exsiliumlogs | (no subject) (part 2)

Perhaps she was pushing things too fast between them, but when she knew that death awaited her on her return, Elza found that it was an acceptable risk. They had once been intimate with each other, sharing what they had never shared with anyone beyond the three of them, but that wasn't what she searched for now, even despite the flirtatious gestures and remarks that she often gave. All that she craved was the warmth and presence of his body. She had gone without it for so long, and slept many nights with only that memory, that she could do nothing but enjoy his heavier weight on him, and Elza took comfort in that.

Her fingers toyed with the dark material of his cloak, and while Stern dug into the small of her back, she ignored it as hereyes closed and she listened to his voice. It wasn't filled with anger or betrayal, and the usual hatred she had grown used to was absent. Instead it was almost as she remembered it, and even for the briefest of moments, the gunner could delude herself that everything between them would be alright.

"Most of the time," she answered while her eyes remained closed. Opening her eyes, she stared up into the dark sky and watched as the stars shone above them. Elza was aware of how much he liked his privacy, and she would never take that from him by suggesting his room. Keeping her touch light along his cloak, she huffed lightly in amusement as she muttered, "We could do it where I rest, or there are many other abandoned structures that are isolated and dry enough."

He knew that they wouldn't stay like this that long, not fully dressed down with weapons as they were. He knew that one of her guns had to be pressing into her uncomfortably, and he was keenly aware of all of the pistols that he carried weighing on him. Still, this was a change and not one that he minded too much either. It reminded him of better times, and he suspected that she too was reminded.

He grunted at the idea of constant rain, but he accepted it as part of the new world. It would be a pain for loading his weapons though, as powder had to be kept dry. He had done it before, and he could do it again. He would find a way, he reflected as he felt her face shift so her breath was running into his dark hood. "Not the best conditions for a Gunner."

He opened his eyes and lifted his head a little to regard her a moment. "You don't rest in the room that they gave you?"

There wasn't anything that she could do about the rain, for she didn't have anything like the powerful Sun Rune to remove that element. Not that she would given the stories of destruction connected to the powerful Queendom rune. They would adapt and continue on with their work regardless, even if they had to adjust how they dealt with things. Feeling her lips quirk, she huffed in light amusement against his ear. "Not the worst we've dealt with either."

Elza remained where she was as he pulled his face away to peer down at her. While there was a smile on her face, as there always was, there was no smugness within it as she remained strong and kept her gaze fixated on his. "I like my privacy," she murmured. While that was part of it, it wasn't the entire reason either. She had lived too long on the run to grow used to sharing the room with others, and being in an area with so many people left her on edge as she attempted not to flee to more isolated areas.

Clive didn't mind the rain, but he knew that it would get old without the sun some of the time. He hadn't been in this world enough to do more than accept that it had happened. Even this whole 'wild west' aspect didn't seem more than someone pulling his leg to annoy him, but he swallowed his irritation down enough to accept that he had to deal with it. No one else was going to make the situation better for him save himself.

"No, I've been in far worse weather," he replied, aware that some of their training required being cold a lot of the time. He raised an eyebrow at her reply before he looked towards the fire that crackled merrily next to where they lay. She clearly didn't stay in that room because she didn't like being around other people, most likely because of how long and far she had had to run. "Somewhere abandoned is fine as long as we can get a fire going," was all he said in reply.

They both have been in difficult situations and weather, but it had only made them stronger, and more strength meant that she could go on just that little bit longer. He wasn't looking at her anymore, but at the fire even as she continued to keep her gaze on him. She never turned her attention away, would never, even if things between them would take take to heal.

She didn't say anything further just yet, and pulled one arm from around his broad back. Bringing it around, her fingers touched against his cheek before forcing his face to come back to look at her. "Then we'll go somewhere abandoned," she quietly said in reply. Elza didn't miss the fact that he had picked somewhere other than her personal space hidden out within the ruined city, and it was with that thought in mind that she finallyy pulled her hand back and allowed for him to leave if he wished for his distance.

Even as he looked at the fire, he still was aware of her gaze being on him, watching him. His gaze unfocused as he thought of their situation and what he was going to do when they returned to that raining city. What was it that he could do but fight? Who or what were they fighting and would things continue to get better for them as it seemed to be here?

He didn't stiffen when her hand brushed against his cheek and then found himself looking at her again. "Yes, that's agreeable," he said softly and when she released him, he didn't move. He instead shifted down her body a little, drawing his arms back in to settle next to their sides as he lay his head against her shoulder and closed his eyes again. "Until then... there's still this place to enjoy."

