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Post by Alsivor on Sept 6, 2008 9:03:27 GMT -8
Takes place right after "Betrothal"
Sprawled on his stomach on G'tet's bed, Silvio drew in long lungfuls of air, shaking from head to toe. One hand remained spread on Genet's hip and he stared at the contrast of his darker skin to her pale. Difference. They were different. Different worlds. Different lives. How had he thought they could possibly overcome all that difference. His eyes squeezed shut and he took another deep drag of the weyr's cool air. It tasted stale to him, always, even though it was well-ventilated and the fire dried the damp. Too enclosed, he could never live for long in a place like this.
His eyes traveled up the length of Genet's body, drinking her in as he had so many times before in the last heady, crazy two months and his heart squeezed hard in his chest. How could he tell her? What could he say? With a low groan he moved to wrap both arms around her, hold her tight to his chest.
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Post by Invisible on Sept 6, 2008 9:13:25 GMT -8
He had been late and Genet had worried. Would this be the night he did not come? Had his father found out and forbid him? Had he left? Crept away in the night like a thief too afraid to come say goodbye? She had worried and in her worry had found a thousand things more to worry about. The air was getting cooler and that meant the end of summer and that meant goodbye.
What if he left before G’tet came back? G’tet who she knew would keep her company and hold her when she missed Silvio too much for words to express. If he left and she was alone what would she do? But he had come and even though it had seemed different it was still them. He was still hers. For now niggled in her brain and she told it to shut up. It wasn’t until they had finished the rush of pleasure that greeted the start of each night together that she became aware something was wrong.
When she was pulled to him she did not resist but curled up against him. Genet did not feel the air as stale, but everything to her was alive. The scent of the weyr was still G’tet and Kalpeth to her nose only now it had Silvio as well. He was what she noticed as she stretched out now against him and asked, “What is it?”
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Post by Alsivor on Sept 6, 2008 9:23:47 GMT -8
She knew. Maybe not in so many words, but she knew there was something wrong. Of course she did. For the last two months they'd lived and breathed each other like each day might be the last. There probably wasn't a person on Pern by now, who knew him better other than Aleda and Milo. His hands moved restlessly along her back and his lips pressed against her forehead. Silvio breathed in, mind a blank, then he opted for straightforward. There was no hiding this, no way around it.
"My father has arranged a match for me." Beat. "I'm engaged to be married next turn at mid-summer." Mid-summer. When /they/ had come together. His eyes sought hers out, hazel-to-hazel, love, fear, desperation easily read there. "We could leave Genet, go before this happens."
Predictably maybe, from the back of his mind: You're an idiot.
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Post by Invisible on Sept 6, 2008 9:30:26 GMT -8
The words hit her like a cold rain and all warmth shared between the two dissipated. It wasn’t like a knife to the heart she mused as her body stilled but for shallow breathing. Harpers had it wrong. It was a million pins all jabbed in at the same time and left to rust. It might have seemed as if she would never talk again the silence dragged on so long.
Just before he might have tried to fill in the quiet she took a ragged breath and pulled away from him. Sitting up in her brother’s bed she pulled a blanket up over her and stared at the Caminar with a sad expression. “You’ve agreed to the match?” she asks soft enough that the wind whistling over the weyr entrance nearly steals her words away.
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Post by Alsivor on Sept 6, 2008 9:48:29 GMT -8
She wasn't speaking. He could feel the retreat in her body before she even pulled away. Faranth. What have I done? The thought ran wildly through his head, as his hand trailed off of her back, not by will but by the act of her turning away. Silvio's head bowed as his palm hit the mattress, the rumpled sheets.
It occurred to him now, that he could have said no. Could have risked his father's anger, could have stood up to him. But he hadn't. He could not lie to Genet. "I -- yes." The words fell from his lips laden heavily with his own sudden shame and disappointment. His head came up and he looked up at her, expression wild. "I can back out of it, I can say no. She -- she's just a girl. I could say she's too young!" Avera's hopeful face flashed through his mind, the golden chain around her neck gleaming in the firelight and he took a deep breath. Why had he even gone? The hurt and shame he'd bring all around would be so much worse now.
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Post by Invisible on Sept 6, 2008 10:02:10 GMT -8
For once in her life Genet trapped the words that wanted to spill out without her thinking. He had said yes. The questions that threatened to explode from her were forced down with a hard swallow. None of them mattered. It didn’t matter what this girl was like. She was the one thing Genet could not be. The one thing she needed to be to get Silvio’s family’s approval. “If you wanted to say no the time would have been before agreeing.” The words were harsh. Harsher said then she had intended, but she was an emotional woman.
