The Would-Be Messenger [D3 - LN]

[Kaelyn Dunn]

She woke in a sweat, tangled in her blankets. She fought with them violently as though they were holding her down, letting out sounds of earnest obstruction. She got free, grabbed a knit shawl as she sprinted out of her tent, surely scandalizing anyone fool enough to be awake at this unrighteous hour.

Her stockings soaked in the night dew, surely ruining them running across the ground as she was. After what seemed like miles she reached her Lord's tent and threw open the flaps without thought for propriety. Somehow she registered a voice calling for her to stop, but that just wasn't going to work - Kaelyn didn't even hear them.

She went to Kevan and shook him awake. "My Lord! Wake UP! Lord Kevan!"

----
So I don't have to go into massive detail:
Kaelyn's Night Attire

[Kevan Dunn]

Out of his own nightmare, dripping with sweat, in the very dim light of predawn Kevan had jumped out of his bed right before she would try to forcefully awaken him. He had been sleeping bare-chested, something that would be evident as he gripped her in a firm tackle and pinned down, the muscle memory acting before a half-acting brain. Feeling the softness of the assailant under he immediately relaxed the hold. "Kaelyn...? What the...?"

[Kaelyn Dunn]

Kaelyn's eyes were wide, breath heavier than she could recall it being. "Did you pull a dagger on me?"

[Kevan Dunn]

"Dagger? That's not...! Oh. Right. So." He slipped off her, released her and stepped back, watching her half-lying on his own bed, a bit dishevelled. His body could not agree what to make of this situation, like at all. "So. Had a bad dream. Acted before thinking. You don't look like an assassin."

More like my wet dream I'd rather have instead of dreaming about father being murdered.

[Kaelyn Dunn]

Kaelyn shifted a bit as she sat up. "Oh no, that was my dagger." She always had one strapped with a leather binding to her outer thigh, ever since that kidnap attempt in her childhood. It usually wasn't pressed against her like this, though. She adjusted it without thinking, suddenly realizing she could see her legs. Her legs were visible. And she wasn't alone.

"Oh Gods!" She reached for his sheets to cover herself, before she realized they were his. sheets. "Oh GODS!" She grabbed the shawl from around her shoulders and covered her legs as best as the loosely knitted shawl would allow. She looked at him standing over her shirtless from her vantage point on the bed. "OH GODS!" She flung herself into the chair she was in only hours before and curled up, trying to be as covered as possible while averting her eyes.

"Please forgive me this intrusion, my Lord!"

[Kevan Dunn]

So that had been her dagger what she felt on her thigh. That was probably for the better. He watched her scrambling for the cover in a slightly dumbfounded mesmerisation, but he also couldn't bear the hectic emotions that struggling was causing, so grabbed a beaker with water and poured it over his head for more reasons than one, dripping even more right after.

"There is... nothing to forgive?" He was not entirely certain. Her repeated, loud calls to the Gods coming from his tent were sending an equivocal message. Or rather unequivocally wrong.

[Kaelyn Dunn]

She became lost a moment. If she wasn't blushing more than she'd ever done in her life, this took it to a new level. Her Lord, he very attractive Lord was standing shirtless as a very lucky bead of water ran down his chest. She unconsciously licked her lips and tried to keep her eyes averted. Perhaps there was even more to his advice not to give up on love after all.

While the potential meaning of her cries to the Seven Deities was lost on her, Kaelyn knew these were not thoughts she'd had before. She must regain composure in the face of this new challenge.

Recalling the reason behind her assuredly aggressive intrusion brought those feelings to heel. How was she ever going to explain this? She barreled over in a state of frenzied need to do something vital for her House. She hadn't thought how to explain how she knew what she knew.

In a serious, yet breathy, voice she asked, "My Lord Kevan, do you find me trustworthy?"

[Kevan Dunn]

He'd be a fool not to sense the tension or not to notice the little things. To his detriment, Kevan was a man whose imagination often outpaced his sense of what's right, proper, just and timely. His gaze slid from her to the fur at her feet by the mostly doused fireplace, with just a few charring embers emitting scant illumination, while his mind projected what could be staged all across this fur if they could be abstracted from mostly everything beyond his pavilion.