She had wanted him to look at him with eyes not filled with the bitterness and resentment that he'd once looked at her with. He would agree to her suggestion, as it was the safest route for him. It was something that she could understand, and unlike the past, she didn't want to force his hand with anything. This time she wanted it to be his choice, and his choice alone... even if she had moments of weakness.

Resting her head against the dirt, she closed her eyes again when he shifted down. The weight of his head against her shoulder brought comfort to her, and despite wanting to give him time, Elza reached up to cradle the back of his head with one hand. She held him with a tenderness that was rarely shown, and with a smile curving on her scarred face, her pale gaze stared up at the sky above them.

"Even if you have ale on your breath," she quietly teased in response.

He didn't think that he was giving up too much by settling against her like this, and in some ways, he needed it as much as she did. Their moments had always been hard to come by, and then non-existent after Kelley's death. For once, he could just settle into the comfort that had long since gone from his life, relish the tenderness of her touch, the kind she showed only to him now.

He grunted at her teasing, turning his face so it was buried in her shoulder instead. "You bought it for me, so it's your fault," he replied, muffled into her cloak. He didn't even bother to open his eyes to regard her for that teasing. "You taste like ale anyway. It might be your breath you smell."

The grunt drew more of an amused smile out of her, and as he turned to bury his face more against her shoulder instead. His answer had her chuckling lightly, the gesture causing her chest to rise with the small sound before she tightened her fingers around his hood and pulled it down from his head.

Returning her hand to delve into the depths of his blonde hair, her fingers touched against his scalp as she began lightly caressing it. "Mmm there might be a need to test that theory," she quietly teased as she tucked her face up against the side of his so that he could feel the amused curve of her lips.

She always managed to make her enjoyment plain, and it somehow seemed to come at his own expense lately. That meant that she was feeling comfortable around him, but he knew it also meant that she was testing the waters. How far could she push him? How far would he let her get away with it?

He blinked when his hood was pulled back, but he sighed when her fingers delved into his hair, an act not done to him in years. He tipped his head a little towards her touch, savouring the contact, and he growled at her suggestion. "If we both drank ale, then we'd both taste like ale and smell like ale. If you want a kiss, woman, say so."

Clive had always enjoyed the soft touches to his scalp, but that was understandable with all things given. They were assassins, and allowing such close contact was forbidden in their line of work. Yet despite the harsh training and the amount of death throughout their lives, they had still found each other.

"Well I wouldn't want to put you out," Elza said in return. Scratching her nails against his scalp, the gunner shook her head lightly. Some things would never change. "Besides, where's the fun in simply asking?" He always had a way with words, and Clive was showing that much to her again right at the moment.

Tenderness wasn't in his life much, and he only found it with Kelley and Elza in his youth. They had been his family, his expectations of what a family would be like. He had taken the time after Elza's death to lurk in villages and watch families, and he had been confused by what he had seen. It was nothing like how he had been raised. Whole families would sleep together, wake at the same time and work all day then come home to tell stories and lavish attentions on each other. It wasn't... what he knew, yet it's simplicity was different and alluring. That had been a family. Her touch reminded him of the little things that he had come to rely on, the things he missed with her and Kelley gone.

"You always have fun twisting your words," he remarked. He was too simple for those details, though he had been around Elza enough to read her well enough. There were times she still baffled him. Slowly, he lifted his head from her shoulder to peer down into her scarred face, and he lifted a hand to gently move a strand of hair to her temple. "Do you think... Kelley might come here too?"

She did always twist her words. Most of the time it was done to get what she wanted, and the rest of it she did such things to protect herself. Perhaps she did it more than she should have, but unlike when they'd been all together back at the Garden, she had been all by herself with nobody else to trust or rely on. All she had had been her words, and she had used them so effectively in her travels.

For a single moment, Elza thought that he might have actually given her what she'd been teasingly trying for, but the look in his eyes told him something different. There was the feeling of his fingers brushing against her temple as he brushed her blonde bangs from her eyes.

The gunner had never thought that even Clive could arrive here, let alone Kelley. Yet there seemed to be a fearful sense of hope within his eyes. It seemed that he both desired it and wanted nothing to do with the thought, and she could understand. Trailing her fingers down along the curve of his scalp, she lightly caressed the bone at the back of his ear as she smiled tenderly at him. "He could, just as this town brought both you and I here," Elza murmured. "Do you want him to?"

Clive had always loved Kelley. It had been a love that he had held far dearer than what they had shared. Closing her eyes to push such thoughts away from her mind, she tried to remind herself that Clive had simply been far too hurt and emotional and had said such things only to distance himself.

Clive had always liked to consider himself independent while in the Tower, that he had helped the other two as much as they had helped them. Kelley had been the first boy he remembered knowing and, while older, they had gotten along well in their first years learning about plants and little games to strengthen children to the Guild way of life. He had known Kelley two years longer than he had known Elza, as she had come later.