Now she looks at Silvio and asks, “The girl wants this?” The girl. So much scorn in those words. She was nothing, Genet knew, but Caminar. That was why he had agreed to marry her. Why his parents approved. For the first time she doubted her decision to have this relationship. Did she love a coward? A man who would not stand up for what he wanted?
The thought was so abhorrent that she abandoned their borrowed bed. The blanket came with her, wrapped around her shoulders, until she stood and then she let it fall to the bed. She had nothing to hide. It did not matter she was a little too tall and a little to round because that was not why he would marry someone else. Pacing away from the bed she didn’t know where to go just that she had to move. Turning to look at him she asked, “She’s probably beautiful, right? Some little woman that will be a proper wife? Let you lead and give you kids and be the perfect little Caminar bride.” How she hated the girl and it wasn’t even her fault.
With that thought the anger in her gut shifted to the man on her bed. Who claimed to love her, but never once stood up for her to his family. “How could you? How could you agree to marry someone you don’t love? When you say you love someone else? What kind of a man are you? You’d hurt that girl? And what? Expect me to just let you go? Or to betray your marriage vows?” From sadness to anger Genet could move like a flash of lightening from one emotion to the next.
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Post by Alsivor on Sept 6, 2008 10:30:11 GMT -8
Those first words hit him like a ton of bricks. She was right. Why hadn't he just said no? Aleda would have. Aleda /had/, over and over again until their father had given up. Favio had even mentioned it, what a good son he was who didn't cause problems. His hand balled up in the covers, jaw tight. He hadn't even asked Avera about what she wanted. It wasn't the way things were done. Matches were arranged and you did as you were told. It hadn't really occurred to him to question it.
"I don't know what she wants," Silvio replied truthfully. "It's not how things are done," he tried to explain, voice going rougher, more desperate. She rose, let the blanket fall and in spite of the tension between him, his eyes followed her, hopelessly drawn to the shape of her. Maybe he didn't tell her enough, but he loved that she was tall, that she wasn't ephemeral, a little slip of nothing.
"She's pretty enough," Silvio had to be honest about that too, though his eyes were pinned to Genet's back. "You think that's what I want? A perfect biddable bride? I want /you/, dammit." And he slid out of the bed, paced after her. "I want your questions and your fire and that mind of yours that never stops moving. I want you smiling at me the way you always do and the teasing and you charging into things without thinking and then laughing about it later." He took a deep breath and reached for her shoulders to turn her to face him, to look her in the eye while he spoke.
"Ask me to stay, Genet, don't let me go." Pleading now. "And I will put an end to it. I would rather be nothing here, than be without you. But if I'm to stay with my people, be a Caminar, I have to marry. I would rather by far, marry /you/ if you will go with me, if you will face what it means with me." Breath. "This match suits my father, brings honor to my family and hers. But you're right, if I do this, if I make those vows next summer, I will be nothing but a liar and living a lie for the rest of my life."
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Post by Invisible on Sept 6, 2008 10:56:42 GMT -8
“It’s not how the hold does it either,” Genet said with a little sneer for her description of where she was from. They were not her people the people of the hold. Neither were the weyrfolk her people. Even they had ties, restrictions, demands on what one could be. She wanted to be free and while she knew that impossible it still chafed. “My father tried to marry me off dozens of times. Every time I got out of it. Every time because I would not marry a man I did not love.” Anger settled over her like a cloak and it made her taller and more firm. No, Genet would never be ephemeral.
For all her wish to separate from the holderfolk it’s what she was. Solid and earthy and capable of being as intractable as the stone she lived in. That was what he saw when he turned her to him. The stone was a thin enough veneer to hide the pain underneath. It leaked out only in hazel eyes bright with unshed tears. Even those tears could not wash away everything. Not just because she would not let them fall, but because she felt too much.
“You bastard,” she hissed and broke his hold on her. “Be a man, Silvio. I will not beg you to stay. Nor do I want you to if you believe that would make you nothing. There is plenty you can do here Caminar or not. You don’t want to see it because you don’t want to stay. Go. Go be Caminar. Go be your father’s Golden Boy.” No tease now that name. No warmth or laughter just coldness. “Go marry who he says and forever be his boy. Live in your traditions that stifle you more than living in one place could.”
A part of her brain told her to shut up, but she told it to shut up right back. “You come to me with this after you agree to marry. Now you have to make some poor girl look bad. I love you.” She spat the words at him as if they were more curse than affection and advanced on him once more after having taken back several steps to get some distance. “You have two options now, Silvio.” Oh, how her heart broke. She tried to keep from crumbling and it was so hard. She wanted to pull him close and kiss him and haul him to bed and never let him go.
