Bleeding

A servant girl shuffles into the room -- the one that had announced Thayndor's presence yesterday. "Milady," she says meekly. "That man who came yesterday. Who you had soup with. He's coming again." She puts knuckles to her mouth. "This time he looks serious."

Waterly House - Dining Room 


 * Dominated by an oversized marble table draped in burgundy-red silk, the house's manorial dining room forsakes material baubles for the splendor of its environs. Rather than paintings or statues, the walls are composed of floor-to-ceiling panoramic windows that reveal swaths of the verdant countryside and the sparkling canal beyond: the natural splendor of the plantation being the finest artistic compliment to a notable's supper.
 * What stone walls do exist are paneled in dark-hued biinwood and flanked by slender gold candelabras. Gold candlesticks also file down the center of the dais, and a tiered crystal chandelier dangles from above. The flooring is of stone, carved intaglio and covered with thick, richly-woven rugs.
 * Doors lead off to the kitchen and garden, respectively, as well as into the atrium.

Sahna looks up from her position at the table-- Unlike the light mood of yesterday, she looks exhausted. A teaset, almost untouched, and dinner, completely untouched, are set out before her. She looks up at her servant with a dull look of disinterest, then stares down at the now-cold stew. "Send him in." She comments, voice low and raw.

He enters before the servant can reach the door.

No grandiose gestures or self-mocking poses, this time. Just the silent rustle of cloak following measured bootsteps that swallow the distance between the tall noble and Sahna at her table, arms motionless at his sides.

All of him stops moving two feet from the table except his jaw and his shoulders. His jaw works back and forth quietly as he levels a steady gaze at Sahna, the warmth and laughter behind his green eyes gone and replaced with ice, eyebrows that rose in amusement settled into a furrowed look somewhere between righteous anger and hurt. The shoulders, tense, rise and fall evenly. Each measured breath flares his nostrils as it leaves.

She starts to look up, winces, and looks back down at her stew steadily. "Even worse than I thought. That's why I was too much of a coward to face you. Celeste tells me writing a letter was cowardly. I'm inclined to agree. I recieved your reply... I agree with everything in there, of course, except for the lying part. Until this morning I didn't know I was going to pull this. Not that you're going to believe me, though. It doesn't matter."

"I usually enjoy being correct."

Sahna has never heard the Lord of Darkwater's voice this way before: consonants drawn out, tone dark like the shadows his looming brow casts over his eyes.

"It was cowardly. It was intensely hurtful. And as word spreads, it will also become a public embarrassment and a humiliation." The raven swallows. "I once said that should you ever decide to destroy me, I was so completely enthralled by you I could do nothing to stop you. I made that admission believing you would never actually get around to doing it."

"I know." She answers, softly. "I never wanted to hurt you, Thayndor. Of course, you don't have to believe that. You don't have to believe anything." She picks up her spoon and stirs at the tepid stew, without any interest in eating it. "I've been called every name imaginable today, and I'm tired. If you have names to call me, get it over with. I won't argue any of them. "

Thayndor Zahir snorts. "You made it abundantly clear to me some time ago that you do only exactly as you please. If you didn't want to hurt me -- indeed if you cared for me at all -- you would have stayed by my side. Quite obviously that is not the case. Either you care more for revenge against your mother or you care more for the spineless philanderer who traded nights between the sheets with his wife's sister and then with his so-called friend's fiancee for his honor and integrity. I'm sure you believe what you say; that doesn't change that they are lies."

"I won't pretend I don't want to hurt you as badly as you hurt me. But it is not the province of a real man to hurt, physically hurt, a woman. Much less a lover past or present. And names clearly will not do the job. No." He lifts his chin and the shadows under his eyes recede. "I came here for my due. I came here for the truth, the explanation from your lips, you sought to deny me in that worthless letter."

Sahna squeezes her eyes shut. "I told you the truth before. You already know th--"

Thayndor Zahir takes two swift steps forward. Anger courses from Thayndor's eyes to the obsidian studs on the knuckles of his left hand as he swings them down forcefully against Sahna's oak table.

