From: li@Data-IO.COM (Phyllis Rostykus)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [MG] [BDAY] Letting Go
Keywords: Kadrys, Kardia
Date: 29 May 93 00:00:24 GMT


        "I can let go of it
         Though it takes all the strength in me
         And all the world can see
         I'm losing such a central part of me
         I can let go of it..."
                                   "Love to be Loved" on _So_
                                    by Peter Gabriel



	Slow dance, sweet dance, Kardia had wrapped up her shawl and
dropped it near the band's platform after 'Raelf had run off into the crowd
to find someone.  The rest set was peaceful, relaxing, and Kadrys' grace
was a challenge to dance with and to.  The music helped, and after dropping
the shawl, she let the magic take her.  The steps were simple, the rhythm
easily followed, and she delighted in the feeling of moving with Kadrys,
each step in synch, their bodies moving in easy, graceful coordination.

        She hadn't thought she'd ever dance again, and it was sweet to
follow the mood.

        When Rock Lobster came crashing down around them, Kardia had to
laugh.  At Kadrys' wince, she hugged him gently and then laughed again and
bounded into those that were still there and then cut loose of all the
tension that had built up since they'd first threaded their way through the
crowd to face Raffi, with nothing more structured than flinging her body
into the hot tide of the beat.

        She didn't notice that Kadrys had bounded in after her until he
suddenly confronted her.  The pensive, sombre, slightly wistful expression
she had begun to think was habitual to him was gone without trace.  His
whole face transformed by a wicked grin and the sudden sharp glint in his
eyes.  Pure flashlife.  Without a thought, Kardia returned his grin,
mirrored his stance, and then moved, quick and hard to the right.  He slid
right in an instant echo, its eerie speed almost an anticipation of her
movement, and then they exchanged advances.  She laughed.

	There was no preset pattern, nothing but reaction, reflection and
high energy from the music.  Kardia's heels never touched the ground.
Feigned feint and close block, they never touched, but never lost track of
each other.  Whirl and slide, step and strut.  Kardia had to watch Kadrys
closely to make it a duet.  She had to stop thinking, had to simply react.
He blurred into an arching kick, a cobra-fast blow flashing past her ear;
and she managed to echo the motion late with a whirling almost-block. 

	Kardia's eyes narrowed at the speed of his foot's passage by her
ear.  He might have taken her head off with that kind of strength.  Some
part of her trusted that he wouldn't, another was furious at his not
sticking with something she could follow, and part revelled in his speed.
All her reactions caused her to watch him that much closer.  The dance
wasn't slam or razor as she knew it, but there was still violence under
its bright quickness, something between them like a high tension wire that
made them utterly aware of each other.

        Then the wizard torches flared and Kardia winced at the brightness.
Kadrys paused in response to her flinching and the dance was broken.  She
sighed, put her feet together and bowed a sweaty bow with a tired grin.
She got a good look at Kadrys as he bowed back.  The dryness of his skin,
the stillness of his chest startled her at a visceral level.  Logic won in
her lack of reaction, but she didn't much like her emotional recoil.

        Dasham's entrance made Kardia stop and just watch.  She found
herself trembling at the fulfillment of Dasham's desire and wondering at
who the tortured young man was as well as the connection with the old
being that had crumbled to dust.  She had stepped back at the entrance of
the helmeted man with the dark eyes, and when she felt Kadrys' arms come 
around her from behind, she hugged them to her gratefully.

        She sighed as the bodies were taken away, was happily entranced by
the folk song and then jumped as 'Raelf leaped and sprung back, laughing,
into the party.

	She chuckled at his exuberance and sighed as she let go of Kadrys'
arms.  Kardia shook her head slightly.  The deaths and screaming had broken
her partying mood.  Kadrys was quietly at her elbow, responsive as ever to
her body language.  She smiled somewhat absently at him and then stepped
close and hugged him thoroughly.  His gentle embrace in return finally got
her smile to reach her eyes.  Then, answering the unspoken question in his
face, she said "If... if you don't mind, I think I'd like to be alone for
a while.  I really have something I need to think about on my own."

	Kadrys frowned, his thoughts unfathomable behind his dark eyes.
"Will you go back to the Inn?"

	"Yes... I have a room for the night, and I'm tired."

