You, Me, and the Knight

GAME: Dolan rolls will: (17)+10: 27
GAME: Andelena rolls Will: (4)+10: 14

After making some inquiries of the guards and receiving absolutely nothing of use, he'd shrugged, gone back into the room, and read lore on the various means used to vanquish fiends of every stripe until he fell asleep. It is possible that the book is still on his chest, and definite that the Daeus totem is tangled somewhere in the blankets near his feet, his own stylized dragon that serves him as divine focus on a chain around his neck.

The dream starts simply enough, in the recovery room that has become so familiar of late. It is, however, devoid of teapots, of stools, of excess things, but the sword he'd manifested in the dream remains in a corner of the room. Instead, the entire wall beyond the foot of the bed has taken on the look of an enormous, floor-to-ceiling mirror, perfect clarity inside its gilt frame. Dolan stands before it, shirtless, staring into it intently. As it so often is, the right side of his face is indistinct , the furrows over the missing eye bright and clear but some of the melted flesh across his face fuzzy and unclear.

The reflection, however, is anything but. Bright, sharp, and clear, it shows him in every detail, exactly as he appears in the real world, every scar etched bright and clear, the socket without its gem eye set where the eye should be.

Andelena is there beside him. She isn't much different in the dream compared to in reality, but here, she is in the same sort of clothing she'd wear in bed at home--when she remembers to wear clothes to bed, that is--which consists of a pilfered tunic from Dolan and a pair of drawstring breeches that are a little too tattered (but also too comfortable) to leave the apartment wearing--even if in reality, she is not there in that apartment and is instead in the healing room with Dolan.

"Huh," is the first word that comes out of her mouth as she looks around the room, and her gaze lingers on the mirror for a long moment, staring at the reflection inside. She opens her mouth to say something, but the words don't come up to her throat.

For the moment, Andelena doesn't appear in the reflection in the mirror. It remains just Dolan, for the moment, with that eerily sharp and precise display. At the footsteps and voice behind him, though, he turns, and when he turns, he starts. "Andie." The tone is deep and round, with warm affection, and yet - trepidation. Startlement. Uncertainty. The face that faces her now - is the one she saw in the mirror. Harsher, even. If anything, more destroyed still.

Andelena lifts her gaze up from what was in the mirror to Dolan as he turns and as he speaks. The warm tone in his voice puts her visibly at ease, and she smiles, stepping forward to meet him.

"Hey Bry," she says, and she reaches out to embrace him. "You doing okay, baby?” It's said like they're at home, like they're about to try and figure out breakfast for themselves after they've fed the kittens that Andelena insists love their 'daddy'. Like the morning rays that come through the window and peek through: that kind of warmth, both in voice and in arms.

Instead, Dolan holds a hand up, as if to forestall her. "Andie. I -" He turns back towards the massive mirror, and looks at himself again, a long, hard stare. "Look. Are you sure this is what you want?" He gestures to himself, to the scars across face, chest, arms. "I'm not as strong as you. I'm not ever going to be as strong as you. I've got to face the facts. I'm not ever going to be right. You deserve someone who can keep up with you."

The words that Dolan says--that he's not strong enough, that he will never be as strong--hit Andelena like a cold chill, to the point where if Dolan's gesture hadn't stopped her mid-stride, the words would have fixed her in place, like frost to her feet. She looks at Dolan with wide eyes for a few seconds, trying to figure out if /he really said that/--if her ears were working in concert with her head properly...

And she takes a breath. She does not look at him. She sees him. Every scar that he wants her to see, the vulnerability of his bare skin on display; she takes it all in as she sees him, and then she fixes her grey eyes back onto his.

"Bullshit," Andelena says softly. Her mouth twitches a little, her eyes welling with tears. "Bullshit, Bry. I told you the other night. You are /stronger/ than me to have gone through what you did. This isn't like when we were teenagers anymore. This isn't like the two of us wrestling each other in the hay to see who would come out on top, or seeing who could carry the most firewood back to the camp, or..."

She closes her eyes and takes a breath that is, all of a sudden, so hard to take, as a tear falls. "I told Zeke this. I told Zeke all I wanted was you, no matter how you came out, no matter how you came back. You're the best godsdamned thing that's ever happened to me, Brydion."

_That_ was not a response that Dolan had expected, and he takes a step forward, those tears ripping through him despite himself. "You sure you want people looking at your man like he's a monster?" he asks softly. "You okay with reminding me where I am sometimes? Even if I don't ever fight again?" Those words are laced with pain and denial. "Because baby, I'm damn sure going to try. We're going to try a brace, and see if it'll hold, but. I just don't know yet. Even if it doesn't. Even if all I can do is support you. Even if all I do is pack your bags for you. Is that what you want?"

Her eyes open again and Andelena fixes him with her steel-grey gaze again, something in his words returning the harder edge that she so often wears in her eyes. "You're a survivor," she tells him. "Not a monster. You're a fighter in spirit, even if you're not a fighter in flesh. I love you for you, Bry. It was never about the fucking strength competitions at the end of the day, damn it. It was--"

A sniffle tears through her, and she raises a hand to her face to wipe her tears. "It was the fact that you looked at me like a person. Not a joke. Not a puppet. Not a piece of a shitty game. You looked at me like I was worthy of love for who I was and who I am. All the way back then, Bry, that's why I fell for you. But I didn't cough it up before you did, because--I was used to Mother undermining everything I liked in the end. Everything I loved, like it was a weakness she'd take advantage of. So I kept it secret, because I thought if you knew--maybe you wouldn't love me anymore. Because I'd suddenly seem weak to you. And..."

