Atlantic Roleplay Community Boards

[Arcana]

---

“Boss, the supply caravan is here!” the recruit said, grinning and jerking his thumb toward the courtyard.

Arlin grunted an acknowledgement and muttered, “About farking time Zarlox got here.” He pushed his chair back and went outside. But instead of seeing the gleaming columns of paladins in Sanctus black and gold as he’d expected, he saw the dusky blue of the Knights of Sosaria, ranged out to flank a train of packhorses.

The lead rider dismounted in front of Arlin. “At your service, sir,” the young man said with a polite bow. He presented a document labeled ‘supply manifest’ and added with a conspiratorial grin, “Knock a few Skullies on the head for us, eh?” Arlin rubbed the back of his neck and grunted, taking the paper. He read it carefully… quantities of bandages, preserved meat, armor repairs, potions, ale…

The young man remounted and issued a string of orders. The fortress courtyard was clogged for some minutes by the hand-off and unloading of the pack animals. The courtyard gradually emptied, and the press of horses and riders cleared to reveal a single, stationary rider at the threshold of his gate.

Arcana.

He started at her, also unmoving. His men noted their commander’s dangerous expression and promptly vacated the premises. The young man who’d lead the caravan paused as he passed his Lady’s horse.

“Would you like a few men to wait, milady?” he asked in a low voice.

Arcana shook her head, not taking her gaze from Arlin. “I’ll be perfectly fine,” she lied. Her men might very well be receiving her head by special delivery in the near future. It had been dangerous to come here herself, but she’d promised him the supplies, knew how direly his army needed them. And she’d wanted him to see that she was not heartless, that she did care for his fate. All too much. “Start back for Vesper. I’ll catch up.”

The young man cantered off to join his party, already lost from sight in the trees. As soon as he’d gone, Arlin jerked his head at Arcana in summons. As she reached him, she swung one leg over her horse’s neck and landed lightly beside him on the balls of her feet. She looked up at him, waiting for whatever he wished to say to her.

Arlin loomed over her, glowering. Why did she have to come here, he thought angrily. Even now, somehow she was the only one who came through for him, true to her word for the promised supplies. As badly as Arlin needed the materiel, he was tempted to burn it all before her eyes. It would be so much easier to hate her if… if she wasn’t Arcana.

With a wordless growl he closed his right hand around her slender neck and slammed her against the wall, pinning her. Arcana gave an involuntary grunt of pain as the back of her head hit the stone.

“Give me one reason why ah shouldn’t squeeze,” Arlin snarled, inches from her face.

She felt a stab of fear, but it was swiftly washed away under a wave of resignation. She didn’t fight him.

“I can’t,” she said softly. “I’m not asking for your mercy. Whatever you wish to do… I deserve it.”

Arlin’s hand around her throat trembled for a long moment. Abruptly he released her, pulling her gently away from the wall.

“Ya hurt meh a lot,” he began in a rough voice, though unable to help looking at her tenderly as his emotions swung back to their other extreme for her. “I wanted t’ hate you for it, but I can’t. Just… tell me why.”

Arcana didn’t want to talk about Arieus with Arlin, knowing how her words would hurt him. But she owed him truth, and she could not refuse him.

“I’ve known him for many years, since about when I got married. We rode together in battle after battle. He is valiant, brave, noble, loyal... yet humble and reserved, kind. He’s been willing to lay down his life for me without the slightest hesitation so many times. You probably don’t remember, but your men nearly killed him the night you abducted me. More dead than alive, he made it to Sanctus to bring my rescue.

“And even more, he didn’t just protect the Lady, he watched over Arcana the woman, too. After my daughter died, he was the one who kept me from drinking myself into an early grave. Without Arieus I never would have found my way back to the Knights.”

Arlin felt an enormous weight settle on his shoulders and drag his heart down to the soles of his boots. “Oh…” he mouthed silently. He wondered dismally and disgustedly why he’d ever dared to hope a no-good half-ogre could compete with that. The most complicated choice he’d ever had to make had been which barmaid to take home, yet Arcana’d had to choose between him and Arieus. And he’d lost. “It must have been something good between us, right, for it to feel so bad now?” he pleaded.

“Of course there was,” she whispered, tears welling in her eyes. “Never believe that there wasn’t.”

“Mah greatest conquest…” he said, smiling fondly in spite of himself. The smile couldn’t last. “And mah greatest defeat.”

Arcana watched his shoulders sag and she looked down, feeling wretched and guilty. “I thought I was just another conquest for you. I thought your changes were only for the sake of winning me. I’d always hoped that they’d also been because you wanted to be a better man… but-”

Arlin gently cut her off. “You weren’t. And… they were in th’ beginning. But not at the end. No one else could have changed me the way you did. I’ll never forget you, what you did for meh.”

He leaned down and kissed her softly on the lips. Arcana felt the same incredible thrill as she always had when he kissed her. She guiltily suppressed it. She had no right to feel such anymore. A thought sprang unbidden to her mind – why had Arieus never kissed her?

“Perhaps the best amends I can ever make to you,” Arcana said sadly, “is my present misery.”

“No. You have a chance for happiness. You should take it.” He sighed heavily, taking her hand and squeezing it tightly in his, forcing a smile. “I wants ya to be happy.”

Arcana closed her eyes briefly, tightly, blinking back her tears. Regret for might-have-beens rent deep cracks in her soul which she patched with all the endurance she could muster. Her heart was breaking in two directions, and she didn’t know how she would bear it. What choice had she been left between these two men? To one side Arieus would have withered and faded away, nothing left but apathy and ashes, despising her for choosing Arlin. To the other, Arlin would never forgive her, would even hate her, though she’d supposed she would have Arieus’ love unconditionally. But there were strings, some as thick as chains, bound about it. No wonder the Book of Destiny had been blank for her. She wouldn’t have had the heart to show anyone this fate either.

“You don’t know the half of it,” she said bitterly. She looked for a moment as if tears would overwhelm her, but then anger flashed in her eyes, though not for Arlin. “Arieus promised me we would be together. Swore time and again how he loved me, would come to Vesper and be my knight, that he wanted nothing more. Yet he is still in Malas! He said he was so unhappy there, and yet he will not stand up to his liege-lady! I offered him his dreams! I gave everything for him, even you, and still he cannot do this one thing for me! What kind of a man would do this? So you see, Arlin, I have come to know exactly how you feel. And I find I have many regrets…”

Arlin cursed himself as weak, womanish, and a fool, yet he found himself gently rocking Arcana in his arms, tenderly stroking the golden hair he loved so well. He winced inwardly as he felt the growing knot on her scalp; he’d sworn he’d never hurt her. “He loves you, you love him, it will be all right,” he heard himself say.

And it had better be all right, Arlin thought savagely to himself, because if it wasn’t, if Arieus had done this to him for nothing, then the half-orge had at last thought of one thing that would make him happy: watching Arieus die very, very slowly.