Touch (Kaylin and Nuo)

[Kender Bard]

Kaylin felt a measure of relief spread through her once she and Nuo had pulled away from all the other Chosen and made their own way to their hidden home. Even with being able to walk about as a human, she'd felt a pressure of eyes on them. Fortunately, everyone was either too preoccupied or too polite to comment on their difference.

"You're just able to project emotion now, right?" she asked into the stillness that had settled once they'd gotten away from the crowd. "Nothing painful? Er, well, nothing inherently painful?"

[Darastrix]

Nuo hadn't actually thought about Efil's gift possibly drawing more attention to them among the Chosen, but he'd been a little preoccupied himself,  not paying much attention to what the others were doing.  He'd just been glad to get out of the crowd and retreat to their little safe haven.

He shook his head in answer to Kaylin's question.  "Nothing physically painful.  Just whatever emotion I want, good or bad."  He imagined fear would be a big one that he'd be throwing about the next day, even if he wasn't going to be in the thick of things.

[Kender Bard]

"Like I said, you can still practice on me," she told him. "Though I would prefer it if it were a positive emotion." She smiled at him wanly. "Although I can understand if that's a little hard right now. I don't even know how to do my own little trick. Efil said she'd change me--so I imagine that when the time comes, I'll just change." Hopefully flying about would be intuitive. "So let's focus on you instead."

[Darastrix]

Nuo bit his lower lip, brows knit in concern. “I don’t want to make you feel anything bad.” He’d done enough of that as Kantaflux. Kaylin might have forgiven him for it, but he didn’t want to make her feel sad or afraid on purpose. “I wish I could…I don’t know. Make myself happy somehow, then try it on you.”

[Kender Bard]

Kaylin flashed him a sudden smile. "Then I guess I'll have to make you happy first." She took his hand and tugged gently. "Come sit with me by the brook. Remember when we first met? You and I went on a little walk and on the way you told me a story. Why don't I tell you a story of my own? I think I might have one that could put a smile on your face."

[Darastrix]

Oh, he remembered.  If he hadn't been so interested in the fae and the keep where they'd been rumoured to have been seen once....  He missed that time, back when he hadn't known anything about faeries and what they were really like.  At least he was sure Kaylin wasn't going to be telling any faerie stories.  "All right," he agreed with a weak smile.  Anything to help distract them from the next day. 

[Kender Bard]

Kaylin sat down at the edge of the brook and dipped her fingertips into the water to swirl it around as she gathered her thoughts. Then, taking a breath, she launched into her tale.

---

Once upon a time there was a young farmer's boy. He lived far away from the city on a farm that was struggling with his father. The boy didn't enjoy his life on the farm. He had a picture book that told him of all the fantastic things to be found in a large city and he yearned to see them. But instead he had to get up with the dawn and work all day long on the farm only to fall exhausted to bed late at night. Every night he wished he could go to the city.

He got his wish, but not in a pleasant way. The farm failed to produce any crop at all. The father had to sell the farm and most of their possessions. With only a little money to their name, father and son headed into the city in hopes of finding some other way to make a living. While the boy was sad they had lost the farm, he was excited to see the city. All the things from his book were there in person now! There were jugglers, street vendors, shops, ladies and lords in fine clothing, and horse drawn carriages for them to ride in. But he also found out how noisy it was, how crowded. There were many smells, not all of them so pleasant, and he even saw some poor children in the street.

After he and his father were settled, his father gave him some money and told him to go buy some things that they'd need in their new home. The boy set out, but was distracted seeing a young girl who was begging for food. Using a little of the money he had, he bought her a loaf of bread.

"Thank you, young sir," the girl told him, grateful. "I won't ever forget your kindness! Someday, when I'm a rich woman and living in a fine house, I'll look for you and pay you back for your generosity."

The boy of course knew how silly this was but he was glad to help. On the way back from his shopping, though, a group of bad men stopped him in an alley. They robbed him of all his remaining money and took all of his things as well, leaving him only his life and the clothes on his back. The boy returned home empty handed and he and his father had to begin counting every copper bit after that.

Bad luck seemed to plague him and his father. They were turned away from many of the people they begged work from. They slowly began to run out of money and spent some nights going hungry. The boy's poor father fell ill and they hadn't enough money for a healer. The boy went out and begged on the streets for money or the assistance of someone who knew herbwork and would give them charity. Eventually, he found such a woman, but by the time they got back to their little home, his father was dead. The boy was bitless, alone, and had no idea what to do. He became one of the poor street children he'd seen when he first came into the city. Winter came, and he was cold, hungry, and wondered how he could have ever wanted to come into the city.

