Reluctantly Rogue Pt. 01 Ch. 013

(Note: This is a long, ongoing story. It is a story with sex. It's a sexy story. It is in many ways a story about sex. But, it is not strictly a sex story. Many chapters may even be SFW.

This chapter is, however, very SFW!)

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It's a Date

The young pair went straight to the glazier's and left a message with the eldest child about the broken window. Atyr didn't offer any additional information about the circumstances in which it had been broken. Oh, my faerie companion broke it so she could sneak in and annoy me.

For the second half of the morning, they wandered around Woodstead chatting idly. Kella pointed out various locations of interest, sharing stories of her childhood, and Atyr shared his own in return, whenever he had some memory of a place. Thoughts of the strange man in black and red swiftly faded from his mind.

They paused for a short time in the small clearing beside the stream that ran through the woods around the town, the same that Atyr had visited with Pesky days earlier. It had apparently been a favorite childhood spot of Kella's in which to sit and read. It happened that Atyr also knew it well; he had often run off to play in that same clearing, when his father would bring him into town.

Atyr laughed. "I'm surprised I never ran into you here."

Kella smiled back, her dark eyes meeting his. "You may have, almost. I really liked to be alone here when I was young. I would scamper off and hide whenever I heard anyone coming." She looked around her at the white trunks and pale green undergrowth, glowing in the sun. "I really haven't actually been here in a couple years." She paused, and caught his eye again. "I'm pretty sure I've never really been here with another person until now."

Atyr looked away, unsure what to say. Kella slipped her shoes off, and stepped into the ankle-deep water, tiptoeing out and sitting on a wide, flat rock in the middle of the stream.

She pointed through the trees, up the hill towards the town. "I actually grew up right up that way. My parents' home is just out of sight over the ridge. It's really kind of odd that I never come down here anymore."

Atyr slid his shoes off as well, and joined her in the cool water. He summoned his courage and sat carefully on the rock, leaving as much space between them as possible. She smiled at him.

They sat there for a while, not really talking, letting the sun-warmed water run over their bare feet.

Eventually, Atyr spoke. "Like Bird said, I did find myself with some spare coin, and honestly no real use for it out in the Brookwood. Did you, I mean, would you like to get a meal at Gant's?" He looked fixedly at his toes. "With me?"

Kella was quiet a moment, looking down as well. "We can... if you really like."

Atyr was quick to jump in. "Not to drag you, I mean. I'm sure you need to get back to the Birdhouse, and I've already taken your whole morning. I'm sure I'm not the first life you've saved, or... well or helped save I suppose, or... well, you know. Thank you again for that. That's all I wanted to say." He swallowed, and stood up, then sat back down.

Kella took off her grey headwrap, and long dark hair spilled over her shoulders, rumpled and messed, but glowing where the flyaway strands caught the midday sun. Atyr stood up again.

"No, I'd be happy to go, only..." She looked up at him, lips slightly parted, starting and abandoning several words. "I suppose I've really missed coming down here. I really loved it here as a child. Maybe we could just, stay here instead?"

Atyr nodded cautiously, suddenly completely unsure of what sort of situation he was in. His plan for the morning had been to demonstrate his earnest gratitude for the two women's care, give them the banner, hopefully pick at Bird's memories of her experience with the fae man, and then to say his farewells. Whatever Pesky might think, he was certain, certain, that Kella was just a young woman who had shown him kindness, and to whom he wished to express his thanks.

Somehow, he had instead been swiftly kicked out the door, with no information, and having made no donation, to find himself in a world frozen in time, talking to a strange man in black and red velvet, and now, with more coin in his pocket than he'd ever held before, he found himself on a... date... with Kella? Was this a date? He sat back down.

Kella was smiling at him more broadly now, a bit of a laugh hiding in her brown eyes. "I will really need to head back sometime soon though. Whatever Bird may say, I am needed at the House."

"Right. Right. Of course. Um, speaking of Bird, can I ask why she was so adamant in refusing any sort of donation? She kept saying anonymity was important."

