The Assassin's Tale; Vulnerable

Credits; Krell, Rea,

Petra's estimate was perfect.  It was almost exactly five hours before Rea finally woke up.  Krell was starting to doze off when he heard her moan softly when she tried to sit up.  Petra had really done a piece of work on her, even immortal and all she still hadn't fully recovered.  Her bones had probably finished mending, but the bruising would probably take quite a while to heal.  He'd seen her grow back most of her torso not more than a day ago, but apparently recovering from a mortal wound was easier than fixing thousands of split capilaries and torn nerves.  It made sense in a way, replacing a heavily damaged ship was usually easier than repairing it; the body, it seemed, worked on the same principles. 
"Oh."  She muttered when she saw him stirring.  "Did you stay with me all night?"
"No, I tried to get Petra to explain all this."
Rea stared at the ceiling and muttered.  "Oh, what did she tell you?"
"Nothing at all.  Lots of talk about how we needed to sit down and talk."  He paused and he could tell that she'd relaxed a bit.  Then something occured to him.  "She kept calling you TS.  Why does she call you that?"
Rea was quiet for a while.  She tried to move around a bit before she gave up and went back to just laying there.    Finally she turned her head towards him.  She stuck her right hand out from under the sheets and held it out towards him. 
"Could you help me get this thing off?  I think it's swelling and it really hurts."
Krell carefully undid the laces on her gauntlet.  He moved himself a bit to the side, even though he'd never actually seen her stab anyone with it he knew that it was her primary weapon.  It was spring loaded as best as he could tell, so caution was mandatory.  He managed to undo the laces and gingerly pulled it off.  It sprung open the second he set it down, leaving massive gouges in the carpeting and floorboards.  Krell double checked his arms for any cuts it might have caused, mercifully he was unscathed. 
"You all right?"  Rea instinctively tried to get out of bed when she heard the blades deploy. 
"I'm fine, floor's a bit damaged though."
"Oh,"  She settled back down into the pillow.  "Sorry about that, thought I locked it in."
"It's ok."
Rea sighed.  She kept her hand sticking off the side of the bed, whether to air it out or just because she didn't want to move it again he couldn't be certain. 

