18-May-2001
Title: Wyrd
Author: Dan
Timeline: AU, but at the sametime during EW. It makes sense, I promise.
Genre: AU
Disclaimers: I don't own the characters; they just live in my Muse Space and eat all the salsa. >.<
Warnings: shoujo-ai/yuri, kinda OC characters but not really. Reincarnation.
In that pristine clearness Charmiane could see her own countenance. She stared at that haunted, exhausted, battered face, and could not even muster the strength to sigh. With rough, mechanical movements she divested herself of her armor, the thin clothes beneath it, and slid into the water.
Rhiannon laughed at the faint sound that bubbled out of the Warlord's mouth. It was something caught halfway between a moan and a sob. The meeting of the council had been brutally short. There had been no need for discussion; they had been assaulted for no known cause, and could not allow that horrid insult to go unanswered. Charmiane would be grateful for their reply, but secretly sorrow at it as well. Rhiannon wished she could do something to ease that burden of responsibility.
A low sigh slipped from Rhiannon's lips when Charmiane broke the water. Her thick golden hair clung to her body, and without the heavy concealing armor her body was very clearly female. Rhiannon wondered how she managed to hide those lush curves.
Charmiane turned her head as if sensing the druid's presence. The sweet chill of the water made her feel more awake, alive, and she splashed at the silver haired woman playfully. "Care to join me?"
Rhiannon blinked at the invitation, and then a slow, secret smile stole across her fine-featured face. With one quick movement she divested herself of her robes, and dove into the water. She came up next to a sputtering Warlord grinning. "Aye, don't mind if I do."
"You'll pay for that." Charmiane grabbed the insanely giggling druid about the waist to drag her under the water. Rhiannon writhed in her grip, trying to find leverage, only to find herself firmly pinned. Charmiane grinned unrepentantly. "Give it up, Rhiannon."
"Never."
"Then under the water with you."
"CHARMIANE!"
The golden-haired woman chuckled gleefully at the laughing shriek as she dunked the Leader of the Council of Druids again. "Yield?"
Rhiannon molded her body against Charmiane's, and looked up at her dearest friend with an unmistakable look of invitation. "I don't know, am I?"
"Ah... " Charmiane's mind stopped short, unable to fully process the situation. "... Rhiannon?"
The druid laughed huskily and nipped at Warlord's full bottom lip. "I'm tired of waiting, Charmiane."
She laughed at the warrior's completely baffled expression. The slender blonde looked as if she had been offered all the world, but for the life of her couldn't find the catch. Those wide blue eyes had deepened three shades to settle at stormy cobalt. Rhiannon swallowed a little hard at the look that filled Charmiane's face. "Are you sure you want this?"
Cupping the Warlord's face in her hands she replied with a voice thick with emotions that had been building for years. "I do, I have, and I always will."
"Easy to say when you're not looking at the scars." Charmiane placed her hand over raised line of one white scar that started at her shoulder and ran to the top of her hip. Once, long ago, someone had tried to open her up with a haphazard stroke of a rapier. "Easy to say that when you can't see the marks."
Rhiannon ran her fingers, like as a whisper, along that line, and then kissed it. Charmiane trembled at the touch. "Rhiannon... "
"I'm not afraid of what you are." She laughed then, a clear tinkling sound as she kissed another scar that ran under the blonde warrior's left breast. "You forget that most of your wounds, I have healed."
Charmiane's touch was whisper soft despite the hard calluses that lined her hands. "I won't have you grieving over me."
"Then don't give me anything to grieve over." Rhiannon kissed her sweet and slow, and slow tangle of tongue and quick nip of teeth. They stood staring at each other in the pool filled with moonlight. Just feeling each other breathe in the faint chill of the air. The druid smiled guilelessly. "You couldn't."
"I could, can." Charmiane let her head rest against Rhiannon's shoulder for a moment, leaning into the strength of her friend. "I'll most likely die in this war."
"Don't speak of it. I won't hear it. I refuse to hear it." Rhiannon laid her questing fingers over Charmiane's lips, hushing her. "Don't. In this one moment the chaos outside does not exist. Just be with me this once; just for a little while don't think about anyone except me and you."
Hesitantly, Charmiane gathered Rhiannon close to her, holding her in the still quiet of the moon-filled pool. She threaded her fingers through the incredibly long silver tresses that floated in the water in wonder. The druid sighed, settling closer, making slow eddies of water. She laid a line of kisses along Charmiane's neck, down to her collarbone, to the start of one long scar. She remembered when the Warlord had received that scar. She remembered the weeks she had spent trying to heal it in the proper fashion. She remembered her fear when she had suddenly realized that she loved the hotheaded, idealistic warrior. She had grieved when Charmiane had lost some of that burning faith.
Charmiane made a low sound in her throat caught between a growl and a moan. Rhiannon licked the sharp, raised line of the scar with one quick swipe, while her fingers traced the scars that wove an intricate pattern across her beloved's back. The scars did not scare her, did not disgust her because they were a testament to the fact that Charmiane was alive, and would live.
The druid blinked and made a small protesting sound in the back of her throat as Charmiane pulled her up from her exploration, but the protest turned into small sigh of lust and contentment as she was kissed close to senseless.
Haod tromped through the thick underbrush that seemed to be deliberately moving into his path with the air of one who has suffered much and expects to suffer more. He was careful not swear at the damned spruce willow that stood blocking his path as surely as a siege wall; he was sure it was listening. A low, thready moan stopped him in his tracks. He placed his hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to charge into hell if his Warlord needed him. "Charmiane? Lord?"
There was a sudden splash and his Warlord's sudden and inventive swearing. Haod scowled as the thrice-cursed druid's clear laughter slipped through the trees like smoke before Charmiane's clearly annoyed voice addressed him.
"Haod, what in the nine hells do you want? If it isn't good, I'll have your manhood on a pike."
He grimaced slightly. He had a fairly good idea of what he was interrupting now, and wasn't sure if he was glad to have stopped it, or upset. Charmiane needed someone; that was certain. He just wasn't sure Rhiannon should be the one. He understood the frustration and unease that Charmiane had felt all those years ago when he had fallen for a southern harper and fey mage.
"Haod?" He was gratified by the concern that slipped though Charmiane's voice as she called to him.
"I'm here my lord. The druid council has reached a decision."
"I'm quite aware that their meeting is over," Charmiane replied with amusement rich in her tone.
Haod flushed and snarled quietly at his inane embarrassment. "Aye, Lord. But they have decided which among them will march with us to Tipharies, and they ask that you and Lady Rhiannon come to a general council with all of our forces."
Haod stood in the seeping darkness of the forest and tried not to feel like a blushing youth. He could barely make out the sounds of a whispered, laughing conversation between the two women, and the splashing as they made their way out of the pool. The forest seemed to understand and hide his embarrassment as it allowed the darkness to settle over his features more firmly.
"Well, Haod? Shall we make our way back?" Charmiane asked him in the way of casual friendship. For a moment he saw her not as his Warlord and beloved a friend, but as a woman, a very appealing woman. Her long dark gold hair was still a damp cord piled up on the top of her head, and her trim form was clearly outlined by the dying light. "Haod?"
This was Charmiane, the lioness, the woman would rather kick a man's balls in than tickle them, he reminded himself harshly. "Aye Charmiane, I was just cloud gathering for a moment."
Rhiannon appeared next to Charmiane and lifted on silvery brow in silent question. "Tell me if you find any good ones, Haod, I could use a few for a good love potion to use on your Lord."
Haod stomped off through the darkness with the women's laughter ringing in his ears.
End Part 7
(:./dan/wyrd7)
