Tomb Raider: The Legacy

Chapter 6: Pulse

Marie reached for the tea cup and took it by the handle. Before even lifting it she already knew she wasn't going to make it - not without paying the price of pain. So she instead reached out to hold the bowl of the cup and lifted it carefully.

It hurt anyway - but at least she kept it from falling, unlike many times before since her hands had become deformed and mostly useless. Feeling the warmth of the hot beverage was nice, though.

Lady Angeline watched her in silence, suppressing the urge to lean forward to hold her cup for her - an impulse she'd never had until she had to feed her disabled husband, a harsh experience. Fortunately, the proud Lord Henshingly had been alienated enough to not perceive what was happening: if not his illness, having to depend on another person would've killed him.

That American Indian was almost as proud and still perfectly lucid; so the old lady restrained her hands in her lap and watched Marie take the cup to her lips, then arched her eyebrows in surprise.

"What is it?" Lady Croft muttered.

Marie smiled. "Such good tea." She looked down at the golden liquid. "One of the best I've ever tasted."

Lady Angeline smiled politely, but she couldn't help lying back in the chair, stiffer. Of course it was good tea - the best she would taste in a while.

She looked away from her interlocutor, for it was sad to see how she struggled to hold the cup, and fixed her worried gaze on the garden maze that could be seen through the window. "It's been a half-hour," she snapped again, unable to hide a slight tinge of anguish. "I should go get her."

The Navajo woman continued to drink her tea as if it was no big deal. "You'd get lost in there, my dear." She couldn't help the sarcastic tone, but then she softened. "Don't worry. She's with her father, so she'll be fine. Let's give them some time."

Lady Croft had very serious doubts that her granddaughter was going to be fine with that man, but saying something more about it would've been utter rudeness.

And she, above all, was very polite.

(...)

"Aaaalrighty." Anna frowned. "You're looking at me in a very weird way, so I'm fucked up, right?"

"Y'know what I've been doing all these years, while you grew up?"

She shrugged. "Kill the baddies, get the girl, save the world..."

Kurtis smiled in spite of himself. She was still a child... "What I've always done: cleaning the world of demons." And he didn't mention he'd also been a spy, a merc, even a freelance agent. "So they couldn't approach your mother and you, even if they weren't supposed to do so, not until you awakened."

"I awakened?"

"The Gift awakened in you. In Sri Lanka, after that bastard hit you in the head." He shouldn't have been that abrupt, but whatever. There was no other way. Besides, Kurtis had never known how to deal with things differently. Brutality was his thing.

"I... I don't get it."

"Your wound was very serious. You had internal bleeding." Kurtis twisted uncomfortably. He sucked at talking, dammit. "But we had no way of knowing it. Then you lost consciousness and the Gift awakened in you. It healed you."

Anna gaped at him. Suddenly she stirred. "Cool!" She said, laughing. Suddenly she frowned. "Why on earth did you take so long to tell me?"

Because I'm a coward. Because I'm scared. "You were not ready to know."