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Crowns of Ice - A Tale of Blood and Betrayal - Chapter I - The Isle of Heildam
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<blockquote data-quote="Queenie" data-source="post: 7045908" data-attributes="member: 8058"><p>Part Three - The Conclusion ~</p><p></p><p><span style="color: teal">” Do they carry this mark upon their bodies as well, then?”</span> he asked.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: violet">“ That tattoo is the major way to look for and identify cultists,”</span> Astrid confirmed, <span style="color: violet">” Sometimes it is just the moon and stars, if they need to keep a more hidden profile, but it is there to some degree, usually on the forearm. The search for this cult has kept me busy and has kept my mind off the fact that I … I cannot …”</span></p><p></p><p>A painful expression came to Astrid’s face, not a usual expression for her.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: violet">“ Eben, I cannot find her. Karsii. We have found many cultists, but they have no information about this, this Light. I have spent so much time in the forest, every extra spare moment I can. Sometimes I sleep there. I have poured over books and every piece of information I can find, I have consulted seidrs, oracles, sorcerers, witches, druids, nobody knows anything. Anything!”</span></p><p></p><p>Astrid, Astrid MacTier, lighthearted and sometimes silly, strong willed and stubborn when necessary, began a complete breakdown there finally in the arms of her child’s father. He held her up at first, trying to keep her steady in his strong, safe hold. Her fists grew tight, her knuckles white from squeezing them so tight. </p><p></p><p><span style="color: violet">“ I cannot find our daughter, Eben Marenson. And she is out there, somewhere. She is alone! Without one of us! Is she scared? Is she in danger? Is she wondering where her <em>móðir</em> and <em>faðir</em> are??”</span></p><p></p><p>Astrid was frantic as she spoke. She collapsed against Eben’s chest, tears finally releasing, streaming from her green eyes. The Skald sank with her, trying to keep his own eyes dry as they fell to their knees back into the sand. Eben tucked her head to his shoulder as Astrid vented everything that had been building since she started this story. Softly, he stroked her hair, trying to soothe her even as he himself shook with fury and sorrow.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: violet">“ She is three years old now Eben, <em>three</em> years old. She does not know us, she does not know her own mother! Who is raising her? Does she have a safe roof over her head? And proper food? Who is teaching her to be a good person, to know the difference between right and wrong? Does that wicked cult have her and are they doing foul things to her?? <em>Who is loving our daughter, Eben??</em>”</span></p><p></p><p>She wept against his chest, her tears soaking his yellow tunic. Her entire body shook with the emotions pouring out of her, her small body heaving from the sobs. Eben’s arms around her provided some comfort but these were emotions that had been bottled up, kept secret for years upon years with no one to talk to, no one to commiserate, no one for her to share the deepest and darkest fears of her life. Her father was not an emotional man: he was a man of action and plans, not a man to let this out to. He never was. Not about her mother, not about Eben, and not about this.</p><p></p><p>Those luminescent green eyes now puffy, red and blood shot looked up at him, wearied from the extended story and crying. </p><p></p><p><span style="color: violet">“ Who is loving our daughter? Soon it will be too late. We are running out of time.”</span></p><p></p><p><span style="color: teal">” <em>We</em> are loving our daughter, Astrid.”</span></p><p></p><p>Eben spoke with desperate purpose, knowing now that his heart, too, belonged to someone he had never even met. </p><p></p><p><span style="color: teal">” I don't care how large or powerful this Cult is: they will not touch a <em>hair</em> upon the head of Karsii or yourself, never again. By Tyr's Right Hand, so I swear it.”</span></p><p></p><p>The poet shook too, though it was only partially from mourning.</p><p></p><p>Rage. Eben felt a deep, burning anger in his chest, far more intense than any ire that had gripped him before. These, these <em>Cultists</em> had harmed his love. They had nearly killed her and his unborn child. They were the reason his daughter was now gone. They were the reason he had abandoned all that he held dear. <em>They</em> would feel his vengeance a thousand times in this life, and forevermore until Ragnarok.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: teal">” I will find her.”</span> Eben declared, gently tilting Astrid up to look at him. He cupped her cheeks as he used to in their youth, cradling her beautiful face in his coarse hands.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: teal">” <em>We</em> will find her. I will never stop looking <em>until</em> she is safe back in your arms.”</span></p><p></p><p>The Demiurgists frequently begged for their vaunted Unifier to save them from the fury of The Northmen. Now, Eben planned to tap into that primal rage of his blood and use it against those that had marred his family so. For now, though, he held his wife, the mother of his resplendent daughter, with all the tenderness he had denied her for three years.