Roderick and Gorlana Pt. 06

Tonight though, he did not want that on his mind. Still, after a week of their Rutt, he only wanted to be with his life-mate. Gorlana looked at him with an endearing sigh and pecked him a kiss, seeming to read his scent, and they slowly danced to the edge of the floor. They waited until it seemed that none were paying close attention to them and then they subtly turned and strolled slowly, hand in hand, towards the balcony.

As they walked through the curtain into the fresh air, they smiled at finding the balcony empty. They walked to the edge of the stone railing and gazed up at the light scattering of stars. They simply stood, silently and comfortably absorbing each others warmth for a time, until Roderick broke the silence.

"I still say that constellation looks more like a boat," he said.

Gorlana pinched him and giggled as he flinched, "The Mother represents all of ones female ancestors," then she paused, "which I suppose might fit on a big enough boat, if you insist."

Roderick chuckled and held her close, "I hope they'd be proud of you. They should be."

Gorlana stared upwards, "I suppose I couldn't be sure. I wish I could know what Malgora would think."

Roderick turned to her, "Did she ever tell you what she hoped for you? The kind of woman she wanted you to be?"

Gorlana smiled, "She already knew the kind of woman I was. And, she... wanted me to be happy I suppose. I was very driven for a long time. I felt like I had to be, given how little else there was for me in my life, and it came through as restlessness and anger. She would say that no war I could fight on the battlefield would ever compare to the war I fought within myself. About myself. I know that, more than anything, she wanted me to find peace."

Roderick watched her turn to him and smile, and he breathed in proudly as he took in her admiring gaze and scent, as she read his question, and answered it wordlessly before she even spoke.

"And, I have," she said. "Beyond anything I had ever dreamed. I think she would have understood."

They kissed long and deeply. Their hands began to caress each other more and more hungrily, their breathing heightening, before they finally broke away and glanced at the curtain to the ballroom, knowing their privacy could be broken at any moment.

Gorlana gave him an almost pouting sultry look, "We've made long enough of an appearance for tonight right? We don't have to go back in there?"

He glanced back at her and thought only for a moment before replying, "Yeah. I'd say so. Though I think we may find it hard to make it through that crowd and back to our rooms with-..."

His words caught as she tipped backwards over the railing, her long green legs flying by his vision as she back-flipped off the balcony and into the pitch-black gardens below.

He sighed and chuckled as he heard the thump of her clean landing.

"Come on," she called impatiently to him, "I'll catch you again, I don't want you hurting your foot."

He smiled, and without any fear or hesitation, took that leap all over again, into her arms, and into the the solitude of the dark night.

...

The next day, the departing entourages of both Orthalia and Rampartia were bid farewell, leaving together but parting ways to the northwest and southwest shortly after. It was a cold and overcast day, with drizzle occasionally dampening the wagons and the onlookers' excitement alike. Nonetheless, the typical fanfare and congregation of nobles bid them farewell with the usual custom. No more, and no less. Brief words of polite farewell were proclaimed by representatives of all three nations. Some took the short speeches to mean that their moods matched the weather. However, those more involved knew that their eagerness to leave was in fact that because they could still barely believe that they were doing so without bloodshed, angry pursuit or proclamations of war. They knew the wet weather would not douse the fires of emotion and argument that might flare if they stayed to discuss or debate any longer. They agreed on enough, and they certainly agreed on that.

There would be meetings and plans aplenty in the not-so-distant future, they knew, but they would let the dust settle for now. The dust on the street had turned to mud by the time that they left the gates, but Roderick and Gorlana had made a point of sitting in the open on the front of their carriage and waving farewell, to more well wishes and cheers than they expected. They retired inside their carriage shortly after though, smiling in excitement despite the dreary weather.

The guards on the city wall noted that they didn't think the mud was that bad to account for the tipping and jostling the carriage seemed to be doing as it slowly made its way down the road away from the city. Some would also swear that they could make out a light cloud of steam beginning to billow out from it against the cold wet drizzle as it faded off into the distance.

...

(Epilogue to follow)