The question was odd and brought him back a measure of clarity, and he didn't know what could be the follow-up. Was this girl playing games with him? "I have no reason to distrust you." Except potentially several, but Kevan was a man who believed in people and made leaps of faith often. He looked at her again, scrutinising, only to re-discover that scrutiny of a barely clothed young woman was a double-edged sword in the armoury of masculine sensibilities.

"I guess it's something that has brought you to me at this hour." He half-expected something like 'I want to know what love is.' And dreaded it. Mostly. More or less. Was curious. His hand declared disobedience when he sent the request of retrieving his shirt down the system.

[Kaelyn Dunn]

Kaelyn tried to get comfortable in the chair but she wasn't even comfortable in her own skin. 'Heh. How fitting.' She stood up with the shawl wrapped around her, lending what little cover to her legs it did, and paced. This was too important, and it was too easy to make an irreversible error.

She crossed to him and took his hand, looking him directly in the eyes. "I'm trusting you, Kevan. Really trusting you. I haven't ever had to do this before. But I feel like it's time. It has to be time, and it must be you."

[Kevan Dunn]

Damn.

His second hand rested on her shoulder to have some - any - control of the distance. His chest undulated with deep breaths, some droplets still tricking down his kin. He focused on her eyes, what could be read from them.

"Are you sure, Kaelyn?"

[Kaelyn Dunn]

Kaelyn nodded seriously. This would forever be a defining moment in her life. She swallowed, before taking a deep breath.

"I have visions."

[Kevan Dunn]

That was completely, totally NOT what he had expected, so he needed a moment to shift mental gears, with a screech that reverberated in his mind.

"What... visions." He uttered, uncertain.

[Kaelyn Dunn]

Kaelyn let go of his hand and began to pace the room once more, completely unmindful about her legs being exposed. She was too focused on what mattered.

"At first, I thought they were just dreams. Incredibly vivid, realistic dreams. I mean, that's logical, and real. Everyone has dreams."

"But then the night that Septa Ydris passed, I knew before ever getting out of bed. No one could understand why I woke up crying. I had to tell them she was dead. And then that night that horrid stable boy tried to set our granary on fire? You were there - you know I was the one to start screaming. I'd seen it, and I raced into the yard, and I saw it for real. The fire was really there."

[Kevan Dunn]

He listened intently and tried to believe her, tracing her path through his pavilion, not really staring any more. He pulled the strap on his neck around, placing the pouch on its end over his heart, then finally reached out for the shirt.

"You mean you see what will happen? Or just have some tingling?"

Must be some Dornish witchcraft she inherited from her mother.

[Kaelyn Dunn]

She took a breath of ease. He wasn't calling her crazy and ordering her out of the tent. He was trying and that's all she could hope to ask of him.

"It's more like I see things as they happen. After the fire, I scoured the libraries at The Burrow. I managed to come across a text that makes reference to people who... It's like living inside of an animal for a short while. Seeing through their eyes." Her face relaxed. "As you can probably guess, for me, I see through Dahlia. It's called 'Warging'."

She looked away. "I understand this is a lot, especially all at once. It took me years to come to terms with it, and I'm the one it happens to."

[Kevan Dunn]

He channeled uncertainty about all this into pulling the shirt on and starting buttoning it.

"It is and it is not. I can't hope to understand the magical side of this or where your strange power comes from. But since you do things like that, I can ponder what a talent like that could accomplish. Hmmm, how far your gyrfalcon can fly?"

[Kaelyn Dunn]

"They can fly over 100 miles an hour at top speed. Of course, one does not usually fly so fast but they have quite a range."

Kaelyn knew this next part would be perhaps the most unnerving for her Lord, but would be the most convincing piece of evidence for him.

"For instance, the night before last, she did not go far at all. I fell asleep rather quickly after that first day; completely at rest before night even fell. That night I joined Dahlia. She was curious about all the noise coming from the tavern. She sat up there listening to the conversations of the men below. You sang a song about tasting the Dornishman's wife, you mentioned that being second born has its advantages, it was worse being a squire than a virgin, and proclaimed you would marry Marqus Forrester's sister if he'd marry yours so that you could be brothers... Do you want me to continue?"