Just when things were bleakest, as he was shivering in the street with just a threadbare blanket wrapped around him, his toes gone so numb he feared he would lose them, he was surprised by the young girl he'd fed before! She was still living on the street, of course, and just as thin and waifish as he remembered, but she took him by the hand and led him to an abandoned building in the city. There, along with several other poor children, they got him warmed up with a thin onion soup and rags to wrap his shivering body in.

"You saved my life!" the boy exclaimed to the girl. The girl smiled at him and replied, "And you saved mine. And your kindness taught me that we could all stand to be a little nicer to one another. I began to help out the other kids where I could and now we all help one another. I am a fine lady of my house here." She picked up a rag and draped it over her shoulders. "Do you like my cloak?"

They made believe that they were actually rich, powerful people, playing together in their little hideaway. Though the boy was sad for all he'd lost, he at least could keep body and soul together through the kindness of his new friend and together they warmed each other's hearts as well. Times were tough, but they weren't alone.

Then one day, the boy and the girl were out together in the city. The winter had fled and spring had finally come. They were trying to scrounge up things for the other kids and for themselves, when they found a large money purse bursting with gold coins! The girl wanted to spend the money, but the boy realized that this was likely someone's entire fortune. True, it was a rich fortune, but he knew the bitterness of losing everything you had. So he took the money and set out to find who'd lost it. He went to the guards with his friend, and there was a well dressed man and woman looking very distressed! They were the ones who'd lost all the money. The boy gave it back.

The rich couple were so overjoyed they took a full third of the coins and gave them back so that the boy and the girl could help themselves and their friends. They were able to all get clean clothes, good food, and to clean up and look respectable. Rather than waste the money, the boy used it the way he knew his father had wanted to use THEIR fortune, and he helped all of his friends find jobs, homes, and families. Soon it was just him and the girl and they still had a fair bit of money left over.

"What would you like to spend it on?" the girl asked. And the boy thought and thought until he realized all he wanted most was to be happy, safe, and to have a future. He used the money to buy back his old farm and took the girl there. It was hard work, and it wasn't very glamorous, but their luck held up and they had a few silver tucked away against another rainy day in the future. The boy and the girl got the farm working and prosperous again. It was a humble life, but every day the boy--now a man--knew that after working in the little field, he'd come home to a hot dinner in a snug little house with his best friend. They would cuddle together in front of the fire and tell each other stories and then retire for the night... And they were both content.

---

Her story concluded, Kaylin smiled fondly at Nuo, hoping he enjoyed it but afraid to ask.

[Darastrix]

Nuo had stayed quiet through the telling, though he was imagining it being set in Haven.  Outlying farms, street urchins, wealthy folk; Haven had it all.  He didn't miss it, but it was at least a place he could bear to remember.  At the end of the story, he smiled at Kaylin.  "I'd like to have an ending like that with you."

Best friends in their own little place away from the cities?  It sounded like a little slice of heaven to him.

[Kender Bard]

Kaylin blushed and glanced away for a moment before looking back at him with a bittersweet smile as she scooted a little closer. She hadn't intended on saying more, but the set up for what she'd been thinking since they'd locked hands in the face of possible death was too good to pass up. And if she didn't say it now, she may not ever again. Efil knew her bravery wasn't much.

"I would too," she told him. "Earlier... What you said about not leaving me... You know, sometimes I've said to myself that all I have is you. And that is true b... but I think today I realized that all I need is you."

She could feel her cheeks heating up but pressed on. "Let me just expalin. When I was back in Acoia, I used to dream of having a family, but by the time you found me, I was too old to think of parents, or at least starting to get to that point. My thoughts were instead starting to turn to love with... another. And of course I had all the images in my head that I imagine a lot of young ladies do. A gallant and handsome young man, coming in from afar to sweep me up and take me away to some enchanted faraway land where everything was fantastic and exciting!" She laughed softly, nervously, mostly at herself and who she had been. "And it would be the kind of love that was in storybooks, full of longing gazes and kisses of true love. It'd be a happily ever after."

