Timeless Two

13

"What gives Ari? Before you called me by name and you were easier around me. Now it's only my title you call me by and talk mostly only when talked to." Grey asks annoyed at her short answer.

"You've made it very clear general that I'm your prisoner. As such it is inappropriate for me to call you by name. As for the other, I just no longer have anything to say," Ari shrugs again. There is something she would like to ask him, but she no longer dares.

Grey stands up. He decides he isn't going to wait for Jeshua to get back. "Towels are over there." Ari says tonelessly.

Grey grabs a towel not as comfortable being naked in front of her as she is in front of him. He wraps the towel around him. He goes back over to where Ari is and just stands there with his hands on his hips. "What the hell is going on Ari? You've known from the start that you were my prisoner. That didn't stop you before."

Ari shrinks back against the vanity table. Her eyes wide with fear once more.

Seeing this Grey lets out a few oaths and backs off. When Ari calms down he says in a calmer voice, "I just don't understand what changed."

"My understanding I guess." Is all Ari can say. "Tomorrow you can hand me over to the judges and your work will be done. At least with me." Ari has no delusions though. The judges won't just keep her locked in a room. She can't help the sadness that leaks into her voice.

"The hell I will. You are under my protection until after the trial," Grey says angrily.

"Now that the dungeon is cleaned out you should lock me in there," Ari says softly. Although she could escape from there if she wanted to she doesn't want to. Life has gotten too hard. Even harder now then with the Aelven.

"If I locked you in the dungeon you'd kill yourself even before I left wouldn't you?" Grey demands as he takes another knife away from her.

Ari laughs humorlessly, "Tonight, tomorrow the day after what does it matter? At the latest I'll be dead in three days from agonizing pain of the poison." She looks over at Grey, "Is it so wrong to not want that?"

She stands up and carefully edges around him. "I'll wait in the other room." Unshed tears are in her eyes but no sound of them is in her voice. "I've become a damn cry baby." Grey hears as the door shuts.

He really should go after her. Since there are no guards she could leave. But he knows that she won't. For a minute there he'd wanted to grab her and kiss her silly, until the idea of killing herself was gone for good.

"Should the girl be left alone like that sir?" Jeshua says a short time later. Grey hadn't even finished drying himself off.

"She's not going anywhere and if she wanted to harm me she would have done so by now."

"She didn't hear me come in and she was inspecting some bruises on her upper arm. Looked to me like a hand where someone gripped her too hard. She was wincing as she moved her arm too. With the bruises from her falls and the fresh bruises she's sporting the tribunal won't have any trouble thinking that you've kept your reputation intact,"Jeshua says carefully.

"Dammit!" Grey throws the towels down. He hadn't even realized that he'd hurt her. "Why didn't she say something?"

Jeshua isn't sure if that's a rhetorical question or not. He decides to answer, "Maybe because she's terrified of you?"

"What?" Grey says and whirls around to face Jeshua. He hadn't done anything to the girl. Other than leave bruises on her arm and knock her unconscious.