her gaze up to meet the rich hazel green of his eyes, she smiled as she nodded. "I think it suits you, that kind of role. I hope you won't let the mistakes you made in the past bar you from continuing... Even if it's not as a dragoon in uniform, you're still perfectly capable of protecting and helping. Just look at all the way's you've helped me - and we've known each other for, what. Half a year, by now?" He'd saved her life twice, found a Vi's rose, showed her how it was possible to trust and accept aid even from relative strangers, been ready to take up a mantle of leadership together for the sake of a lovely region they both cared for - and put it down again, not because he didn't want it, but because it was the best thing for the people. Even without a title or a crown, in her eyes at least, these things already made him a Guardian. The genuine kind, who did what was right without being prompted or rewarded.

The most beautiful of curses

Base by Skylark

Who was it that led you on
And makes you want to hurt me so?

Maea’s finger trailed down Liam’s arm, following the path of the scar and raising goosebumps in its wake. He wasn’t sure how remarkable it was, really - he’d just done what he had to do in order to ensure he’d heal - but he smiled crookedly all the same, grateful for the tenderness with which Maea held his hand in both of her own. If he could be a cautionary tale against the dangers of the forest in Deepfrost, then he would gladly serve that purpose to keep her safe.

Sweeping his thumb across hers, Liam noted - not for the first time - the burn marks on Maea’s own hands. They had to be from before she was an Ancient, since he’d seen her stick her hands in the fire since knowing her without a single mark, but beyond that, he couldn’t even hazard a guess. ”What are these from?” he asked, grazing the fingers of his free hand over the burns.

As for his role as a Dragoon, Liam tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. ”No - if anything, I want to make a difference more now than I did before.” To atone for his sins, perhaps, and because he knew what it felt like to lose everything, to be so deep in the darkness that he couldn’t find his way out. Helping others had always been important to him, and now that was even more so. And if all he’d accomplished in the past half-year was to help Maea, well, then it had been a half-year worth living in his book.

”Hard to believe it’s already been two seasons,” Liam mused. ”And yet at the same time it feels like I’ve known you far longer.” He wished he had known her longer. Perhaps he wouldn’t have spent so long as an outcast, had he met Maea sooner.

Who do you want to forget?
Who forgot you long ago?

Liam