The Storyteller

Chapter 28: Second Best

Guy toyed with Lynna's hair idly. He had been lying awake since dawn made its first feeble attempts to bring light into the room. He hadn't dared move lest he wake the woman still sleeping alongside him. It was something of a wonder, to glance down and find her there: his wife.

She slept peacefully, her head resting against his chest, one arm half way 'round him while the other was tucked neatly under the side of her head. She had curled up in her sleep, her legs almost against her chest. Her hair tumbled awkwardly down the side of her face, obscuring her features. He had since brushed it aside, but had found himself unable to stop combing through it with his fingers.

She slept half in and half out of the quilts. The bare skin of her lower shoulder just visible. Guy had no desire to cover her back up again. He allowed himself to touch that tantalizing softness once, but she had stirred in her sleep and he immediately withdrew his hand. Lord knew he had had plenty of opportunity to explore every inch of her last night.

Lynna stirred again, emitting a small sigh. “Is it morning, already?” She asked in a muffled, sleepy voice.

“It is.” Guy answered.

“How glorious.” She buried herself against him, the half-sigh in her voice reflecting the gentle sarcasm behind it. Guy chuckled at her antics.

“How can you be so awake?” Lynna asked, hardly opening her eyes. “It's barely light out.”

“I've been awake for a while,” Guy replied, his hand rubbing up and down the visible parts of her back. “How can you be so tired?” he retorted.

“I'm used to sleeping through the whole night.” She remarked, kissing his chest lightly.

Guy laughed outright at her reply, he had not been expecting such words from her. Lynna finally blinked up at him. She blushed furiously, grinning slightly, she proceeded to sink down into the blankets covering the bed. She groaned quietly, “Suppose this means I have to get up now.” She said, mumbling through the blankets.

She sat up, the quilts falling down off her shoulder. She paused in her movements, seeming to realize that she was unclothed. Guy pulled the covers from her, letting them fall by her waist. She unconsciously crossed her arms over herself, turning her face away, making it seem as if she was toying with some stray lock of hair at the nape of her neck. “Still so shy?” Guy asked in a low tone. “I thought I had shown you last night you had no need to be.”

Lynna sighed, slowly lowering her arms and facing him once more, “Guy, tell me a thousand times how I appear in your eyes it wouldn't make a bit of difference how I appear in my own. I know what I am, and once more I do not care.”

“Is that true?” Guy asked, if there was one thing he hated about Lynna it was her shyness. Her inability to say what she truly meant or to feel comfortable in her own skin, bothered him. Obedience was all well and good in a wife, but out and out spinelessness was unacceptable, especially when he knew her to be capable of so much more when she just let herself be.

Lynna looked away, feeling herself under scrutiny in Guy's constant gaze. She felt herself pulled into his arms again. She relaxed slightly, her hands pressed against his chest. Her brow creased slightly as her fingers found the warped and scarred flesh from the acid wound Robin had inflicted upon Guy. It looked painful so she could not help but ask, “Does it still hurt?”

Confused for only a moment, Guy felt Lynna's fingers brush against the scar. He smirked a little. “No. It's only a scar.” He recalled how Lynna had stayed with him then and cared for him.

“I know that.” Lynna said, “It was silly of me to think to ask...” She moved off of the bed slowly, slipping on her shift, which had been lying forgotten on the floor since last night, over her head. She smoothed it down over her; immediately she seemed to straighten.