Funny enough, he remembered the day she came, how he and Kelley had been doing that running test they had to do. She was fast, but they were taller and chased her down. Kelley had gotten ahead, but instead of leaving Elza behind, he had grabbed her hand and pulled her along. Kelley had taken her other hand and they hadn't really been separated much beyond that.

Yet, Kelley was always the elder, the oldest of them, the one he looked to more often than not. They had been born and raised the same way, had never known the same things and hadn't particularly liked the same foods. He thought Kelley his brother and even found himself pushed into things more because his friend. When Kelley died, it was like the only thing he had ever known as a brother, father, uncle, male friend had died too. He didn't even get a chance to say good-bye, to talk Kelly down from the duel; he just expected it wouldn't happen.

Clive didn't want Kelley here, but at the same time, he did. Elza he had so much to make up for, all that blistering hatred at her betrayal, the hurt of her fleeing without him, the lack of answers. Kelley he wanted answers, wanted to talk the other man down from the foolish attitude he hadn't much cared about in the Guild... until it had torn them all apart. Now he cared about it, too little, too late. To have them both back... by the Runes, he thought he couldn't cope but wanted to.

"If Kelley came here, we could... be like that family we had going again," he murmured softly, fingers tracing her temple and then one of her eyebrows lightly. His lips downturned in a rare show of misery. "It's not... a real family though. He and I could never be that way because... I still don't understand it."

He tilted his head to the side, staring into her eyes for a long moment. "I miss him," he confessed softly. "I missed you too... but you're here now."

She watched as the thoughts and memories ran through his mind. It would never be an easy thing to do, and was something that Elza often ran from doing. To her, dipping into her memories often brought up such an intense feeling within that she could never contain it, which was why she hid from those memories instead. It had always been Kelley and Clive before she'd arrived, and had continued to be just that after she had been taken in. They had both taken her hands and pulled her into their fold, but even despite that, it had always been the two of them. Yes they had loved and cared for her, but there had always been that unspoken bond between them that she could never find herself in there with.

It was fine, and there were some parts of her that wished that she had been born in the Guild also, but Elza was no fool and knew that she could never change her past.

She lightly pressed her head up towards her travelling fingers, finding comfort in the gesture as he opened up to her. It was such a rare gesture that she treasured it whenever it occurred, and it left her without all of her methods of protection as she saw how miserable he was without Kelley, without what they all once had.

"He was your brother. Nothing would ever change that or the feelings that you both held for each other - the feelings we all had for each other," she quietly murmured while her fingers gentle brushed back and forth over the spot just behind his ear. "My first family sold me into slavery when they were short on funds, sold me to the Guild where I was found by those who I had loved and cared for just as much as my Mother and Father, and yet they had never thrown me away. Those two foolish boys had taken me in and loved me more than my own flesh and blood ever could, so don't tell me that you cannot understand it."

At his confession, she pushed her head up from the ground to press her forehead against his own. Feeling the warmth of his heat, Elza closed her eyes as she relished the weight of his body and presence all around her. "I hold so many regrets... so many... but most of all I have regretted what I did to the two stupid boys I loved more than anything."

Hearing her say such things about Kelley solidified how long it had been since he had last seen the other man. Even when he and Elza were together, Kelley was no longer there with them, twisted slowly and steadily into something he had cared little to complain about. Kelley was Kelley in his mind, but looking back on those years where their friend had been Guild Master, he realized how different things had begun to be.

"The feelings we still have for each other," he mumbled softly, keeping his gaze from falling away from her face as her fingers stroked that spot behind his ear that he enjoyed so much.

Yet, her speaking of her family was not something that he hadn't heard before. Her voice was different this time, raw and vulnerable as she no doubt relived some of those moments with her family. He never had that, never even knew the names or faces of his mother and father. "I tried to throw you away because it hurt too much. I was blind... but now all I can do is see because of you."

He gritted his teeth against her words of regrets, leaning down to silence her with his lips after a moment. He let his own pain mingle with hers before he rolled off of her, drawing her with him so they lay side-by-side, and he pulled her tight against his chest. Tomorrow they would go back to normal; tonight they could share their regrets. He withdrew from the kiss. "The Elders... made you do it out of fear. I'll give them something to fear when I get back."

His words had her fall silent as he said that they still had feelings for each other. While she had felt as though he still held feelings for her, the gunner didn't want to place herself into a position where she may have found out otherwise. She was a foolish woman, and felt even more so when she felt the spark of something she'd thought long since dead within.

