Post by Zen on Sept 12, 2021 15:32:58 GMT -5
After Playing To Win
After Siorreya had left, he had gone about his day numb, putting on whatever mask was required of him at the time and feeling none of it. By the time the day was over he could hardly even remember what he had done all day… none of it really seemed to matter. At least it had served to distract him from thinking about what had happened that morning. But when he finally retired to his room for the night he simply sat on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands as his fight with Siorreya played out in his mind over and over. He still couldn’t make sense of it, why she had so suddenly turned on him like that. She had very clearly been trying to hurt him and for all that he thought about their last several encounters he couldn’t understand what he had done to make her act like that, to make her treat him that way. He had to have done something… right?
For all his resolve from the morning that he was done with her, that she wouldn’t distract him anymore, it quickly turned to a lie he had told himself. But he knew there was nothing he would glean from dwelling anymore that night so he had finally collapsed into bed late into the night, exhausted from trying to understand it all and coming up empty handed. His sleep was fitful and he woke the next day not at all wanting to get out of bed. He felt drained, as if he hadn’t slept at all, devoid of any motivation. He lay there far longer than he usually allowed, his arm over his face, as the previous morning once again replayed in his mind.
And for the first time something struck him as strange that he hadn’t paid any attention to the previous day. He hadn’t even paid any attention to it when she’d said it. “I dare you to drop out of the Lord Holder vote and accept Maz’ru’s invitation to become a candidate.” Had he suddenly developed selective hearing? He hadn’t even remembered her saying anything about becoming a candidate until just now. All he had remembered was her daring him to drop out, to give up, to quit.
”Accept Maz’ru’s invitation to become a candidate.”
Why would she add that to the dare? He rolled it over in his head for a while, sure there was something there, a clue, a hint, that would get him closer to figuring out why she had been so determined to hurt him. If she wanted to win, to make him angry, she had only needed to dare him to drop out of the vote. So why…? Why did she want him to become a candidate?
Things started falling into place. The vote was so close, and so was the end of… whatever they were, when he would either become Lord of Mavros or… presumably, go back home to Cove. She wanted him to stay. For the first time since the end of their fight he felt something. Hope… hope that he was right. What else could it be? She was never more honest with him than she was in her challenges, he had found. She would never ask him directly for anything that might make her seem vulnerable or like she at all enjoyed being with him, when all their time together had made it quite apparent that she enjoyed his company just as much as he enjoyed hers. Instead she hid behind her games, challenged him where she could just simply ask.
She wanted him to stay, and more than that… she wanted him to stay with her. If he won the Lordship, he would have to end their games, keep her at arm’s length. One day he’d need to find himself a wife, and then… she was such a temptation for him. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to be around her and not be pulled in by that temptation. He couldn’t help but feel like winning would honestly be the worse outcome. How torturous it would be to be here at Mavros, to have her so close and never be able to touch her again. Was that how she felt too? That’s why she wanted him to drop out… why the two dares had to be combined. One, to make sure she didn’t lose him to Lordship, and two, to make sure he didn’t leave Mavros. And when he had refused… she had dug deep to hurt him. To end them on her terms.
This woman. She had asked him to choose her... but he hadn’t heard her. Instead he’d acted disgusted that she would even ask. But all it had taken was one day knowing he would never see her again to realize it wasn’t worth it. Losing her had drained all passion from his life in an instant. Because she was his passion. He had finally found it with her… and he’d let it go, let her go. She had been trying to hurt him when she said it, but she was right. He really didn’t have the passion to be Lord Holder… because how could he have passion for anything without her?
When he had first come to Mavros, he had been so sure Lordship was what he wanted, but then he’d found Siorreya and she had become increasingly more important the more time he spent with her. He had denied it right up until yesterday, but it wasn’t hard to see just what he really wanted now. Only he still wasn’t sure if it was possible. If he had meant nothing to Siorreya she would never have had to go to such lengths to push him away, to end things. She could have just waited for the vote and let him go, whichever way it went. But he was sure the suspicions he’d been having ever since she’d been ill were true after all. They had to be. When she’d told him she was comfortable with him, being there, taking care of her. When she’d desperately clung to him, afraid he was leaving her. Maybe even when she’d asked about his family. She did feel something for him.
Or at least, she had. He winced at the realization. He had said things to her as well… things that anger and hurt had compelled him to say. He’d told her she was a mistake, a distraction, that he was done with her. Could she possibly still feel anything for him after that? Was there any chance he could still salvage this? He wanted her. He wanted her more than anything. He wanted their playful banter, he wanted her challenge, he wanted her sharp wit and clever tongue. She was freedom, she was the realest thing in his life, so full of masks and half truths, and she was worth fighting for. He had to fix this. He knew very well just how he could start… but it took him some time to work up the resolve to actually do it. There was a chance he could be wrong. There was a chance he was only seeing what he wanted to see. There was a chance he could throw everything away for nothing if she truly was finished with him. There really wasn’t any other option left to him, though, was there? And there was a strange sort of thrill in the unknown.