"Krell, can you promise me you won't flip out, or yell, or anything?"
Nothing good ever came of someone asking for that sort of thing.  But if it meant getting the truth from her at last he had no choice. 
"Rea, I'm not going to just run off and leave you.  I owe you a broken curse; no matter what it takes."
"Tressa.  Rea's just the name I use now.  But my mother named me Tressa.  It's the name my father called me by, and the name my family knew me by."
"Tressa,"  Repeated Krell.  He thought about everything he knew about her history and then realized that he knew who she was.  "In that one account of the Great Ga-Vok war; you weren't a consultant, you were a witness.  You included yourself and your father, that's why it was different."
"Don't you remember who wrote the book?"
"Katherine Immersfeld, she's a noted historian, scientist, and magimatician.  Never gives interview's though."
"And that name doesn't ring any bells?"
Krell thought about it.  He had heard the name before.  Liss had refferred to Thalia as Mrs. Immersfeld.  But she'd been dead for half an age by the time the book was published.  Cyssie used her real name with pride, and she only had one surviving female relative.  Which could only mean one thing. 
"Arcania?"
Rea tried to nod, but stopped and winced before she could finish moving her chin back down. 
"Something's wrong with the book.  About six hundred years ago I turned the page and saw an entry with a birth date that was nearly  century into the future.  In all my years this had never happened to me before, so I went to the only person I thought I could trust.  Petra had spent thousands of years learning from her mother, and not just combat.  I thought, if anyone could tell me what was wrong with it, she could.  When I showed her she told me something her mother had told her.  It was sort of a prophecy, sort of a counter-curse.  She told me that her mother had told her that I would never grow up until I met...someone.  Not just any someone of course, someone I cared about more than this job."
"So?"
"So I infiltrated the court and waited for the Emperor to have his daughter.  Petra's prophecies had never been true in the past.  I remember when she insisted that she would one day destroy every shade in a single battle.  Nine thousand years later it still hasn't happened.  I wasn't about to waste my time looking for some fiery haired priest with my brother's workmanship at his command.  It would have been impractical.  You promise you won't freak out?"
"Just keep going and I'll do my best." 
"Ok...  Well, I saw you when they announced Holine's birth.  You and your wife were there with Kvald and Chasia.  I...I sort of started following you after that.  Fighting alongside you and your men, proofreading your reports, you know..normalish stuff." 
Krell could see why she was so worried.  Proofreading someone's papers wasn't exactly normal.  And he realized with a bit of shame that he did have somewhat of a track record of flipping out over things.  Still, what she was talking about was only a little short of outright stalking.  It was fundamentally the same thing; keeping a close eye on someone and watching over them without their knowledge. 
"How closely were you watching exactly?  You weren't collecting pictures of me for a closet somewhere or peaking through my windows or anything were you?"
"I may have had one or two photos but God as my witness I never peeked through any windows.  And they were on a bulletin board, in a hall; nothing creepy, I promise."  Rea was starting to panic a little.  She seemed so vulnerable, even when she'd cried before she'd been vulnerable more from shock and fear than from any actual openness as she was now.  Krell reached out and took her hand gently.  Even though her bulky bracer had kept it stable he could tell it was still as sore as the rest of her body was.  Something about seeing her vulnerable made him feel more equal to her than he had felt since she'd first begun introducing him to the universe's leading ladies.  It was a nice change of pace, and were it not for the anguish it was clearly causing her he might have actually taken some pleasure in seeing her in this lower station.
"Rea, I got used to you being kind of creepy.  I'm not saying it's not a little creepy that you were following me around for what I get the impression was pretty much my whole life, because frankly it is.  But you've given me no reason to believe you meant anything harmful by it.  You just...didn't really know the right way to deal with it."
"You mean talk to you up front and make it clear how I felt and why?"
"Ok, so you did know.  Now it bothers me a little."
"Sorry, but I knew you wouldn't have helped at that point.  You were married, you had an important job, you had no reason to go galavanting around with a fourteen year old girl.    Besides the fact that it would have made you look like a complete pervert, you loved where you were and who you were with.  I couldn't bring myself to take that away from you, and you wouldn't have come." 
"You're right about that.  But I think the real question is; what is it you're expecting from me now that you've got my exclusive attention?"
Rea paused.  He was pretty sure she wasn't trying to figure out what she was expecting.  She'd probably known that since the day she decided to start following him around.  The mere fact that she'd brought Lewiza up meant that it wasn't exactly charitable.  And it meant that Lewiza would have definitely opposed it. 
"Well, at the bare minimum it means travelling with me.  Potentially it could be a lifetime commitment.  It really depends on how long it takes." 
"How long what takes exactly?" 
"I don't know exactly.  I think it means I have to choose you over completing an assignment on time.  It could mean hanging up my blades and being your adoring wife though if you'd.."  She started blushing and looked away.  Krell was a bit horrified at the idea of her being his wife though.  For one thing, just travelling with her made him look like a creep; being married would have made him an actual creep.  And besides that obvious problem, she was usually nice enough, but she never seemed quite stable.  Sure she was subdued and calm now, but only a scant half a day ago she'd been trying to murder someone for no apparent reason.  And while he didn't entirely blame her now that he'd actually talked to Petra, he'd had more provocation than she had.  But added to her general tendency towards jealousy and violence, a realtionship seemed unwise.  He didn't want to tell her that outright, besides the chance of her flying into a rage, he could see how serious she was about it.  Rea didn't normally embarass easily.  He'd suspected she felt this way since Medea, why else would her assailant have picked his form?  He could see liking her that way if she was older, emotionally as well as physically, but certainly not now. 
"Lets just stick with travelling together for now.  Ok?"
"Yeah..I guess."
"I'd be lying to say it wasn't personal, or to say that your age isn't a factor.  But I promise I won't go and hook up with some of the younger immortal jailbait." 
Rea giggled.  "Ok, and I'll try my best not to get into too much trouble."