Exton

Just a kiss on your lips in the moonlight
Just a touch of the fire burning so bright
And I don't want to mess this thing up
No, I don't want to push too far

Just a shot in the dark that you just might
Be the one I've been waiting for my whole life
So baby, I'm alright with just a kiss goodnight

I know that if we give this a little time
It'll only bring us closer to the love we wanna find
It's never felt so real, no, it's never felt so right

Her eyes are open, lost elsewhere. The guards watching the pale women with spiky red hair hide their reaction whenever a superior is near. She rocks slowly ignoring, perhaps not hearing, the taunts and innuendos uttered in heavily accented English. She has done this through two changings of her guards.

Ike touches her mind through what feels like a hundred layers of gauze. She gives Tori the bare minimum, just enough to let her sister know they may need to bring her through dark waters if the A plan doesn't work. She sends Tori an image of nightmarish fish men and receives a mental smile.

Tori remembers the Murdhuacha Warriors. When her son had died, she had gone to the sea's edge and bartered with a Murdhuachan female to take her to the bottom of the sea. The woman had almost accepted when one of the males had interfered. He had reminded her that the races of Stone and Water were dying out. The waste of even one life was something they would not condone.

Instead, the Warrior offered her a trade. He would take her below the waters and teach her to fight in their ways.  He also offered to exact revenge on her lover's father. It turned out the man had captured and repeatedly forced one of their untried women. When they finally found her she had been refused the water she so desperately needed to survive.

Her room had been steps away from a stream. But without her feathered cap, and with bars on her window, she had no way to reach the reviving water. The guards tortured her daily, walking in the shallow stream just within her sight range. When her kin found her, those men disappeared. The next day the dying woman was gone. In her place were the bloated bodies of her guards.

Tori sends Ike those memories, and ones of spending time beneath both salt and fresh waters. She still had her feathered cap and told Ike where it was, asking her to  get it to either Keon or Tannr. If she had to go through water, she wasn't sure if she could go stone enough to survive.

There is another touch on Tori's mind. This one edged in barely constrained rage. She feels the familiar rush of heat that fills her whenever Tannr brushes close. Tannr's voice is a hesitant, untrained tenor as it seems to pierce the thickness around her thoughts. 

Just a kiss on your lips in the moonlight
Just a touch of the fire burning so bright
No, I don't want to mess this thing up
I don't want to push too far

Just a shot in the dark that you just might
Be the one I've been waiting for my whole life
So baby, I'm alright with just a kiss goodnight

No, I don't want to say goodnight
I know it's time to leave
But you'll be in my dreams
Tonight, tonight, tonight...

The dropped notes, the missed beats makes her heart skip a beat. Her eyes slowly close as she concentrates on his sending.

Hang in there Red. We are coming.

She reaches out, touching him, caressing fingers through the silky fall of copper hair. She feels her brothers quietly supporting Tannr's effort. She swallows hard, fighting tears, remembering Stoney's anquish when Alise was taken.

Tannr responds, feeling the emotions.

I am coming. Listen to me, Red. I won't leave without you.

Tannr, if you can't get through, don't...

He cuts her off. You're coming home, *kona. I love you and I am NOT leaving without you.

She stills, her mind going blank. She feels him reaching, frantically calling her. Tears slide down her cheeks and she clutches at him, thoughts slipping away as her concentration begins to break.

^Más é seo an rud deireanach is féidir liom a rá, lig sé a bheith go breá liom tú ró. Ón buaic is airde de na Munros chun an doimhneacht an Trench Mariana, grá agam duit.

She opens her eyes as she feels the link break. A guard is staring at her and she smiles, a feral baring of her teeth. The Drow backs up instinctively, standing his ground as the other guard snickers. Her eyes are blazing, red fires flickering behind green irises. The Drow snaps something at her and she raises an arched brow.

"Do you mind? I was meditating."

Closing her eyes, Tori opens her other senses, listening to the sounds around her. All the while Tannr's words run through her mind.

You're coming home, *kona. I love you and I am NOT leaving without you.


*woman

^If this is the last thing I can say, let it be that I love you too. From the highest peak of the Munros to the depths of the Mariana Trench, I love you.