She no longer cared if her hair was down around her shoulders, her legs visible, and she was being watched. She had to get out of these wet stockings and slowly undid their ribbons and rolled them down and off of her.

"And why would someone taste someone else?"

[Kevan Dunn]

"Of all places, this is where your curiosity led you then?" He had listened intently and while it was not a perfect proof, it lended some credibility to her warging claims. But also gave him a glimpse o what kind of thinking may have led to her storming his tent at night, and making the confession. He stopped buttoning the shirt and approached her in small steps, kicking the dirty stockings out of his way. "And tonight, to me."

He knelt at her feet and took one of the undressed legs in his hands, warming it with his touch, ever so slowly so she wouldn't jump. "And now you ask me if you should continue. My curiosity has already been piqued, Kaelyn. And I think your has been as well, since you ask what it means to taste a woman after telling me you really trust me. So, do you want me to continue, to give you the answer?" His hands massaged the chill off her calf as he was looking up at her with a wandering smile and flickers in his eyes.

[Kaelyn Dunn]

Kaelyn let out the tiniest of sound of contented hope and closed her eyes as his hands worked their way up her past her knee, setting her slowly on fire. It was a sound she’d never heard herself make and everything about this surprised her.

She could feel the blush of her cheeks sidle down her neck into her chest, her blood scorching beneath her skin. Kaelyn’s eyes met her Lord’s with a blaze in them she could actually feel had never been there before. Intense and bright with wonder.

“I rushed to you this night never expecting to have this,” she took one of his hands in both of hers. “To want this. I want to serve you the way a Lady should not desire to.” She closed her eyes once more, enraptured in the simple heat of his touch. ‘Just a little more for myself.’ A flash of what could be came to her mind, without permission or regret. It was all at once and the sweetness of it drowned her.

Kaelyn's Sexy Thoughts (PG13 - Parental Guidance Suggested)

She moved her hand from his to rest it tenderly against his cheek. To hold his beautiful face as hers. “But the best way I can serve you is to remain pure for whatever match is chosen for me. And you love another and the kindness you possess… You may not forgive yourself. And I may not forgive myself for not showing her the respect she deserves.”

“Nevertheless, for my own selfish sake, I would give you my chastity if I did not think you might never forgive me for keeping what I know to myself as we shared this night.”

[Kevan Dunn]

As his hands wandered across the tantalising smoothness of her legs, Kevan tried to listen intently to her, but the extra-verbal messages her body was sending reverberated stronger in him than her words. His desire quickly picked up to the point when his body aligned its workings toward the singular goal her daydreaming encapsulated quite aptly in direction, if not in intensity or detail. His eyes, once she held them onto herself, only craved for more and dared her. And yet, that was not all that was happening in him.

The pouch.

Essences were struggling. As a young man, Kevan had ever been quick to become angry or jubilant, to laugh or to fight, and not to think twice whenever he had a chance to lay with a pretty girl. How it could be different now when the beauty in his grasp was building the flimsiest stockade of reluctance around a burning desire to be claimed by him?

It was. And yet...

"Neither have I expected this, and yet here we are, craving for each other. Do you know what could happen if I gave in to how much I want you right now, Kaelyn? I would..." He leaned forth, pressing her legs slightly apart to make space for him to get his face closer to hers, to get the message across, as he assumed the haze of passion was as acute for her as was for him. Unwittingly, he whispered to her the details of how he would use his mouth to make her body catch up to her bold declaration, giving her the answer to the question the tavern song had raised in her mind, in vivid description rather than demonstration. Kneeling between her legs, facing her daringly, trapping her eyes in his gaze he uttered all that his imagination was telling him about how their nocturnal rendezvous could unfold. He bared his thoughts before her, honestly admitting to what his body strained for, letting her know it all in no uncertain terms. His breath was heavy, hard to rein in, and his body was shuddering and convulsing, demanding that he acted on his words.