CRACK.

Reverberating through the hall shortly after the blow, his voice is at once a demand and a statement of anger.

"Curse you, LOOK ME IN THE EYES!" He roars, shoulders heaving. His fist rises again and slams against the table a second time. Now his voice is a hiss as he leans over the table at Sahna. "Look me in the -eyes- and tell me you care more for betrayals and revenge than to have me by your side."

She flinches-- Can't help but flinch, but pulls back, trying to look away again, recoiling from the contact. "Just.. Leave me alone. It's been too much, today. I can be nonchalant and strong tomorrow, but not tonight. Just leave me.. Alone." She murmurs, voice dull, lifeless. "I can't do this tonight."

"Oh no," Thayndor replies, shaking his head. "I care not for nonchalant and strong. The pretense is gone, now." His bootsteps grow closer as he walks around the edge of the table, resting that hand palm flat against the surface and leaning close to Sahna's face. "Show me once and for all what you really are, Sahna Nillu. Tell me what you really are and what it is that truly drives you, what it is you truly care for." He leans on that hand, knuckles turning white. Blood trickles out from under those obsidian studs -- evidence that the force of his blow was as damaging to him as it was to her table.

His breath is hot on her cheek he's so close. "Look into my eyes and give me the truth about what it is and what it was between you and eye. Right now."

Her expression flickers, anguish fighting against composure. Reaching out for her tea, trying to take some comfort in the simple gesture, Sahna lifts the delicate cup of cold liquid, hand shaking enough to nearly spill it. "What I am? Nothing good. You've seen it already, so why ask?" She responds, voice low and raw. "At one point I cared for money, political power, social acceptability, honoring my word. I've thrown all of that away as of this morning. Have you come to spit on my grave? I just don't.. Care anymore. I can't care, because that hurts. But at least it's a decision, not shaking myself to peices trying to figure out to do. That part, at least, is a relief." She chuckles-- Half hysterically.

As Sahna lifts the teacup, Thayndor reaches out with his right hand to swat it away. "Look at the one you threw away!" He demands again, looming over her. "Why? What was it about that choice that was so hard? Was it ever me you cared about or did I represent for you these abstract ideas?"

The teacup goes flying a few feet across the room, shattering rather spectacularly against a cabinet, and leaving Sahna to stare after it with a dully perplexed look. Her gloved fingerips contractand flex, then she lowers the hand and looks down. "What, was it supposed to be easy? He came by this morning and asked me one last time.. " Sahna begins, voice soft, halting. "And after mother decided to ban him from Nillu lands, and decided to go around calling me a whore, I suppose it was just time to pay the piper. It all would've come out sooner or later, so..." She trails off, as if her mind wanders, and stares after the teacup still, as if still trying to comprehend it all. "Anyways, he may end up with Celeste after all. Poor girl is positively barmy about him, and good luck to them. I don't care anymore. It doesn't matter."

"Asked you what." Thayndor's voice is cool. The blood from his left hand, now hovering over the tabletop, drips hotly and soaks into the oak.

"To marry him, again. He'd spoken to mother and made the divorce with Kat pretty much final. I told him not to leave her, but he did anyways. Said it was something he just had to do." Sahna responds, gaze wandering to the blood and locking on the drips, watching them with a fixed quality. "...You're bleeding." Captain obvious!

"I've bled before. I'll bleed again." Thayndor takes a deep breath, letting it out slow before the bloody hand reaches for Sahna's cheek. "You chose me over Ganeos easily enough." Gentle, crimson-stained fingers move to cup Sahna's jaw, Thayndor's eyes locked on hers. "It should come as no surprise to me that you decided to betray me so completely and so easily. Dear, heartless Sahna."

"Sure. It was hard." She responds, voice soft, distant now. "But he'd wandered off anyways. Everyone does that, sooner or later. " Her gaze finally connects with Thayndor's.. And just stares right on through, almost blankly. "Yes, I suppose so."

