CALLI: PASSING THE TIME
The dashing representative of Sable Company crossed his arms firmly and shook his head. "It'll never work. For one, I can't dance, and I'm not about to start." He set his square jaw firmly and stared down at his charge with his piercing blue eyes.
His charge, a beautiful young woman of noble birth, raised her eyebrows and tilted her head, seemingly considering his statement. "Far be it for me to try and teach you, sir, but I argue you know more than you think you do." She stood, the expensive silks of her figure-hugging grey dress shifting with her movement and doing their best to draw his gaze. She slowly began moving towards him, "for I have seen you at training with the regiment, and it seems to me fighting is only another sort of choreography." She reached out her left hand and gently touched his left shoulder, beginning a slow circle around him as she continued. "You must be aware of your opponent at all times, and react with them as the action shifts." Her left hand traced around the back of his shoulders and to his right, and once she stood in front of him again she swung her right hand up and down towards his head, as if holding an invisible dagger.
His reflexes did exactly as she suspected, and his left hand moved with serpent's speed to catch her delicate wrist before she could connect. Her skin was soft, and he held her arm up in an iron vice. Inside her chest her heart sped up, but she remained outwardly calm and began moving her body to soundless music. She guided his right arm to her slender waist and returned her left hand to his right shoulder. "You must know your footwork, so that your opponent can't throw you off your balance." And she began a deliberate four count with her feet around him. Stepping in close, so that he could smell the floral notes in her perfume, and then dancing back again. "You don't have to think of it as dancing at all, but a test of skill."
He did not reproduce her footwork, but neither did he move away. His eyes glanced down to track her movements, and tried not to notice her decolletage between them. He relaxed his hold on her wrist and slid his fingers down her arm, the openly draped sleeves leaving most of her skin on show, hand running the length of her body to rest on her narrow waist with his other hand. She felt the hard callouses on his palm as it traveled and her flesh reacted with goosebumps. She used her now free hand to push back his dishwater blonde hair out of his eyes, getting a rough preview of what it might look like slicked back in regal fashion.
"Even if I were to learn," his voice came out thicker than he meant it to at first, and as he cleared it she was pleased to learn she was having the effect she wanted on him, "trying to pass as a visiting cousin is going to take more than that. Why can't I just go to this blasted ball as your bodyguard?"
She continued moving next to him, taking his hands and twirling herself out and then returning to his arms, her back towards him this time. "Because bodyguards aren't allowed to sit at the table with us for dinner. If your intelligence is correct and the threat is one of my peers, then you'll hardly get there in time should they try and strike over the salad course. I need you close." With that she pressed herself fully against him.
Glancing around to ensure they were still alone in the study, he buried his face into her golden locks and took a deep breath. "Gods, I need you, too. But this is dangerous on many levels. I may stop a physical attack, but at the cost of your social standing should we be found out."
She writhed around to face him again, and gripped his uniform's lapels. "If that should happen then there'd be nothing left keeping us apart. I can not bring myself to care any longer." With that declaration she stood up on her toes and kissed him. He returned it hungrily, her gyrations having worn away his propriety, and he picked her up into his strong arms, carrying her like a bride across a threshold as he took her back to her bedroom. He thought she believed her words, but he knew it was the sort of declaration only a person who had never known hardship could make. It was easy for her to play at the idea of leaving it all behind because she'd never been hungry. She's never tried to sleep in tenement housing, with screaming children and drunken fights carrying on through thin walls. He knew this was foolish, that this was lust clouding their common sense, and that there'd be a lot of work to be done before this was settled. But he knew there'd be no reasoning with her in this state, and that he might as well just give in to her whims. After all, she was accustomed to getting what she wanted, and he desperately wanted her, too.
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Calliandra closed the well-worn novel and threw it aside before burying her face in one of her silken pillows. Visible on the cover in gilded letters was Love Takes Flight 2: Sable and Rope. It was no use. Her mind thought of strong arms and calloused hands, but instead of the hero of one of her favourite romances, she was thinking of another, more real man. Suddenly she was understanding this, and the hundreds of other stories and songs she'd grown up reading. She felt the butterflies. The struggle to not let on when her pulse sped up in proximity. It was baffling.