"The feelings we still have for each other," she parrotted in return, a smile on her lips as she shifted to press the lightest press of lips to the corner of his mouth. "It was worth it if it opened your eyes," she murmured while pulling her lips away from his mouth.

Her lips parted when he felt his lips against hers. All of his pain and emotion was felt through that simple and yet intense gesture, and she moved to wrap her arms around his broad back. She wasn't on her back for much longer, and the feel of her gun against her back eased with the movement as they came to lay on their side. Whether things would return back to normal or not in the next day ddin't matter to her, what they had together right now was all that mattered to the gunner right now. So when he withdrew from the kiss, and heard those words, Elza sighed lightly against his lips. "And what of me?"

Clive wasn't certain that he entirely agreed with the way that his eyes had been opened, but he wasn't about to protest what couldn't be undone. He knew the truth from her mouth, and he saw no reason to not use that information to verify the lies that had been told to him. The Guild was built on secrets, yet he had always thought he was privy to knowledge. His mistake was show plain to him by Elza as she lay dying.

He drew a deep breath as he settled on his side, comfortable with the new position and aware that he would soon enough have to rise to add more wood to the fire if it was to last at all. He passed a hand though her hair, pushing it back as she asked that question of him. "You'll remain in my memory while I exact Guild justice on those who betrayed us all."

The gesture was gentle, and it held a tenderness to it that most would never see out of him. Smiling softly to herself at his answer, Elza closed the distance between them to press her lips to his in another brief kiss. It wasn't demanding or full of passion, but the press of lips held the emotion she held for him even as she pulled away.

"I meant while we're here," she quietly corrected while her arms came out to stroke along the length of his back. There was nothing that she could do for him when he returned to their world. Her part in their world had already ended, and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would continue with that fight and bring justice to the Guild for what they had done. "Unless I'm to be just a memory here for you too."

He tilted his head a little at her correction, and he was forced to lay his head down against the ground since she had previously removed his hood. He contemplated the question and then shrugged his shoulders. "I decide if we go to war. Until then, you have your freedom."

He suspected that she would spend considerable time harassing him now that she could and he would allow it. Beyond that, he had no answer on what they would do with each other. That was to be left for the future to discover together. "You're far too solid and irritating to be just a memory," he remarked dryly.

That wasn't what she had been meaning, but she couldn't blame him for thinking as he always did. Releasing a soft brush of air from her lungs, she smiled lightly in amusement. Always the loyal fighter, he was, and while he had grown much over the years, there was still so much that he remained unaware of. So she remained silent after his answer.

Bringing her hand away from his back, she moved to pull Stern out from the holster at her back before placing the pistol above her head. Though her other arm was still trapped by his weight, the gunner move to lay on her back as she smirked in arrogance and found the return of her teasing manner. "Well I do need to be good at something, Handsome."

Clive watched her silently in the flickering fire light and his gaze watched as she removed Stern and set it aside. That was her weapon now, wasn't it? She had made them sentient, the two pistols that she carried and he had chosen similarly but with different weapons altogether. Yet their decisions still somehow mirrored each other.

He eased his weight up so she could get her arm out from under him where she could lay comfortably on her back. He finally rose away from her and built up the fire with wood for the night, creating more warmth. He was soon enough back by her side, smirking at her answer. "Maybe you should get good at sleeping too then?"

She remained where she was even as Clive released her arm and began to raise. It came as no surprise to her. Her boys had always been a little on the slow side in that regard, but she still remained where she was even as he moved to add more wood to the fire. The fire crackled when the new wood fell on top, and she took her time listening to the sound until he returned back to her side.

"I think that I'm fine in that regard," Elza muttered as she remained laying on her back. The smirk looked good on him. It always did, after all. Reaching up, her hands came to knit behind her head. Sliding one leg up, her knee remained poised in the air as she closed her eyes and kept that arrogant smirk on her face. "You should know that I'm good at everything, gunslinger."

Well, he had noticed that she slept well when they spooned together, despite the hard surface that they were sleeping on. He too had been sleeping better, finding himself well-rested and ready for another day. He wasn't about to guess as to why that was as it might bring up conversations he wasn't ready to have.

He shook his head a little and rested against the ground, watching the shadows flicker across her face in response to the flames nearby. It highlighted her features very well. "Including gloating."

She turned her head to look at him when he lay back down alongside her. Remaining on her back, she watched his face as he shook his head and watched her. After running for so long, everything she wanted was so close and yet so far away from her.

"I did say everything," Elza muttered with a pleasant smile. While her face may have remained mostly in shadows now, but that was how she much preferred it. It helped to hide how she felt in a lot of ways. Dropping her leg down to cross over her other one as she came to lay on her side once again. "Or have you forgotten that, Handsome?"