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: teal">” Though.”</span></p><p></p><p>He mused carefully. Considered.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: teal">” If this Spirit took Karsii. Perhaps even the Cultists are as in the dark as we are. 'Someplace where Darkness cannot reach her', the Spirit said? If so, she must be protecting her just as we would have. And she granted you a measure of her power ...”</span></p><p></p><p>Slowly, Eben moved closer and laid his lips upon her brow. A kiss of fondness. A kiss of affirmation. A kiss that wanted to be so much <em>more</em>, and yet remained so simple, so longing. Eben rested his crown against her own as he held Astrid, his voice losing its coldness as he worked through his thought.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: teal">” That means you, Astrid. A place 'Only My Light' can reach? <em>You</em> have that Spirit's Light, then. You are the key to finding our daughter and getting her back. And I will not leave your side until we do.”</span></p><p></p><p>Her poet, he was still there. Always hopeful. Always a man of honor and courage. Yet he hadn’t seen these cultists, and what they could do. Not yet he hadn’t. And he was just one man. She could not trade that for an army, as much as she would give anything,<em> anything</em> to be able to be in his arms again. There was only one thing that was more important in this world than that. </p><p></p><p>Astrid tried to recover herself from telling her tale. She could never snuggle herself enough in Eben’s arms, she’d never want to leave his embrace, she would never want to not be in the place where she could have his love and his warmth and his comfort and his kisses. She pushed her nose into his tunic to inhale his scent deeply for long moments, and when his lips touched her brow, she felt warm tingles fill her body like they always did when he kissed her. She longed for it to be more yet she knew it could not.</p><p></p><p>Finally she gathered her strength. She pulled out of his arms: it was so hard, so very hard to separate herself away from him, but as she pulled back she stroked his cheek one final time. She stood up, the wind blowing her hair and fur around her like she was caught in a vortex. Her emotions certainly felt like they were made of nothing but the fiercest of storms, though she tried to weather it bravely.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: violet">“ Eben, My Love,”</span> she finally said it, she didn’t care, <span style="color: violet">“ Einar has an army. He has the wealth and the power and the influence that I need, that <em>WE</em> need, to find our daughter. We need to continue to find these cultists so we can find <em>her</em>, and we need to do it now with all urgency. I needed to get away from the Demiurgist church because I do not know how deeply they have infiltrated other houses or how far their reach is.”</span></p><p></p><p>Astrid straightened her back and steeled her voice: she would need to be stout against the protestations of the man she loved. Every time he tried to speak, she found another way to cut him off, unwilling to give ground. Unwilling to listen to that voice she had imagined every wind to be. Unwilling to be swayed by those honeyed words.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: violet">“ I know you do not want to hear this, but the cult is large, and they are deadly. They are more than one man or woman can handle, no matter how passionate their cause.”</span></p><p></p><p>Her voice went emotionless as she continued, <span style="color: violet">“ I will marry Einar. I will give him children. I will give him all the metal he wants from my father’s lands, I will give him my father’s lands once they pass to me: I do not care. I will give him whatever he wants.”</span> </p><p></p><p>Eben tried to protest, standing finally but his height felt so very small beneath the glare Astrid threw his way, demanding that he keep his tongue silent for the moment.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: violet">“ But I will use what he has. I will grow strong too. His power and influence will become my power and influence and his army will be my army. Together with my father’s army we will destroy this cult for good.”</span></p><p></p><p>Eben and Astrid stared at one another for a long moment. The poet was not quite sure where the sweet girl he had fallen for had gone for all her talk of power and armies and vengeance: had the trauma she suffered truly burned away any sense of softness in Astrid? As the woman’s voice finally turned somber, her green eyes misting when she looked away, Eben realized that this newfound fury in her was a thing born of that soft heart of hers.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: violet">“ And I will do all this so I can find Karsii. She is the only thing that matters to me, Eben. She is the only piece of you I have left. You are standing before me now, but you were not here yesterday or even this morning. She was all I had of you, but even with you here, I still have to find her. I cannot abandon her to a life without me.”