Desperation's Summit

5: Learning

Once she stepped foot into what had once been her quarters while traveling, Cordelia breathed a sigh of relief. Other than a few obviously valuable baubles, nothing genuinely important appeared missing. As she ventured further inside, the wagon shifted as Rakash followed behind. It brought brief flashes of last night to her mind, the triumph over Jai quickly followed by terror as Rakash had so easily dragged her off into the night. Cordelia shook the thought from her head as she bustled about her room.

"I"ve been traveling quite a lot and there's a few things I desperately want back at your hovel." Cordelia spoke breezily as she flipped her cot. Underneath it, a trap door sat.

"My hovel?" A growl lodged in Rakash's throat as he watched the woman open the door on the floor. The insult of his home had him completely miss her other assertion.

Curiously, she leaned down into the hole and grasped onto something, grunting as she tugged out a moderately sized trunk. Why this woman had so many traveling cases, Rakash had no clue. It was wasteful and ridiculous.

Cordelia shoved the trunk to a clear spot on the floor, brain already churning with what she wanted to include as she flipped the lid open. As she turned to Rakash, she exasperatedly sighed, "Your rustic cabin. Is that better?"

"You are not returning to my home," he snarled as the woman began throwing things into the now open trunk. Books, baubles, things from other trunks, clothes, and more. He couldn't even begin to understand what Cordelia was doing. In fact, he didn't want to know.

At this point, he should just leave. Cordelia had been returned to her caravan and that was it. There was nothing else for him here. And yet Rakash couldn't turn, couldn't leave. He continued to stand there, hunched in that wagon, watching Cordelia.

"Aren't I?" Cordelia looked up from where she had been shoveling clothes from one trunk into her targeted trunk. "You won't take me down the mountain and I can't go alone. Winter freeze - which makes the pass ironically impassable - is fast approaching, as well."

She had certainly thought long and hard about the possibilities last night, between feeding the trollings and sleep. Staying with Rakash, offering to help him, was the only option her pitiful bleeding heart could accept. As much as it aggravated her sensible side. "The only decent option left is to stay with you and help you with your little monsters."

At that, Rakash let out a sharp, mean laugh. "I don't need your help with my children."

"Oh, yes, fathers who are getting plenty of sleep tend to kidnap women. How could I forget?" Her titter came out sweet and edged, like a sugar-coated blade, as she skirted to yet another chest. From this one, she withdrew small boxes of cosmetics and toiletries, depositing them into her first crate.

The glare Rakash unleashed on Cordelia could have stifled even the strongest of warriors. However, Cordelia paid it no mind. She was too busy relocating everything into her special trunk.

"I've put quite a bit of thought into it and, honestly, this helps you tremendously," she explained after Rakash offered nothing further but heated silence. She didn't look at him while she continued to unload books and clothes and jewelry and souvenirs. "I'll stick around and be your live-in nanny until the spring thaw. Your kids are just going to get bigger, which means bigger appetites, right? Bottles won't sustain them forever."

She had a point, Rakash hated to admit it. The triplets were just going to keep getting bigger and needing more supervision. He chewed on his bottom lip as he considered the cavernous tunnels connected to his cabin. There were areas that would pose danger to his children. The bathing area, the active magma runoff, the sheer drops. Not to mention the areas he was actively working on, creating actual rooms for the three. Cribs would not be comfortable forever.