Episode 117 More Time
More Time
Arisanna was surprised when Cerian asked Tharios for help, but it’s doubtful they’d manage to conceal their jungle suite for much longer.
The hotel staff probably want to clean the room at some point.
When they reach the third floor, Tharios lifts the placard from the doorknob, and he glances at Viala. “Do we have one of these?”
“I saw one in a drawer. I wasn’t sure what it said.”
“Do not disturb.” Tharios translates the Nunian words into Elvish for her.
“That’s clever. Say it in Nunian?”
He reads the words in Nunian, and Viala repeats them.
“The letters are similar to Lothlesian letters, but the words they make are different,” she says.
Tharios gives her a rudimentary explanation of the sounds the letters make in Nunian. When Arisanna glances at Cerian, he’s watching, his own lips moving silently, and warmth floods her heart.
He wants to learn how to read Nunian.
He catches her watching him and glances away, his cheeks pink, but she lifts onto her toes to reach his ear. “I’ll help you learn, my elven prince. You don’t need to be embarrassed. Not with me.”
Before she can step away, he turns his head to rest his forehead against hers, and she freezes.
Relax. She needs to relax. It’s just Tharios and Viala.
“Thank you,” Cerian says softly.
“Shall we enter this jungle of yours now?” Tharios asks, and Cerian pulls away.
“At least I can grow vines from dead wood. Unlike some of us.”
“Yes, it seems your skills have improved recently.” Tharios grins as he glances at Arisanna, and Cerian rolls his eyes and pushes the door open.
Tharios steps inside and stops as his smile fades. “It is a jungle in here.” His voice is breathless, and Viala gasps beside him.
“This is beautiful,” she whispers.
Arisanna follows their gaze and almost loses her balance. It’s even more overgrown than when they left this morning.
“I don’t understand,” she whispers to Cerian.
“It seems to keep growing even when I’m not here now,” he says. “I don’t know why.”
Tharios fingers a nearby vine, closing his eyes as if to sense the magic for himself.
Then his brows lift. “Cerian, feel this.”
Cerian touches the vine as well and frowns. “These plants have roots.”
“I don’t believe your jungle is contained within this room anymore,” Tharios says. “You seem to have grown your vines into the walls.”
Horror fills Cerian’s face, and he pulls his hand back as fear tinges his eyes. It’s reminiscent of how he looked in the arena with his mother when he was holding back his plant magic.
Is he frightened of his magic?
“I don’t know, Cer. This may be beyond my skills to undo.” Tharios isn’t teasing now as he steps farther into the room.
“But why would you want to?” Viala asks. “It’s beautiful.”
“I’m not certain the hotel owner would agree,” Cerian mumbles.
But Arisanna looks around thoughtfully. “I wonder how much use this chamber gets as a honeymoon suite.”
“What are you thinking?” Tharios asks.
“My father wants to open up trade and travel between our kingdoms. And the chef here knows the foods elves like. If this hotel offered a room designed specifically to cater to elves—”
“That’s brilliant,” Tharios breathes.
“Even as a honeymoon suite, this decor is appealing,” Arisanna continues as she fingers a silky crimson bloom. Rather than cut flowers or rose petals, the living blooms make the room even more romantic. It’s immersive, like entering another world.
“But how would humans maintain the magic?” Cerian asks. “I don’t know how long it will remain like this after we’re gone.”
“We could send an elf with plant magic to maintain the room at regular intervals,” Tharios says. “If it helps foster peace and acceptance between our peoples, Father would not spare the expense.”
“Neither would my father,” Arisanna says.
Viala studies the room more closely, pushing aside vines to examine the paintings and letting her eyes linger on the bathtub as Arisanna attempts not to think about all the time she and Cerian have spent in that tub. Stars above.
“I understand now,” Viala says with a smile. “A honeymoon suite is a room for romance.”
“Particularly between the newly bound,” Tharios says as he grins at Cerian.
That familiar scowl is back on Cerian’s face, and Arisanna struggles not to smile. Or melt into the floor.
“A fascinating concept,” Viala says before gazing at Tharios. “I don’t believe it would have helped us like each other any better in those early days of our binding.”
Tharios crosses his arms and smirks as he looks at her. “But it would have been fun.”
Viala shrugs, and Arisanna tries not to dwell too much on their exchange.
“So what now?” Cerian asks. “I certainly have no desire to approach the hotel owner and tell him I redecorated his hotel without his permission.”
“Perhaps we should let Grandmera do it,” Tharios says.
“We don’t want to terrify the poor man,” Arisanna says before thinking better of it, and laughter greets her in response.
“She has a point.” Tharios grins.
“Perhaps Arisanna’s father would be better suited to the task,” Viala suggests. “Might the hotel owner give more heed to his own king?”
Arisanna sighs. “I’m sure he would, but Father can’t climb the stairs with his rheumatism.”
Tharios repeats the word, frowning as if trying to place it.
“His knees give him pain,” Arisanna adds.