But letting him go might be her only choice. “You either leave and forget me to marry your Caminar bride or we go to your family and hers and explain it cannot be.”
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Post by Alsivor on Sept 6, 2008 11:25:40 GMT -8
"I never expected to marry for love. I've always known it would be this way, that someone would be chosen for me. I never expected to love at all," Silvio replied in a wounded voice, though the look on her face horrified him and all he wanted to do was wash it away, kiss the tears that refused to fall, turn the pain and anger back to happiness and joy.
"Beg? No -- no, I -- " he was usually so much better with words but he couldn't find them now. His insides were twisting and turning every which way and he couldn't think, couldn't put two thoughts together and have the come out making sense. Her words lashed at him, tore out the ground from beneath him. And all she did was speak the truth. "Ask it /of/ me," he tried to clarify, stopped talking, stood there feeling dizzy and sick.
"They only just told me," finally made its way out of his mouth, which probably only made it worse. She was right, so right, he was paralyzed, caught between too many extremes, too many uncertainties, the weight of expectations and his own fear that he could in the end, lose everything.
She laid down an ultimatum and in it, there was only one choice, only one path to take. He stepped forward to take her hands and the words came out with sudden determination.
"Let's go see my father."
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Post by Invisible on Sept 6, 2008 11:42:40 GMT -8
“I-“ His words froze her own in her brain. “Silvio? I-“ What? Where were all the words she had just minutes ago? There were thousands waiting to come spilling out and wash away everything that hurt inside and with five words they were all gone. All at once being unclothed seemed like too much and she shivered. He wanted to stay.
Did he? Or did he just want sex? He would give up everything and be miserable and she didn’t know what to do. Genet had been serious when she had told him she was not looking to settle down. He had seemed the perfect sport and although it had deepened to something else those feelings had not departed. She could not spend her life in a wagon and have no home, but she didn’t want- What did she want? “I don’t want you to hate me,” she whispered to him suddenly less fierce.
“I don’t want you to wither and die. I love you the way you are.” A flame lit up again inside her and she shook her head. “No. We should talk to your intended bride first. Can you do that? Get her alone so we might find out what she wants? This poor girl is in this through no fault of her own.” Talk to his father? When his father had gotten them into this? And because you’re afraid to. She shivered again and looked at him with that heat still in her eyes, but it morphed into a different fire as she took him in. He made her crazy and wanton and delirious with need, but the doubts still crept in. Was this love? Was it worth risking his whole future?
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Post by Alsivor on Sept 6, 2008 12:05:03 GMT -8
She was shivering and Silvio moved his hands up her arms, tried to slip his around her, draw her to him, warm her somehow. "I could never hate /you/," he said firmly, ignoring the fact that a shiver was tracing its way up his own spine. "Though I might come to hate myself. Hate what I become. I don't know, Genet. There's plenty of work here, yes, but I am Caminar, everything I know is not meant for a place like this. I know how to hunt and make a camp, how to survive on the road, how to make much out of little and how to make things with my own two hands. I know how to buy and sell, how to trade. I can do those things, even if I haven't finished learning my craft. I need open sky above me and earth beneath my feet, not stone." He paused for breath and made to hold her all the more tightly.
"I only just met her tonight, really," he told her about Avera. "She's all of fifteen and doing what her parents tell her to do," Silvio said in a strained voice. "Her mother did everything for her." He took a deep breath, let it out. "I cannot tonight, she has gone to bed and I do not know whose wagon she sleeps in. But I will find her tomorrow and speak with her. It will not look strange to anyone if I ask to take her for a walk." Like he had asked Genet, so many times, to walk with him.
One hand lifted to run through her hair, to touch her face gently and his lips were seeking hers out. "We'll find a way Genet, we'll find a way and I will stay if that's what it takes. Or work hard, save up so I can break away on my own, but I need a little more time for that, a little more time to learn from my uncle so I can make my own living."
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Post by Invisible on Sept 6, 2008 12:18:57 GMT -8
And Genet had a brilliant idea and most of the gloom fled from her in an instant. “What about-“ No, he would think it dumb. No, it didn’t matter. It was not dumb. “Do not tell her what I am. Just say you love another. Find out what she wants. If-“
So many thoughts ran through her brain each of them more hopeful than the next and she pulled herself against him like she could share that hope through physical contact alone. “Find out what she wants,” she says firmly. “And tell her if she marries you then there is another. Some women might not mind so long as they were wife and had power and got to bear the children.” Children, ugh. If this girl agreed Genet had no problem being his other woman. Freedom to be with him whenever and let some silly girl deal with marriage.
