Undying Ch. 01-10

"It is." The elves looked back at her curiously.

"I have something of his." Syr glanced at Syvilas. "Go ahead, I'll take it to him and catch up with you."

She believed the lich wanted the amulet. The lich would kill her if she tried to give it to him.

"If you think I would leave you, Syr..."

The display of brotherly love seemed to move Pelinel. "We will dispatch the lich." The elf approached with a half-smile. "Whatever you took from him should be destroyed."

"I will see to it she has the item thrown into one of the hotter forges." Syv inclined his head. "She stole the item for him, and I forbade her from giving it to him. My sister is foolish and stubborn, but she does listen when I speak clearly enough." If he remembered correctly, Pelinel had a sister who was something of a mischief-maker. It might put her offensiveness in a more endearing light.

Syreilla crossed her arms, glaring at the rump of the horse in front of her. He smiled at her deliberately childish act. She was quick.

"She's young yet. Keep her from the dwarves if you can, they won't help her grow less stubborn or less foolish." Pelinel seemed almost amused. "Go."

"Thank you." Syvilas encouraged the horse forward.

They were silent for a long stretch. She had told them her clan, and they knew the name of the dwarf they were taking back. It would be easy for the elves to locate them. "I may need to change my appearance again. When they discover from the lich what you stole, and who he is stalking-"

"They'll come to Delver's Deep looking for us both." Syr sounded apologetic.

"I enjoyed having a sister for a moment." Syvilas had been enjoying forming this bond, with a new face and name it would likely dissolve. He would need to look for another to create.

"You'll have a sister for the rest of my life, whatever you change your face or your name to." Syreilla leaned against his shoulder and let him pull her under his arm. "I don't know why exactly, but I feel like-"

"Like we are bound by something." She had noticed the bond even if she didn't understand it. That pleased him. It was a pity she didn't understand enough to know how wrong she was. He'd bound her to the name, when he chose another it would weaken and fade. "My dear Syreilla, I give you my word, I will keep you close and safe." There was nothing he would not sacrifice to keep that promise to someone utterly unafraid of him who could bind him so tightly.

"Safe is boring, Syv. It's what sends me out of the mines and into places like where I found you."

He squeezed her against his side. "My mad sister. I imagine keeping you safe while you roam will keep me occupied for some time."

"If you don't crush me to death." He loosened his grip at her plaintive groan but did not release her.

"I will hold you as often as I can. To touch someone who is unafraid is a pleasure I have not had for longer than I care to remember."

Syr wrapped her arms around him. "As long as you remember I'm your sister and not a bar wench."

Syv reminded himself that she was bound as a sister for the moment, desire would have to come later and with a different name. Waiting for something he wanted so badly with her arms already around him was impossible. It would do no harm to let her have the idea in her head. "And if in time..."

"I'm not attracted to elves or even to humans really. You disapprove of my fondness for dwarves, but I like them."

"Why?" He loathed everything about them but he could take her desires into account for his next form.

"They're honest, strong. And covered in hair." His shudder seemed to amuse her. "It was something that took getting used to. I felt like a deviant at first, but it's nice."

She enjoyed something that made her feel like a deviant. He smiled, that was hopeful. "So it might be possible for you to... learn to enjoy a man you think of as your brother? If you enjoy the thrill of deviance?" Perhaps he would not have to wait long before getting what he wanted.

It was her turn to shudder. "Brother, no. I'm not interested."

Syvilas sighed and bent his arm to stroke her hair and ear. He was confident she would enjoy him if she allowed herself the opportunity. "We will have a very long time, sister. I will see to it. I learned as a King that perversions can be," Syreilla shivered as he traced the outer edge of her ear, pulling thin threads of desire, preparing them, "delicious. There are things I could show you, things that would make you beg for a release only I can give you."

Syreilla reached up and took hold of his hand, interrupting his labors and he felt the bonds that had been so perfectly tight shrivel and loosen in her revulsion. "Syv, I need you to not do that." She sat up and moved away from him as much as the seat would allow. Ice water would have felt warm compared to this. It was agony.

"Forgive me." Syv moved toward her on the seat gently pulling the bonds. "Lean against me, I will not touch you. And I promise you, sister, I will keep my thoughts of perversions to myself." He would wait until the bond had been dissolved and a new one formed to try again if he had no other choice.

Sighing, she leaned against his shoulder again. "Were you originally an elf? I know they're fond of their perversions."

His relieved laugh was low and quiet. "I was not an elf. However, I did have a fondness for them. I am undying and they live nearly as long as I will. You are not wrong that I learned quite a bit from them."

"You're human then?"

Prying little creature. He smiled at her. "Half."

She elbowed him and he grinned at her; she was not the only one who could present a challenge.

"You will have to guess the other half, my dear Syreilla." Syvilas was seized with the sudden feeling that she should be made aware of why he changed himself lest she ask him to show her, "I loathed my body. I begged and prayed to every god of any race that would hear me until I was given what you call my gifts. I changed myself. At the cost of those I had spent my life trying to heal."

"Your mother was human and gave you a human name." She leaned harder against him. He enjoyed her desire to comfort.

"Yes. She knew my best hope would be to find acceptance among the other humans. My mother was not the most loving, but she-" Syreilla ducked under his arm and hugged him tightly and he could feel a resonance in the bond as it tightened again. "Yours should have loved such a beautiful daughter."

Syreilla opened herself without realizing what she was doing, and he could feel the tumultuous current of her emotions through the bond. "I didn't get her what she wanted. My father shunned us both and I was useless to her. She sent me away to serve as a maid when I was ten. It was the most horrible year of my life. Being alone on the street and starving was better." His arm pressed down firmly offering comfort as he felt her distress. "But as you say, I'm pretty enough and a master thief needed a young girl to satisfy an elf's perversions and get him access to the house."

"Stop." Syvilas felt her disgust and shame, it made him stop her. It was a painful memory and he did not want her in pain.

"He kept me on to learn the trade after that. I hate elves. Humans can be decent, dwarves have been better to me than either. I don't know how they were when you were young, but I want you to see how they've changed. I want you to see that they're beautiful."

Syv kissed the top of her head. Syr thought he was a half-dwarf and wanted him to love his kin. "You find them beautiful?"

"I do, brother. I could watch Kaduil work steel for hours. It doesn't matter what he's making, he's so mesmerizingly beautiful." The pleasure that washed over him at the memory of Kaduil was a welcome counter to the poison of the other memories.

"I have never worked steel, Syr." His father's kind did not forge and making a weapon that could kill him was not something he intended to do.

"I'll ask Batran if you can give it a try."

He sighed and pulled away as she offered encouragingly, "Even I like to try my hand at it. That knife you broke was one I made."

Blinking at her, he asked, "You made it?"

"You thought I was insulted for some other reason?" She grinned. "Batran said it was obvious it wasn't made by a skilled hand."

Syvilas smiled at her. She was being dismissive of her skill though she was clearly proud of it. "I thought it was made by a human smith."

"I'll take that as praise." Her face lit with pleasure and he felt a twinge of pain at not being able to kiss those smiling lips as he wished.