"Oh. Ah, right. Yes. Well, the town takes up a collection every season to pay for, well, a whole bunch of things really. Maintaining common grounds, paying our officials, that sort of thing. The Healing House is funded from that, and we really get more than enough to make ends meet. The way it works is that anyone can just walk in, or I suppose be carried in like you were, and we'll heal them or help them the best we can. If we start letting people make 'donations,' people worry, other people that is, they worry that, even with someone as respected as Bird, it might be tempting to, you know, maybe pay a little more attention to people who might make bigger donations. When really, it should really be the people who need the most care who get the most care."

Atyr nodded. "I guess that makes sense." He bit his lip. "Can't the wealthier people in town just make bigger contributions each season, hoping to get better treatment if they fall ill?"

She shrugged. "I suppose some of them probably do contribute for that reason. I guess that's why the collection is kept anonymous, so we don't really know who donated what."

"Right, but, I mean, it's probably pretty obvious who might have contributed more, isn't it? Some big landowning family, or some poor laborer?"

"I suppose." She shrugged again. "I don't really know that much about all that end of things. But I do know that everyone expects us to get by only on what we get from the seasonal collection. Going against that would be... people would be really angry. That goes for everyone else who is given part of the collection. We're all expected to make do with just that, and accept no other coin for our work."

"Huh. I guess there's a lot that goes on in a town that you don't have to think about when you're just popping in to trade now and again."

A moment passed, sunlight flickering on the burbling water, the breeze hushing quietly through the leaves around them.

Atyr traced his fingertips around his palms, staring intently at them. "It um, it sounded like you payed a bit more attention to my care than Bird thought you should have. When I was ill."

Kella's gaze snapped down to her own hands, cheeks suddenly flushing pink. "I... you... Bird had you in the Ending Room, and I'm sure she really was right to put you there, but I just, I thought..." She trailed away.

"The Ending Room?"

Her eyes flicked up, then back down to her hands. "We have three rooms at the Birdhouse. Well, four, really. There's the first room, the one--" She glanced up again with a wry smile. "That's the one Bird chased us out of earlier. Sorry again, she just does stuff like that to people." Her cheeks were still burning, but she seemed grateful to have something solid to explain.

"Then there are the three main rooms. Bird named them. First there's the Leaving Room, because the people in it will be leaving soon. Usually people are only there for part of a day, or overnight at most. Simple broken bones, things like that. Then there's the Healing Room, which is where people who are sicker stay while we care for them, sometimes for days, or even weeks. Then... then there's the Ending Room, where people go when we are just helping them feel less pain, until... until the End."

"And... that's where I was."

Kella nodded. "Yes. And she really was right to put you there, because you were dying swiftly when you were carried in from the Brookwood. You really shouldn't have made it through the first night, certainly not the second, or..." Her voice faded off again. There was a long silence.

Atyr stood up. "Well," he said quietly. "All I can say is thank you again. Really." He held a hand out to her. "I suppose you need to get back? I know I've kept you a long time."

Kella reached up, her thin fingers wrapping around his palm. He pulled her up and she stood facing him, standing in the stream, her dark eyes searching for something on his face.

She kissed him.

Atyr sat down again.

He missed the rock.

For a moment, he stared up at her, and she stared down at him where he sat, soaking in the shallow water. She giggled. He flushed. She snorted, and he couldn't help but join in. Both of them were overcome with gasps of laughter, as she pulled him up and out of the stream, and the two of them collapsed on the sunny bank. It was a while before either of them could get a word out, and their stomachs were aching by the time they began the walk back to the Birdhouse.

Bird was in the first room when they arrived. She looked up, eyes eager, and took in Kella's loose hair, and Atyr's soaked clothing.

"Well." She said, a smile cracking her ancient features. "Well. Well, well."

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Many thanks, Dear Reader! I know this part of the story is light on the raunchier bits. I promise the story gets more heated!

-ScryBells