“Find out if there is someone she wants to be with. What does she want to do? Maybe she doesn’t even want to marry. There should be options.” Genet bounced now in her excitement and was distracted by the way it felt when she did that with him up against her. So she did it again and her breath caught in her throat. It should be stopped before they lost conversation entirely. “If it is for the best I will let you go,” she says seriously. "You could learn to love your wife. I will not be the instrument of two people's ruin."
But serious doesn’t last because she’s got an idea. “What about something in between? You cannot be the only Caminar to love someone he shouldn’t? I can’t be the only girl to be dumb about her love. What do these people do? Live a half life? What if they formed their own caravan? You could travel, but we could spend time here too. Not travel forever, but travel with a home base.” It could work. Genet could make it work. At least that’s what the cheerleaders in her head said. Genet preferred to be happy than sad so had a lot of them.
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Post by Alsivor on Sept 6, 2008 12:36:27 GMT -8
Silvio took all that in, brows lifting and lowering comically as she went on. Ultimately, the fact that she was utterly adorable when she was like this, seized with an idea, won out. It didn't hurt that she kept bouncing up and down against him like that and he took a little half step closer, pressed against her eagerly. "I will speak with Avera," he agreed and lowered his mouth to kiss the edge of Genet's shoulder, kiss his way up her neck.
"If you can bear being the other woman, I -- I can live with that." He fell silent though, stopped the kisses and lifted serious eyes to hers. "If it is to be that way though, I -- I will try not to be jealous." His head shook a little, trying to process everything she was describing and offered some insight into his world.
"They are outcast amongst my people. Sometimes not so strongly when it is a man who takes a holder woman into the caravan, but the other way around? A Caminar woman who takes a holder man, becomes not one of us, like she is dead. And you and I, our children, would be called half-breed." He spoke of children, unaware of her distaste for that particular idea, thinking that eventually it was something they would both want, a family together.
He cleared his throat, listening again. "It has never been done. Caminar who marry outside usually wind up alone, a single wagon, shunned by the others, living on the edges of things, both holder and Caminar alike. But this -- this is an interesting idea." Silvio stopped, took a deep breath and searched her face. "Aleda would do this with me, I know it. She is like you, she has refused every man my father has chosen for her. She is intimate with whomever she chooses, when she chooses and never looks back. She has no desire to marry or be pinned down. It drives my father crazy." There's was the faintest pause before he went on. "It is the difference between Aleda and I. I do want a partner for life, someone to share all the adventures of the road with, children some day. And I want you to be that partner."
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Post by Invisible on Sept 6, 2008 13:00:06 GMT -8
It was rare for her to hear details of his life as Caminar. She did not press, not wanting to seem like she wanted secrets he was not ready to share. But this was new and she took it in. From her hold she had never heard of someone running off with one of the travelers, but she knew it happened. Never had she considered she’d be one of those considering it. It was sad the way people were treated. Not just by strangers but by their own kind. “I just wouldn’t tell you about them,” she answers with a tease and a wink. Her good mood was mostly restored by now since there was a plan.
That he liked her idea made her excited and for his part in her excitement he was rewarded with a kiss that stopped just short of being unstoppable and demanding further physical rewards. Partly that was owing to the words he said. There it was. It wasn’t just being from two different worlds that would keep them apart. But she couldn’t say it now. Couldn’t lose this last bit of happiness. So, she said something else. “I think-“ What did she think? A million things the first one being she did not want children. She wanted a man in her life who wanted her and no one else. “Silvio, I think you should leave when your caravan does.” The words were pulled out of her slowly by something inside she’d never experienced much before.
Adulthood and a sense of responsibility of purpose wiped away any tears that wanted to form from the eager childish part of her that was selfish and wanted to keep this man as close as she could. “We need to know if this is even- If- What if you are here with me for the winter and we cannot make it work? You will have given up everything. You should go with your family and learn your trade and see if-“ The hard part choked out against his throat because she could not look at him and say it. “See if you might not be happy with the bride your father selected.”
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Post by Alsivor on Sept 6, 2008 13:10:42 GMT -8
At first, Silvio was only glad, glad to see the tears vanish, the anger, to have her teasing him again even though a pang of white hot jealousy shot through him at the idea of her shouting out rapture from beneath another man. "I don't think I would want to know," he agreed with that hastily, sank into her kiss eagerly, serious thoughts flying away as it grew more intense.
Confusion registered on his face when she broke it, when she started questioning again and he blinked at her a few times. "What?" and then he understood, sighed softly and nodded. "We have time still, time to be together, but when my family goes, I need to be with my uncle at least, to learn what I need to, to be independent."
Her last though brought his palms up to cup her cheeks and he spoke very clearly, very purposefully: "Wherever I go, whomever I am with, Genet, my heart is yours."
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