She shakes her head. "That's it, isn't it," she realizes. "This whole... weak and strong thing. I'm tired of it. I've been tired of it for a long time, I think. I wore our love like a badge, even when it got me thrown out of my family. A strength where some people might call it weakness, because all they see is a woman without a family. I'm done with that. It's not weak to support each other. It's not weak to love each other. So yes, you're what and who I want." Andelena dries her eyes again, looking at Dolan. "Not just want. I /need/ you."

Behind Dolan, the gilt mirror on the wall shows, not his back, but his face still, exactly as it is - and if she looks, her own face begins to appear in the mirror as well. It's a dim thing at first, but he seems unaware of it, instead reaching forward to wipe one of those tears away, a tear forming at the edge of his own eye. It is a strange thing to watch, but it is there. "I've - come to realize the same. That I want you. That I need you. Why else would I want to impress you? I'm not going to be able to impress you anymore, and that's the damned truth, baby."

He swallows hard, and looks down and away. "Just tell me I don't have to protect you anymore. Because I can't."

Andelena puts her hand to Dolan's face as he looks away from her, to hold him--because he needs her, and she needs him. She can't notice herself in the mirror when he's all that she wants to see, when he's all that she's focused on. The room could be filled with riches and treasures beyond her imagining, and she'd still be looking only at him. "I don't want 'protecting me' to weigh on you anymore, Bry," she says. "We aren't doing this weaker and stronger thing anymore--so we're equals. That means I'm not hiding behind you like I'm a dainty little princess, and that means you're not sworn to take every hit for me. And that means whatever we face, we face it together. Whatever we learn, we learn together."

"Then you want me, exactly how I am? You're okay with that?" Behind Dolan, Andelena's image next to his strengthens, crystallizes. "If you're up for that. Guess we're both going to be stronger for it, yeah? You, me, and the Knight, right? Let His strength be enough for the both of us." He reaches up with his good hand, to wipe the tears away from her face. "We face it together. It won't always be easy, baby, but - I'll try to stop protecting you. I - think I'm going to have to."

"Exactly as you are, baby," Andelena replies with a soft smile as he wipes her tears away. "Warts and all. Scars and all. You, me, and the Knight, and I won't have it any other way. If I wanted easy, I would have never gone to the Temple. I would have let Mother marry me to some fat, blubbery bastard who can't even make out the tip of his dick over his rolls, just because he had money, prestige, and unwedded daughters for my brothers to marry. I would have been miserable, but I would have been safe."

She leans into the hand that's close to her face, closing her eyes. "I never wanted safety. I wanted happiness. And my happiness is you. It's /with/ you."

Deep-seated guilt etches itself across the mobile half of Dolan's features. "I wanted to protect you. I wanted to impress. Never, ever did I want to see you get hurt. Because I love you." He looks down and away again, or at least tries to, then back up. "You're not gonna get safety with me. That ain't gonna happen, baby. The Knight's got other plans for me. He's tested me, and he's still testing me. If you're in - then I am. Saddle up, baby. I'm not ever gonna be handsome again, but I'll do my damndest to make it work."

Behind the pair in the mirror is a ghostly image. A figure indistinct, but still present. It looks like a knight? But when one looks behind, there's nothing there.

"Bullshit to that, too, Bry," Andelena says as she leans in to embrace him. "Do you think you stopped being handsome to me, ever? You're handsome to me because of /who/ you are and what our connection means to me. It's like I said. I want you and I need you. And if the Knight's going to keep testing you, then I'll be by your side for those tests, too. I may get knocked out of the saddle but I'm going to fight to climb back on and ride."

She looks at the mirror now that she's not looking fully at Dolan--and she stops, squinting at the mirror. "I thought--I thought I saw something in the mirror just now," she says. "A knight."

Then Andelena gulps. "The Knight?"

Finally grinning like a fool, tears streaming down the mobile side of his face, Dolan leans in for the embrace, but at her sudden stop, his head jerks back towards the mirror. They're both there now, equally full and real, although Andelena's face is smooth, beautiful. Idealized, just a little, where his scars are deep and stark and unrelenting. And -

"Shit," he blurts out, his eyes dropping. He doesn't let go of her, though. "Yeah, so I forgot to tell you about this, Andie. It's His totem. When two of His faithful are dreaming together? It gets stronger. That's how we were able to get the sword out, me and Zeke. It's not fucking easy, and I didn't quite mean to do that." As if for the first time, he notices the sword, leaning in the corner in front of the mirror. He looks at it, and at her, and - suddenly, it is in his hand.

Andelena blinks in surprise when the sword is suddenly in Dolan's hand. She doesn't jump back from him, but she shifts around a little, one arm still wrapped around him, as she stares at the blade. "I... Can I touch it?" she asks. "The sword, that is. I told Verna that I wanted to research it the other day. See if it might be useful for us to use and hold in combat when we go to the Vast."

GAME: Dolan rolls will: (15)+10: 25

"You can always touch it, baby." Dolan's wicked grin splits his tear-streaked face from ear to ear, including pulling on the scars. "But I don't know if it'll be any good in combat." An image begins to form in the mirror, an image that would leave Andelena less than clad, but he immediately coughs and stares at it, and the clothes resume their rightful place.

"Uh, sure, baby." He's still grinning as he offers her the hilt of the blade, and returns to staring into the mirror. "You, me, and the Knight."

-End