"I think that even if things hadn't happened the way they did, eventually I would have realized just how silly that was. That's most assuredly a little girl's dream. What they never put in the books is that love doesn't just show up on a horse, playing fanfare, announcing itself so that there's absolutely no mistake. It creeps up on you very quietly until one day you realize that you don't need to proclaim undying love. You don't need to hold one another or kiss or even ever actually say it out loud. Love doesn't have to be romantic at all."

She smiled shyly as she looked him in the eyes. "What you do realize is that you would never want to keep on living without that other person. That if something happened where they might.... leave or die or that you'd lose them, you would give absolutely anything to stay by their side. You are my best friend, my family, my.... Something I don't even have a word for. I think that if we had an ending together like my story, I'd be more than content. I'd be happy. And I hope that, more than my bad storytelling, makes you happy too."

[Darastrix]

Well.  Nuo hadn't been expecting anything like that at all, and the first part of Kaylin's explanation made him profoundly uncomfortable.  That kind of love with another, the kind with kisses, wasn't something that he ever wanted.  But with his aversion to being touched, he thought Kaylin must know that.  There had to be a point beyond that, and so he let her continue.

And there was a point, one that made him feel much better about the topic.  Love without the physical stuff.  He didn't know what kind of label to put on it, and since in his past, familial affection had been taken and twisted into something it shouldn't have been, he didn't want any of the common, familiar labels to apply anyway.  They were just...them.  Whatever they were, they belonged with each other, to each other, and that was a Good Thing.  Better than good.

When Kaylin finished, he knew he ought to say something, but he didn't know what.  A simple 'it does,' didn't seem like enough, true though it was.  It did make him happy, even if all he could do was gape like an idiot.  Wait.  He could just....

Tentatively, he 'reached' for Kaylin's mind and tried pushing a little of that feeling at her, that feeling of warmth and gladness at having someone dear to him, at being thought of as dear by them.  She was his best friend, the one who'd forgiven him when he couldn't forgive himself, the one who'd stayed with him, been a friend to him, and he didn't want to be apart from her, either.

[Kender Bard]

Kaylin's eyes widened as the feeling he was projecting washed over her and then she smiled; she felt as though she must be glowing from the inside out like the chosen of Love.

"Whatever you're doing, it's working," she told him quietly. If only this projection of emotion could have some sensation to go with it. She lifted up a hand towards him almost reflexively, but halted the motion, her fingers giving a slight twitch. It would... Undermine her confession of a more friendly love if she tried to push for some contact just then... Even if touch comforted her just as much as it bothered him.

Well, that was fine. Nuo was happy. And she took his joy to mean that he sort-of-loved her in a similar fashion. Even if she couldn't wrap herself up in his arms, she could wrap her heart with that. It wouldn't always be easy, but that was acceptable. She knew just how much she'd give or do to be loved and it was quite a lot.

Rather than take hold of him, like she wanted, or to just drop her hand awkwardly, she compromised by moving her hand to his arm and brushing down it lightly and quickly. "This is so nice. If this is what Minds can do, then I envy them." Strange to think that he'd be using it as a weapon. But, then again, he admitted that it'd be mostly fear and anxiety that he'd be using in his arsenal. That made more sense. "Do you think you'll be able to keep the ability? This, combined with your other blessing--the one where nobody can touch you without you allowing them--would mean you'd be completely safe from any unwanted advances."

[Darastrix]

The emotion Nuo was projecting took on an undertone of being pleased; not being a trained Mind, he didn't really have the best grasp of projecting what he himself didn't feel.  He was glad he was able to do something, though, and do it right.  He gave a little spike of emotional pleasure at the brush of Kaylin's hand; her hesitation had telegraphed the motion, and it wasn't a unpleasant surprise as a result.  He could (in some cases) tolerate and even like being touched if he knew it was coming.


Could he keep that power?  "I don't know.  Living like we do, there's not usually anyone to fend off.  But of the two, I'd rather have the one that doesn't let anyone touch me.  I feel...safer, with it.  This Mind-type ability takes more concentration to use."

[Kender Bard]

Kaylin's fingertips moved down his arm to rest on his hand and she took it into her own to hold on to. "Well... Even if you don't get to keep it, I can just remember this moment and what it was like to really... to... Feel how much you care about me like I do for you." She blinked rapidly, still smiling and determined not to spoil it at all with tears, regardless if they were happy and incredulous ones or not. "I just wish I could return the gesture." She laughed nervously a little. "Although maybe it's best that I can't because I have a feeling it might be a little overpowering right now. Not only have I finally told you how I feel, but it's the first time I've ever had to do anything like this ever."