She barely even knew him. They didn't have much in common that she'd found, yet. He was a far cry from the type of person she'd imagined might finally break down her defenses. But she found herself watching him the most when the party gathered. She liked his dry humour. She appreciated that while he did join in a bit when Trevor teased her, he never dismissed her. He valued her input. Treated her like someone who could make her own choices. He even praised her occasionally, which showed while he did have the well-earned ego of a champion, it was confidence and not just arrogance. He didn't mind sharing the stage. He was a bit rough with Taylan, but not cruel. She again thought of how highly everyone at Ruby's had spoken of him. Someone so beastly in a fight, and so beloved in his private sanctuary. The Bear of Korvosa. Maybe a bit of a teddy bear? She laughed, the sound smothered against the down filled pillow, and vowed to never say that out loud. She couldn't see any situation that nickname would ever go well. In spite of how logical she was trying to be in examining what may have led to such distracting emotions, she had to admit there definitely was a physical element. His well defined muscles tense and straining in a fight, glistening with the sweat of exertion... her cheeks went hot. Other such physiques hadn't had this effect before. Perhaps it was his ink, the flowers that adorned his arm. He wasn't just machismo, he was comfortable appreciating beautiful things. Maybe like her?
But she again thought of Ruby's and doubt crept in. He was surrounded by beautiful people. His people. For all she knew, one or more of them may already be attached to the barbarian, although she'd not learned anything in her visits, yet, to indicate such a thing. She wasn't concerned about his past partners, she fully expected the man eight years her senior had experience. Experience she lacked. She remembered Madame Devlin encouraging her to learn naturally, and the heat in her cheeks spread into her pointed ears and down her neck. She knew some people did value innocence in a partner, but worried that maybe the worldly brawler wouldn't want to take the time to teach and explore and... she realized where her mind was headed and she tried to shake the thoughts out of her, long curls flying as she tossed her head back and forth. Why had she made the leap from getting a bit flustered around him to...
She'd invite Portia out to a tea house, rather than visit Ruby's Rest to see her next time. And maybe take a break from her books for a bit. Calli decided to blame the noises she'd been exposed to on her visits fueling her imagination. She just needed a bit of a detox. She thought back to the story, and drew the parallels to her own life. She had tried to run away from her family, wanted to learn what life was like for the majority of the city, so that her works as a bard would resonate more honestly to a wider audience. She had taken his comments on the heroine having never been hungry and foolishly thought it didn't apply to herself, for there were a number of times lunch was far delayed waiting for her parents to get out of a meeting that had run long. There had been other similarly shallow thoughts, now being dispelled every day she worked with The Flowers trying to right the wrongs in Korvosa. She never had been hungry, not like the people on the streets. She'd never been without somewhere safe to sleep. Doing jobs for Kroft, she's fighting because she wants to. Because it's the right thing to do. But not because she has to. It would be the easier route to submit to the path her parents had paved. Even if the worst happened and Korvosa fell, as long as she could escape she could head back to her father's people and join Archie and his family.
Her brain immediately refused to think any further about Archie and his new family. She wondered where their parents were right now, because in spite of being home for days she’d not seen Mumsy once. According to Renly she was getting back late and leaving early. What was the Queen up to, now?
Calli got up off the bed and poured herself a cup of water from the side table. "So what now?" she whispered to herself. The excitement of her first real desire, and the pent up lust of a 19 year old girl, was certainly good inspiration to write with. She previously had been in no hurry to resolve either situation, but Zellara’s prophecy and the increasing frequency of near-death experiences pressed on her mind. Calli remembered her guards cut down in their prime. Maybe the slow burn needed a little fuel, after all. She was enjoying working with the team too much to risk making it awkward by making any sort of advance on the Bear before she was more certain of how it would be received, so she’d have to get brave and start asking questions. It could just be her hormones fixating on a convenient target, and it may pass. Their adventures were too valuable to her art to miss out on, and Byron was a hero in the making. They all were. She needed them to believe that, believe in themselves, and stop resisting her attempts to bring them the notoriety they deserved. Especially now that Kroft wasn't paying them anymore, they'll need to attract other investors. She removed her papers from her bag and began setting up her ink and quill. She'd been having a hell of a time trying to write a chorus with "The Flowers of Korvosa" in it. Was it too late to change their name? She could tell she wasn't going to sleep any time soon, her idle thoughts kept inventing situations in which she'd find herself pressed up against a tall, muscular frame. So instead she put herself to work updating her accounts of their journey so far.
She eventually fell asleep on the papers at the desk, ink smeared across her cheek, and she dreamed of flowers.