"I never would have," Thayndor replies, his eyes coming closer to hers as he leans towards her almost as if if that would make her focus. "You would have found me by your side, bleeding for you if necessary. I would have died for you, Sahna. To protect that heart I thought you had." His hand caresses her cheek and pulls away, leaving a blood-stained smear in the shape of his fingers and leather-armored palm. Next he reaches for her right hand with both of his, bleeding on that, too, perhaps copiously enough to cause alarm.

Recognition finally seems to spark, the slow push for her brain to start working again, and Sahna looks at Thayndor with something less dazed, more troubled, in her eyes. Focus brings her contralto into something less vague, as well. "Yes. I think you would have, too. That's.. Something I didn't expect." Sahna answers, quietly. "I didn't expect to feel anything beyond friendship for you, either, considering what I was doing at the time was running away from the sting of one more rejection. But now, I'm the one doing the rejecting. Isn't that horribly ironic? Supremely, even? You never were suggesting an arranged marriage. You were ready to step up for me when nobody else would bother, and here we stand.. In thrall to dissapointment and bitterness." The focus begins to wane, and she offers a half-smile with an element of hysteria creeping into it. "I.. think I need to have a glass of wine. Or a bottle. Excuse me.."

Thayndor Zahir seems less willing to let her go, at least for the moment. His right hand reaches for her back and he moves to kiss her, forcefully, passionately. Like the last kiss of a man about to die.

Sahna's frame begins to shake, a quavering, trembling movement that begins in her shoulders and spreads to her limbs, as hot tears slide noiselessly down her face-- Rapid, unheralded by anything more than a slight choking noise, strangling any words or other sounds at birth.

Relentless, the Zahir's mouth presses against Sahna's until salty tears drip onto his palate. He pulls away, reaching out with his tongue to capture a single bead of moisture from Sahna's bottom lip. And smiles a serpent's smile, a viper watching helpless prey.

"There ..." The word is long, slow, sinister in its joy, as if he had scratched a long-troubling itch. He watches Sahna cry, hands on her shoulders, soiling her elegant garb now with darkly-drying blood. "There is that hurt. That /pain/. Exquisite, isn't it? Mind-shattering, is it not, in sharpness and intensity?" No passion in his voice; no, all of that went into that last long kiss. "Remember this feeling well, Sahna. The darkness of soul so complete you wish you could die but know you cannot."

Thayndor's hands tighten and push, nudging Sahna away roughly but not forcefully. "Remember how it feels to have my blood on your hands, smeared on your body, evidence and explication of the extent of your treachery. Never forget it, Sahna."

The Lord of Darkwater steps away, cold eyes taking in her image with one final sweep. "I came here because I felt intensely what it means to experience betrayal. And you, Sahna -- we have found your heart. We have found your heart and forced it to feel what it means to betray someone you love."

She simply cumples in her chair, forehead on the table, placing both arms over her head. "Go away." The words are simple.. Ragged.. Broken. "Just.. Go away."

"My business here is done," Thayndor replies, lifting his chin even as his shoulders heave and blood turns to a crimson crust on his hand. "Now I have hurt you as badly as you have hurt me. And you know what, Sahna?"

He lifts up his eyes to the ceiling and laughs, but when he turns his gaze back to the woman slumped in her soiled garments on her stained table, his voice is empty. "It ..." He swallows. "It gives me no pleasure at all." He hangs his head, silent for a long moment. There is no sound in the hall, then --

thud, a thick drop of blood on a thick luxurious rug --

And now bootsteps. Thayndor, as ordered, turns to leave the hall.

"Goodbye, Sahna."

She doesn't speak, or move-- The haggard figgure still hunches there, over her table, over her finery, all of the trappings she's built up for herself. That small figure, crumpled there.. And slowly, ever so slowly, her gloved hands ball into tight fists, so tight that her wrists quake-- The shudders travel up her body, leaving her frame to shake like a leaf, as slowly she raises her head, and stares at the elegant china place settings. Reaching out with a quivering hand, she picks up, ever so gently, the saucer from the teacup.. And flings it at the same cabinet, tear-blurred eyes watching it shatter with a mingled look of rage and sorrow.

Return to Season 5 (2007)