</span></p><p></p><p>She took a step closer to her love, her one love in life, meeting his look.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: violet">“ So I will do this for us: like my father said, love is an action, not a feeling. Now it is my turn to show my love for you by doing for us and our family. I will marry Einar and I will find our daughter, I will make her safe and I will do it for all of us.”</span></p><p></p><p>Astrid reached out and squeezed the poet’s hand in hers. </p><p></p><p><span style="color: violet">“ Einar will never have my heart. Never. I have told him as much already. It is yours, it has been yours since the day I first saw you, the day we met in my father’s court. Only strengthened when you found me stowed away on your mother’s ship and you laughed at me, the skinny little Jarling child with the big green eyes wanting to see the world and have adventures with you. And confirmed to me every single day since then in so many ways I cannot even count them.” </span></p><p></p><p>The smile she gave him was genuine, but it fell quickly, as fast as her hand from his.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: violet">“ Yet no matter how much I love you Eben Marenson, no matter that it is only you that holds my heart, that in that heart you will always be my husband, I must do this. I <em>must</em> marry Einar Volundson.”</span></p><p></p><p>Eben refused to let her step away, reaching back out for Astrid as she tried to turn from him, tried to put a final point on this conversation. The poet would not let the story end.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: teal">” You must <em>not</em> go to Grandael,”</span> he declared, clasping Astrid around the waist and keeping her on the sand.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: teal">” Your … <em>Our</em> daughter does not need armies, or, or power, or Einar! She needs <em>us</em>, Astrid. Waging this … this <em>war</em> upon these cultists is not going to bring her back. Nor is walking into the wolf’s den.”</span></p><p></p><p>Eben shook his head, unsure on how to convince her, how to show her that this plan was beyond hope. He was conflicted on all accounts: He wanted too to find the daughter he did not know, but knew that Astrid had been the one carrying this fight for three years and knew their enemy far better. He wanted to keep Astrid with himself, to be the husband he vowed to be, but also knew that to do so <em>now</em> may very well cause war between Grandael and Viuland. Everywhere he turned, there was another dam stopping the river from flowing smoothly.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: teal">” You don’t understand this man. He will not just use you: he will <em>destroy</em> you and Viuland for his own desires. You will get <em>no</em> army, no assistance. He would care naught for the daughter of a bastard, nor your hope to find her.”</span></p><p></p><p>His hands slid up, holding her face and begging her with his eyes.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: teal">” Astrid. My Love. I know why you do this, but you do not know what you do. And now you place me where I long to save you from this and have no power to do so. But I beg of you, I <em>need</em> of you: return to Viuland. Have your father call this wedding off. Your family’s reputation should protect you enough. I will return home, and we will set off <em>together</em> to find Karsii.”</span></p><p></p><p>Eben stepped closer, pressing himself gently to her as they once had enjoyed. He leaned in softly, as if to kiss her, stopping himself short briefly. He bit on his lower lip and shook slightly, barely able to contain himself for her sake.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: teal">” Do not make this infernal bargain to save our Daughter. There <em>must</em> be another way.”</span></p><p></p><p>She lingered there as he held her, pressed against the warmth of her poet with the roar of the ocean next to them like it always had been at home, the dream of them swirling in the air for an extended moment; a moment she cherished and held dear to her heart. That same heart pounded in her chest like a drum; she had desired this with all her being for the past three years and now it was in front of her for the taking. </p><p></p><p>But she could not just throw away all the plots and plans, everything that had been in motion since the very night her love had been tricked into leaving her. Her daughter, <em>their</em> daughter was her focus and she could not let herself be swayed by the longing of her body, the reason of her mind or the deepest desire of her heart. </p><p> </p><p>Yet that look in his eyes, the look she had seen so many times… his own yearning for her… it was so very hard to deny what they both wanted. In just an instant they both gave in to their craving, pressing soft full lips to each other urgently. The poet kept one arm around his muse’s back, coaxing her body to his tightly, burying the other hand into her long hair as he used to when their passion overtook them. She let her hands explore the boy who had developed into a man in her absence; feeling his strong arms, broad chest and shoulders and ended cradling the now grown in lush beard on his face. Like this they stayed for an eternity, it seemed as such after their three long solitary years apart, the two of them joined together on the beach in love and desire. </p><p></p><p>Until Astrid abruptly pushed away from the poet, her expression pained, tears filling her soft green eyes as she faced him down. </p><p></p><p><span style="color: violet"> “I <em>cannot</em> do this. The bargain - it is already done My Love. And I will see it through, for all of us.” </span></p><p></p><p>Astrid lifted her furs then and ran off the beach, ran away from her love, ran from the man who filled her heart and made her the woman she was today, she ran from him as fast as her feet would carry her, leaving her past standing there helpless and alone on that perfect idyllic beach.