He didn't. Not because his will was like steel, but because there were drives in him even stronger than his overarching desire of Kaelyn. The oath and the affection the pouch on his chest embodied felt like a smoldering ember pressed on his mind, and the awareness that he might actually be Lord of the Burrow already had his father met a similar fate on the road like Leo Tyrell in the lists was weighing on his every move. Seeing her beautiful face and eyes, he couldn't forget that he had watched how this beauty came into being from a small child much younger than him, a girl that was family before she became that smoothness under his hands, beaded with passion sweat, revolting against convention and inhibitions in order to meet his desire halfway. He couldn't ignore that for all the dissimilarities her Dornish blood introduced into his own stock a shard of Maera was looking back at him. And above all else, that she wasn't Arwyn.

But at the crucial moment when 'but' was about to start and his inaction finally getting explained, his throat had dried out and words stopped to yield to him in his sentence-making as the scent of her body invaded his nostrils. There was a moment of pause, of uncertainty if the tension would give, with no ambiguity about what their bodies wanted, very much against better judgement...

[Kaelyn Dunn]

Had she not been sitting, she doubted her legs would have been able to hold her. His words swirled around her and lifted her up.

“So that’s what that song’s about?” It came out in a voice she’d never heard herself use. Breathy and whispered, and almost able to hear her own smile. “I never knew. I never knew that I could feel.” His descriptions cemented images of possibilities she was sure would never leave her entirely, be it with him or a man yet to come. In this time, though, it was wholly him. Was it normal to feel this pull? Was it always this intense?

Duty, honor, and respect jousted against feelings she wanted to get to know better. A desire to give the man before her what he’d been brave enough to confess to her. She would give it all and more. “I want this, I do. More than I thought I could ever want anything. But I cannot have it. You would never forgive me for reasons you already know and one that I have yet to tell you. But I pray to the Seven you won’t hate me for taking this, to carry with me.”

She took his face in her hands and delicately pressed them to his cheeks before kissing him. While it was a release for the passion she’d barely kept bottled, to an outside eye it perhaps looked nearly chaste. It was her first kiss and she dared not let him teach her how to sink in and do so properly. So it had to be gentle; had to be, fittingly, just the smallest taste of one another.

She pulled back her forehead leaning against his, eyes closed now because if she looked she may not be able to say the words that would help ground her. Say much about Kaelyn, but never say she lacked for will power. She didn’t know it but it was part of the reason she was able to use the magic inside her.

“You belong to another in your heart and we can’t break hers. I’m a Lady and I serve you; I would be putting my value to you at risk. I’ve been taught my whole life that it’s wrong to want these things, and I truly haven’t until now. But I came to you tonight to tell you…”

She pulled her head away to look him properly in the eyes. She took one of his hands in hers, looking to comfort him and herself. “I came to tell you what I saw in my sleep. It's real and it frightens me.”

She came back to her senses a bit, recalling to mind the horrible images. Nothing quelled lust like fear and loathing. “My Lord, something has happened to the Lord Commander.”

[Kevan Dunn]

Her expressed thoughts ultimately corresponded with his; there was an ironic symmetry in their thinking about their situation, the suspension between desire as powerful as a storm and all the important things they wanted to shelter from getting destroyed or soiled. In yet another irony her gentle kiss awarded him a modicum of calm in ways her words somehow could not as they simply echoed the ones he was struggling with himself. The softness broke away from the escalatory sexual tension and moved his mindset to the realm of genuine feelings from the red landscapes of blinding lust. The kiss made him listen to her more than to himself. And so the revelation shook him.

"Tell me what you saw." He would still have a lot to tell her, but first things must come first. He had been worried about his father and now it sounded like his darker assumptions might be the right ones. He fell back on his heels, slipping out of the frame of her thighs, still holding her hand.

[Kaelyn Dunn]

Thank the Seven, he didn't think she was crazy or anger when she spoke her truth. She continued.

"The Lord Commander's wheelhouse, broken. It's on the side of a road." She looked down, before closing her eyes to better recapture the images. "It's been there for some time. It's been torn apart. I'm not sure if it was stripped by thieves or if bandits were what ran it off the road in the first place. The wheels were gone. Inside it's all been cleaned out. I wouldn't be so worried if it weren't for the fact that it's been days and we've heard nothing that I know of. There were no horses and surely someone would have made it back here or to The Burrow to send word of safety."