“Ah. Yes. Well, I can fix that, at least temporarily.”
Arisanna stares at Tharios. He makes it sound so easy, as if the ever-present pain that limits Father’s mobility and prevents him from riding and climbing stairs is little more than a scraped knee.
“You can heal his knees?” Emotion swells in her throat.
“For a time. It will return without regular infusions of life magic, though. And not even elven magic can delay the decline of old age indefinitely.”
“How often would the magic run out?” she asks.
“Perhaps after a year. So much depends on the healer and the health of the one being healed. My magic might even last a couple of years if your father takes care not to push his body too hard.”
Words escape Arisanna, and she sways, but a warm hand slides into her own, steadying her as she gapes at Tharios.
“Forgive me for not suggesting it,” Cerian says softly. “I should have thought to ask Tharios if he could relieve your father’s suffering.”
“Please,” she whispers. “Please help him.”
“Of course. Had I known, I would have offered already. Perhaps I could examine him fully while we’re here. Ensure there’s nothing else I can do to keep him strong for years to come. I can’t prevent the inevitable, but I can delay it—”
But Arisanna doesn’t hear the rest as she buries her face in Cerian’s shoulder and tries to force back the dampness in her eyes and the lump in her throat. And Cerian doesn’t flinch. He wraps her in his arms, comforting her with his gentle touch and whispered words.
When she looks up again, Tharios and Viala are gone, and only Cerian remains beside her.
No words come as she gazes into his eyes. Heat smolders there. And love. Devotion. Concern.
A longing for the comfort only he can provide fills her. Not that she’s sad. Overwhelmed would better describe it. And her thoughts are too jumbled to put to words beyond the simple thought of what Tharios offers.
More time. She might get more time with her father.
It’s a thought too hard to comprehend.
“I can’t decide if you wish for me to speak or to kiss you,” Cerian whispers as his eyes drift to her lips.
And rather than answering with words, she wraps her arms around him and finds his lips with her own.
Viala quietly shuts the door to this honeymoon suite, tugging Tharios along with her. Their presence is hardly needed as Cerian comforts his human princess.
“I should have thought of it sooner,” Tharios says, once again taking on guilt that’s not his to bear.
“You have been a busy elf. I’m sure you would have thought of it eventually.”
Viala rubs her arms as Arisanna’s stricken face fills her memory again.
To lose one’s parents to the breakdown of the body brought on by little more than the passage of time—the idea cuts like a knife to the heart.
At least when Viala says goodbye to her mother and father, she can expect to see them again.
Images of Tharios growing old and taking his last breath descend upon her, and her lungs constrict as she reaches out to steady herself. Blackness flickers out the light streaming in through a window in the stairwell, and her knees grow weak. Too weak to carry her.
“Viala!” Tharios catches her as the floor rushes toward her. The cord between them evaporates into something almost non-existent.
Then he’s probing her with his free hand as she blinks up at the ceiling.
The urge to make light of her apparent inability to cope with the idea of death battles with the horror still filling her, and she attempts to push from her mind images of Tharios leaving her to this world without him.
When he frees her magic, she gasps and stares up at him. “Put it back. Please.”
“Viala, you just fainted. I need to know why, and I can’t assess your flame properly when it’s bound.”
“I do not need your assessment, elf prince. I need you to never leave me.”
Tharios’s hand stills as he gazes down at her, and she doesn’t look away.
“This isn’t physical, is it?” he says softly.
“The pain in my heart at the thought of watching you grow old and die cuts deeper than any pain I’ve ever felt in my flesh.”
With a twist of his magic, he binds her flame again. Thank the fates. Who knows what she might do in this state?
Then he pulls her into his arms. They don’t rehash the same argument they’ve had too many times to count. There’s no reason to argue. Tharios is too honorable to defy her father and break his word not to heartbind with her.
It’s such a paradox that one of the things she loves most about him simultaneously drives her to madness.
“The Lothlesi feel everything so deeply,” he whispers.
“We are a passionate people.”
“You are passion personified, my love. Please don’t faint like that again.”
“It was hardly on purpose, though I won’t complain about being held by you now.”
He just tightens his arms around her as the cord between them lengthens.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Viala whispers.
“We will talk to your father. We will. And perhaps a heartbinding wouldn’t be a death sentence for you. Perhaps it would make me immortal.”
“So you can watch everyone you love grow old and die?”
“There is no life without death, Viala. Not in the world I inhabit.”
“I’m not sure I like your world.”
Tharios chuckles at her words, but the sound is strained.
Perhaps she should have held her tongue and not made him think sad thoughts today. His burden is already heavy enough without her piling more on top.
He holds her for a time, and neither of them speaks.
“Why don’t we check on Elowyn?” she eventually says as she traces a circle on his leg with the pad of her thumb. “And perhaps see what you might do for King Gerault’s rheu...rheum—”
“Rheumatism, I believe she called it.”
“How do you spell that?”
That draws a laugh from her elf prince. “I have no idea.”