end of the line.

[decentscoundrel]

Pyetr doesn't even really know where he's going -- which is probably why he's got this far; Chernevog generally lets him be, except when he tries to think how to make the bastard let him be -- he's mostly given that up. It doesn't get rid of the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, or the way everything seems a little tarnished, a little less

Comments

[inglewoodblues]

Ragnelle is in the house, but she comes down the front steps when he touches the gate--it's been dead for a while, but it still says something to her, and she comes down and out. Her skirts are dark now, deep forest blue, and she moves slowly because the cold is making her blood slow, but she comes to him.

"Mary, thou shouldst not be without now. Come in." She opens the gate and offers him her hands.

[decentscoundrel]

"I--" He's almost too dizzy to stand, his heart going like mad, but he reaches for her hands as though he's drowning.

[inglewoodblues]

She takes him and pulls him close, against her warm, thick, firm body, pressing her strength into him.

[decentscoundrel]

Pyetr clings to her like a child, Pyetr who never knew a mother, dazed and for once absolutely trusting. He's past speaking; it's all he can do to stay conscious and not fall on her.

[inglewoodblues]

Strength, and health; she's not trying to cure him here, just give him enough to walk into the house with her. One arm is around his back, and the other smooths his hair, gently. "Come thou. Come a little ways with me."

[decentscoundrel]

He tries. He does try, with all his desperation and native stubbornness, to do what she says. Says, "He won't--" before his throat closes again and he stumbles again.

[inglewoodblues]

"Soft thou, bide thee," suddenly aware of what is going on; and she puts her hand against his chest and wills a little of her own slowness of mind into that heart that isn't his (she can only give what she herself has, but she has a fair amount of cobwebbyness in her blood right now to try to press on Kavi Chernevog). In addition she continues to give to Pyetr.

[decentscoundrel]

It does steady him, at the same time that he's still inclined to panic, and he doesn't know whether it's his own good sense kicking in or Chernevog's sense of self-preservation -- it's all very disorienting. He holds tightly to her shoulders.

"Sorry," he says at last, shakily.

[inglewoodblues]

"Soft, soft, 'tis well. Canst come within now?"

[decentscoundrel]

Pyetr looks at her in mute distress. After a moment he nods.

[inglewoodblues]

"Good. Make use of me."

[decentscoundrel]

"God, no!"

[inglewoodblues]

"Mary, let thy weight rest upon me, else I think thou wilt not make the house."

[decentscoundrel]

"I'm all right," he mutters, despite all the indications. "I'm all right, dammit," no matter that he can practically hear Sasha's pained, Pyetr!

He makes it to the door, and pauses there, struggling. "If you-- If you invite me in--"

Is it safe? he wants to say.

[inglewoodblues]

"This house is my lord's, and his sister's, and she hath power enough to have kept that thing in thee from coming here already. I bid thee come within and bide here until thou art healed of it." She looks at him with dark clear eyes, so like the forest.

[decentscoundrel]

Childlike again, he reaches for her hand.