Veriel

Chapter 6

Some believe Fate to be a group of women, gossiping as they spin souls into thread, hook them on a loom, and slide them into the intricate tapestry of time. Others declare her to be a scribe hunched over a great desk, her hair tangled with neglect, fingers blackened with ink, feet sealed beneath the wax of hundreds of spent candles. 

The learned know both of these theories to be inaccurate, for Fate is, in actuality, a sticky-handed toddler. An unpredictable being trapped at the fearsome age of two who stumbled upon her powers entirely by accident - which is why tempting her is such a hazardous pastime. 

And tempt her Veriel did. Well, indirectly. Shortly after he thought of his utmost satisfaction with current events, turning his back upon his worries, the trickster god of the North, Laothi, sniffed the opportunity for mischief. Laothi conjured a sweet and dangled it in front of little Fate, who forgot her course and toddled with all haste toward this novel new path, ready to make a mess. 

Late into the night, things began to take a most awkward turn indeed.

Not that the day preceding it had been all that pleasant for Rikke. Her morning swim in the siren's eyes had been but one beautiful moment. After Titus dragged her indoors, the two started to argue quite loudly, and then they were forced to sit in on the meeting where the older men argued, and Titus explained every basic concept to her, and the terms of the treaty were finalized very, very slowly. It consumed the entire afternoon and evening.

In other words, she'd had several hours to die inside and fantasize about what would happen when she snuck away to the abode of her mysterious siren that night. 

He would lavish attention upon her, indulge her every whim and effort to seize the reins of her runaway life. With him, she would experience mindless kisses and touches and everything she'd always dreamed of doing with boy who weren't Titus.

Doing something mindless, it turned out, required quite a bit of mental athleticism.

Upon seeing him in the flesh (the extremely-uncovered flesh, gods help her), her romantic fantasy had burst into wee nervous snowflakes, and she'd started thinking with her head again. Very was handsome and foreign and intriguing, yes, but he was still a living being, not an opportunity. He didn't deserve to be treated as a mere outlet for her rebellion. In the few future moments where her life was hers alone, she yearned for a connection deeper than physical contact, one not born from anger or frustration. 

She wanted no regrets.

And so she hadn't decided to kiss him, but her lips tingled from their time together all the same. As did her arms, her fingers, her toes, her knees, all body parts that she knew the name of.

Right after she'd arrived, he'd handed her a little comb. At first, she'd thought it an underhanded comment on her appearance - her hair always coiled into a fearsome state after being trapped in braids. 

Then she'd seen how he gazed at her. How unconcerned he seemed to be with not only her tangled mane, but the tangled web of sociopolitical stupidity ensnaring the rest of the world. Though quite literally shackled in place, he was somehow still unchained. Most took great care to disguise their emotions and shove them into coffins. Very wore his freely.

When he looked at her with gentleness, with curiosity, with awe, she couldn't seem to doubt that the sentiments were true.

He gave her gifts just because he really, really liked her. 

And the thrill of being liked had kept her up even after coming back inside. Even when she heard General Tullus Auranius donkeying around outside her door, ordering Marcus to check on her yet again.