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Queenie, post: 7045908, member: 8058"] Part Three - The Conclusion ~ [color=teal]” Do they carry this mark upon their bodies as well, then?”[/color] he asked. [color=violet]“ That tattoo is the major way to look for and identify cultists,”[/color] Astrid confirmed, [color=violet]” Sometimes it is just the moon and stars, if they need to keep a more hidden profile, but it is there to some degree, usually on the forearm. The search for this cult has kept me busy and has kept my mind off the fact that I … I cannot …”[/color] A painful expression came to Astrid’s face, not a usual expression for her. [color=violet]“ Eben, I cannot find her. Karsii. We have found many cultists, but they have no information about this, this Light. I have spent so much time in the forest, every extra spare moment I can. Sometimes I sleep there. I have poured over books and every piece of information I can find, I have consulted seidrs, oracles, sorcerers, witches, druids, nobody knows anything. Anything!”[/color] Astrid, Astrid MacTier, lighthearted and sometimes silly, strong willed and stubborn when necessary, began a complete breakdown there finally in the arms of her child’s father. He held her up at first, trying to keep her steady in his strong, safe hold. Her fists grew tight, her knuckles white from squeezing them so tight. [color=violet]“ I cannot find our daughter, Eben Marenson. And she is out there, somewhere. She is alone! Without one of us! Is she scared? Is she in danger? Is she wondering where her [i]móðir[/i] and [i]faðir[/i] are??”[/color] Astrid was frantic as she spoke. She collapsed against Eben’s chest, tears finally releasing, streaming from her green eyes. The Skald sank with her, trying to keep his own eyes dry as they fell to their knees back into the sand. Eben tucked her head to his shoulder as Astrid vented everything that had been building since she started this story. Softly, he stroked her hair, trying to soothe her even as he himself shook with fury and sorrow. [color=violet]“ She is three years old now Eben, [i]three[/i] years old. She does not know us, she does not know her own mother! Who is raising her? Does she have a safe roof over her head? And proper food? Who is teaching her to be a good person, to know the difference between right and wrong? Does that wicked cult have her and are they doing foul things to her?? [i]Who is loving our daughter, Eben??[/i]”[/color] She wept against his chest, her tears soaking his yellow tunic. Her entire body shook with the emotions pouring out of her, her small body heaving from the sobs. Eben’s arms around her provided some comfort but these were emotions that had been bottled up, kept secret for years upon years with no one to talk to, no one to commiserate, no one for her to share the deepest and darkest fears of her life. Her father was not an emotional man: he was a man of action and plans, not a man to let this out to. He never was. Not about her mother, not about Eben, and not about this. Those luminescent green eyes now puffy, red and blood shot looked up at him, wearied from the extended story and crying. [color=violet]“ Who is loving our daughter? Soon it will be too late. We are running out of time.”[/color] [color=teal]” [i]We[/i] are loving our daughter, Astrid.”[/color] Eben spoke with desperate purpose, knowing now that his heart, too, belonged to someone he had never even met. [color=teal]” I don't care how large or powerful this Cult is: they will not touch a [i]hair[/i] upon the head of Karsii or yourself, never again. By Tyr's Right Hand, so I swear it.”[/color] The poet shook too, though it was only partially from mourning. Rage. Eben felt a deep, burning anger in his chest, far more intense than any ire that had gripped him before. These, these [i]Cultists[/i] had harmed his love. They had nearly killed her and his unborn child. They were the reason his daughter was now gone. They were the reason he had abandoned all that he held dear. [i]They[/i] would feel his vengeance a thousand times in this life, and forevermore until Ragnarok. [color=teal]” I will find her.”[/color] Eben declared, gently tilting Astrid up to look at him. He cupped her cheeks as he used to in their youth, cradling her beautiful face in his coarse hands. [color=teal]” [i]We[/i] will find her. I will never stop looking [i]until[/i] she is safe back in your arms.”