	"There may be demons about..."  Kadrys gave her his wry grin as
Kardia waved the bundle of her shawl at him.  "All right, then, be careful.
I'll be by tomorrow to check on your... wounds?"  His fingertip gently
traced the soft curve of her throat.

	Her eyes closed at the touch and she smiled.  She sighed and opened
her eyes.  "Yes, I'd like that."

	Kardia drew the folds of the shawl around her shoulders and felt
something slip away from her and her tiredness almost hit her like a blow.
She sighed, breathed deep and slow, in and out, in and out and the
tiredness was pushed back.  Then, quietly, she walked away from the party
towards the Inn.  The world flicked, sharpened as she used her low-light
sight.  It turned all silver and black, edges sharp and clear.

	As she walked, though, her sight blurred as tears formed in her 
eyes.  Slow, quiet tears.  Tears for the fear, for the joy, for the
terror, for the deaths, for the welts and scars on that unknown young
man's tortured body.  Tears for herself, for what she had seen in Raffi's
eyes when he had *looked* to see her heart's desire.  Tears at Kadrys'
pain, at the betrayals he'd gone through.  Tears that ached in her throat
for her own memories.  Tears for Raffi's shock at her "No."  Tears for the
consequences of saying that "No." because she now knew she was _afraid_
when she'd seen Alistair's reflection in those rainbow eyes.  Tears for
not knowing why she had been afraid.  Tears for the ecstasy and the
vulnerability she known from Kadrys' Kiss.  Tears at knowing of the black
chains that had been ripped from 'Raelf's satyrlion body.  Tears from the
tiredness, from the bliss of finally dancing again, and from the memory of
Alistair partnering her for her prom and how they had laughed on the
razor's edge.  Tears for how differently Kadrys danced from Alistair.  
No two people ever dance quite the same.

	Tears for all purposes and none.  

	She quietly cried as she walked, not holding anything back now
that she no longer had to deal with anything.  The jumble of confused and
conflicting reasons was let gently loose into the world, the slow relief
of a deep, all encompassing ache.

	Kadrys stood like a statue, pale and stark and still, watching her
out of sight.  Hearing the growing raggedness of her breathing, despite her
straight shoulders, as she dwindled into the distance.  Knowing the
anguish, the confusion she was trying to hide.  His mind full of the cold
wisdom that there are times when the greatest comfort for pain is in
solitude.  And his heart full of sudden, hot hate of that wisdom.

	As she approached the Inn from the square, she wiped away her tears
and found some food still left on the various tables.  She put a couple of
sandwiches together for herself, a handful of fruit, and found a tray to
put all that and a mug of cider as well.  She continued to leak slow tears
and continued wiping them away.  She did not meet anyone's eyes and did not
look up from her haphazard gathering.

	She brought the food up to her room and lit a lamp.  She ate and 
drank singlemindedly, realizing that this was the first food that she'd 
had all day.  After the meal, she used the washroom and brushed her teeth
slowly and methodically, then used the small spool of dental floss that
she'd gotten from her guest room at the lighthouse.  And all the while she
wiped away the slow accumulation of tears.

	The smile she gave herself in the rippled mirror was tired, and she
pulled out a handkerchief from her bags and blew her nose in it and wiped
her still leaking eyes.  She stripped and curled up under the covers and
finally let herself sob, let herself cry with every muscle in her body, the
pillow against her face so as not to disturb anyone else.  The fierceness
of her crying was painful, it scraped her throat and knotted her muscles,
her bottom lip felt like it was stretched permanently from how hard she'd
tensioned her face; but she didn't hold it back.  There was no one to
know, and it was easier this way.  She cried it through.  The storm of
sobs could not be maintained for long by someone only human.  It had to
pass away...

	When the first, pale fingers of sunlight reached through her
window, she was finally quiet.  A soft hiccough, a giggle, and in a soft
voice and a language worse than a universe away, "Loved you, Alistair.  I
think I finally got it, love.  Maybe I really can take care of myself..."
Kardia curled up just a little tighter within the warm nest of her blankets
and fell asleep.

---
[ADMIN:  Thanks to Andrea Evans for her approval of Kadrys' conversation
 and the addition of his thoughts on the actions here; as well as for
 letting him dance with Kardia... :) ]
-- 
Liralen Li           | "Looking down on empty streets, all she can see are
li@inigo.Data-IO.com |  the dreams all made solid, are the dreams made real."
aka Phyllis Rostykus |  - "Mercy Street" by Peter Gabriel