She moved her other hand to join the first, holding his for mutual comfort. "I didn't see blood." She was more direct than she meant to be. "It could have been there but I didn't see it."

She wanted to make him understand her. He was the first person beyond her brother that she'd told about these strange abilities. Tears threatened to fall but she valiantly held them back. She shouldn't be thinking of herself. "Only Tomas knows I can see these things. I can't control it, and I know it makes me broken; less desirable as a wife to have something so wrong as a part of me. But I had to tell you because he's important but more than that he's your Father. I wouldn't have lived with myself if there was something that could be done. I beg you not to hate me, and not to ruin my chances in life. I'm trusting you."

[Kevan Dunn]

"Hate you? I owe you for telling me this. If anything, I'd ask you to 'fly out' or however this happens again to learn more." He still stiffened, the revelation being a significant mood-killer to the carnal tension that had already been losing momentum. "This feeds into my worries, profoundly so. I'd like to believe his cart just broke and it delayed him, but with the tensions with the Stormlands this high it may also mean much worse." He took a deep, ragged breath, looking down to the fur that could have been the stage of epic love-making and now was becoming a site of brooding. The bear who gave his hide for this would be right to feel offended. "I sent a rider almost two days ago. If he finds the cart but not my father, we would know the worst might just have happened."

He looked up.

"If I am truly the Lord of the Burrow already, it is all the more reason for us to not give in to our desires. You're right that I wouldn't forgive myself for wronging you, my heart's chosen, your parents and our family. I could not expect to be respected or be loyal to if I put you in jeopardy, misery and remorse by taking advantage now. You deserve a better lord than a lustful oathbreaker, no matter how much passion for you I need to forsake. And Lady Arwyn deserves a better husband, one who does not pledge his heart one day and steers it elsewhere the other. It feels cruel that we can't have what we want, but maybe what is just and fair must be cruel sometimes."

He slowly rose and while standing he leaned over to gently kiss the top of her scalp.

"I don't think less of you because of your gift, nor will I ever. My only concern is to find a husband for you who wouldn't either so you could be happy with him without forsaking who you are. Though right now I find the idea that another man could have you abhorrent, this will be good for the family. I need to educate myself to think about things in those terms more."

Where passion had been, shame and silent self-loathing started to creep in. His free hand unwittingly gripped the pouch on his chest.

[Kaelyn Dunn]

She tried to stand with him but found her legs had melted. ‘Okay, so that’s not happening.’ She stayed seated, adjusting her clothing to be less provocative, closing her legs tight, and tried to cover the feelings still sending her butterflies.

“By ruining me, I meant that this secret could sully my chances of making an appropriate match. I doubt many men would care for an aberration for a wife. And, if the wrong person heard of this, they would want me dead. I’ve had a lot of time to think about such things. But you’re not the wrong person. And you truly owe me nothing. It’s not as though I saw what happened and I don’t know where he is or if he’s well. If I could, I would do as you ask and look for him, but I’ve never been able to control it and it only happens when I sleep.”

Kevan was a good man. She’d seen this or she wouldn’t have been able to trust him, quite literally, with her life. He was already probably starting to feel guilty for even having the thought to be with her. It certainly didn't help that she's paid herself no mind when running from her tent, save for a shawl.

As much as she wanted him for herself for just this night, she would never wish to disrespect this ‘Arwyn’ in such a fundamental way, before even meeting her no less. And for the sake of her own future mate, starting marriage off on a lie might have broken something inside her. Her heart was glad they’d both found the will to stop but her body did not agree despite the serious circumstances.

“I know nothing about how things are built but I do remember what things appeared broken. If we were to see a wheelhouse here, I could better show you what I saw. Just…” she looked down at herself, “probably not wearing this. Which I do apologize for. I was frenzied.”

She decided to try her legs once more and to her surprise found herself able to push out of the chair. This was hard to say and she nearly reached to put her hand against his chest before thinking better of it. “If you are now, in fact, Lord of The Burrow… Even now you are thinking of everyone but yourself. There’s a goodness in you that will serve you well. Please, don’t ever doubt that.”