[/color] The Demiurgists frequently begged for their vaunted Unifier to save them from the fury of The Northmen. Now, Eben planned to tap into that primal rage of his blood and use it against those that had marred his family so. For now, though, he held his wife, the mother of his resplendent daughter, with all the tenderness he had denied her for three years. [color=teal]” Though.”[/color] He mused carefully. Considered. [color=teal]” If this Spirit took Karsii. Perhaps even the Cultists are as in the dark as we are. 'Someplace where Darkness cannot reach her', the Spirit said? If so, she must be protecting her just as we would have. And she granted you a measure of her power ...”[/color] Slowly, Eben moved closer and laid his lips upon her brow. A kiss of fondness. A kiss of affirmation. A kiss that wanted to be so much [i]more[/i], and yet remained so simple, so longing. Eben rested his crown against her own as he held Astrid, his voice losing its coldness as he worked through his thought. [color=teal]” That means you, Astrid. A place 'Only My Light' can reach? [i]You[/i] have that Spirit's Light, then. You are the key to finding our daughter and getting her back. And I will not leave your side until we do.”[/color] Her poet, he was still there. Always hopeful. Always a man of honor and courage. Yet he hadn’t seen these cultists, and what they could do. Not yet he hadn’t. And he was just one man. She could not trade that for an army, as much as she would give anything,[I] anything[/I] to be able to be in his arms again. There was only one thing that was more important in this world than that. Astrid tried to recover herself from telling her tale. She could never snuggle herself enough in Eben’s arms, she’d never want to leave his embrace, she would never want to not be in the place where she could have his love and his warmth and his comfort and his kisses. She pushed her nose into his tunic to inhale his scent deeply for long moments, and when his lips touched her brow, she felt warm tingles fill her body like they always did when he kissed her. She longed for it to be more yet she knew it could not. Finally she gathered her strength. She pulled out of his arms: it was so hard, so very hard to separate herself away from him, but as she pulled back she stroked his cheek one final time. She stood up, the wind blowing her hair and fur around her like she was caught in a vortex. Her emotions certainly felt like they were made of nothing but the fiercest of storms, though she tried to weather it bravely. [color=violet]“ Eben, My Love,”[/color] she finally said it, she didn’t care, [color=violet]“ Einar has an army. He has the wealth and the power and the influence that I need, that [i]WE[/i] need, to find our daughter. We need to continue to find these cultists so we can find [i]her[/i], and we need to do it now with all urgency. I needed to get away from the Demiurgist church because I do not know how deeply they have infiltrated other houses or how far their reach is.”[/color] Astrid straightened her back and steeled her voice: she would need to be stout against the protestations of the man she loved. Every time he tried to speak, she found another way to cut him off, unwilling to give ground. Unwilling to listen to that voice she had imagined every wind to be. Unwilling to be swayed by those honeyed words. [color=violet]“ I know you do not want to hear this, but the cult is large, and they are deadly. They are more than one man or woman can handle, no matter how passionate their cause.”[/color] Her voice went emotionless as she continued, [color=violet]“ I will marry Einar. I will give him children. I will give him all the metal he wants from my father’s lands, I will give him my father’s lands once they pass to me: I do not care. I will give him whatever he wants.”[/color] Eben tried to protest, standing finally but his height felt so very small beneath the glare Astrid threw his way, demanding that he keep his tongue silent for the moment. [color=violet]“ But I will use what he has. I will grow strong too. His power and influence will become my power and influence and his army will be my army. Together with my father’s army we will destroy this cult for good.”[/color] Eben and Astrid stared at one another for a long moment. The poet was not quite sure where the sweet girl he had fallen for had gone for all her talk of power and armies and vengeance: had the trauma she suffered truly burned away any sense of softness in Astrid? As the woman’s voice finally turned somber, her green eyes misting when she looked away, Eben realized that this newfound fury in her was a thing born of that soft heart of hers. [color=violet]“ And I will do all this so I can find Karsii. She is the only thing that matters to me, Eben. She is the only piece of you I have left. You are standing before me now, but you were not here yesterday or even this morning. She was all I had of you, but even with you here, I still have to find her. I cannot abandon her to a life without me.”[/color] She took a step closer to her love, her one love in life, meeting his look. [color=violet]“ So I will do this for us: like my father said, love is an action, not a feeling. Now it is my turn to show my love for you by doing for us and our family. I will marry Einar and I will find our daughter, I will make her safe and I will do it for all of us.”[/color] Astrid reached out and squeezed the poet’s hand in hers. [color=violet]“ Einar will never have my heart. Never. I have told him as much already. It is yours, it has been yours since the day I first saw you, the day we met in my father’s court. Only strengthened when you found me stowed away on your mother’s ship and you laughed at me, the skinny little Jarling child with the big green eyes wanting to see the world and have adventures with you. And confirmed to me every single day since then in so many ways I cannot even count them.” [/color] The smile she gave him was genuine, but it fell quickly, as fast as her hand from his. [color=violet]“ Yet no matter how much I love you Eben Marenson, no matter that it is only you that holds my heart, that in that heart you will always be my husband, I must do this. I [i]must[/i] marry Einar Volundson.”[/color] Eben refused to let her step away, reaching back out for Astrid as she tried to turn from him, tried to put a final point on this conversation. The poet would not let the story end. [color=teal]” You must [i]not[/i] go to Grandael,”[/color] he declared, clasping Astrid around the waist and keeping her on the sand. [color=teal]” Your … [i]Our[/i] daughter does not need armies, or, or power, or Einar! She needs [i]us[/i], Astrid. Waging this … this [i]war[/i] upon these cultists is not going to bring her back. Nor is walking into the wolf’s den.”[/color] Eben shook his head, unsure on how to convince her, how to show her that this plan was beyond hope. He was conflicted on all accounts: He wanted too to find the daughter he did not know, but knew that Astrid had been the one carrying this fight for three years and knew their enemy far better. He wanted to keep Astrid with himself, to be the husband he vowed to be, but also knew that to do so [i]now[/i] may very well cause war between Grandael and Viuland. Everywhere he turned, there was another dam stopping the river from flowing smoothly. [color=teal]” You don’t understand this man. He will not just use you: he will [i]destroy[/i] you and Viuland for his own desires. You will get [i]no[/i] army, no assistance. He would care naught for the daughter of a bastard, nor your hope to find her.”[/color] His hands slid up, holding her face and begging her with his eyes. [color=teal]” Astrid. My Love. I know why you do this, but you do not know what you do. And now you place me where I long to save you from this and have no power to do so. But I beg of you, I [i]need[/i] of you: return to Viuland. Have your father call this wedding off. Your family’s reputation should protect you enough. I will return home, and we will set off [i]together[/i] to find Karsii.”[/color] Eben stepped closer, pressing himself gently to her as they once had enjoyed. He leaned in softly, as if to kiss her, stopping himself short briefly. He bit on his lower lip and shook slightly, barely able to contain himself for her sake. [color=teal]” Do not make this infernal bargain to save our Daughter. There [i]must[/i] be another way.”[/color] She lingered there as he held her, pressed against the warmth of her poet with the roar of the ocean next to them like it always had been at home, the dream of them swirling in the air for an extended moment; a moment she cherished and held dear to her heart. That same heart pounded in her chest like a drum; she had desired this with all her being for the past three years and now it was in front of her for the taking. But she could not just throw away all the plots and plans, everything that had been in motion since the very night her love had been tricked into leaving her. Her daughter, [i]their[/i] daughter was her focus and she could not let herself be swayed by the longing of her body, the reason of her mind or the deepest desire of her heart. Yet that look in his eyes, the look she had seen so many times… his own yearning for her… it was so very hard to deny what they both wanted. In just an instant they both gave in to their craving, pressing soft full lips to each other urgently. The poet kept one arm around his muse’s back, coaxing her body to his tightly, burying the other hand into her long hair as he used to when their passion overtook them. She let her hands explore the boy who had developed into a man in her absence; feeling his strong arms, broad chest and shoulders and ended cradling the now grown in lush beard on his face. Like this they stayed for an eternity, it seemed as such after their three long solitary years apart, the two of them joined together on the beach in love and desire. Until Astrid abruptly pushed away from the poet, her expression pained, tears filling her soft green eyes as she faced him down. [color=violet] “I [i]cannot[/i] do this. The bargain - it is already done My Love. And I will see it through, for all of us.” [/color] Astrid lifted her furs then and ran off the beach, ran away from her love, ran from the man who filled her heart and made her the woman she was today, she ran from him as fast as her feet would carry her, leaving her past standing there helpless and alone on that perfect idyllic beach. [/QUOTE]
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Crowns of Ice - A Tale of Blood and Betrayal - Chapter I - The Isle of Heildam
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