Behind Those Golden Eyes

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Tal raised an eyebrow and then chuckled. He had said that, and Tal had put a condition on it but it looked like things worked out in the end after all. "How convenient." He smirked then. "You don't think the driver would have still been here when we got back do you?" Assuming the guy didn't try to warn his former employers he would definitely have ran as soon as both of them were gone.

Either way what was done was done. Tal picked up Aisha and squeezed through the door to the carriage, setting her down on the opposite seat and settling back in his usual seat on the driver's side. He went ahead and propped up a leg on Aisha's seat to catch her if she started to slip and closed his eyes, dozing lightly as they started to move. Everything would be fine now. He would watch Alisha while she healed up and then he would take her home and that would be that.

He came out of his doze when her disturbance seemed to be reaching worrisome levels and reached out to shake her firmly. "Aisha! Wake up! You are no longer there!" He would say more reassuring things but they honestly weren't his style. "You are on your way home now, calm down."
 
Archer laughed. "Point taken." He replied as he took his seat in the front of the carriage. While he did prefer to actually ride a horse, he didn't mind the calm job of steering the horses from his seat on the carriage. It was relaxing, and the fresh air was enough to keep him awake and enjoy it without feeling like dozing off at any point.

It was a less enjoyable ride for Aisha as the nightmares became worse and worse. But once she woke up she had forgotten all about them. Maybe because she hadn't gotten as far into them as when the old man had listened in on her sleep talking. A familiar voice had woken her, and a hand was laying on her shoulder. "... Tal?" It took a few seconds from the moment she actually saw his face to the moment she was able to remember what had happened. That's right. The guy that had helped her out had told her they were going to meet up with Tal.

If there had been any more tears left in her, then she would probably have cried, that's how relieved she was. Without thinking about it she threw herself forward to hug him. Her back didn't like that movement at all, but she didn't care. It could hurt as much as it liked. "I missed you." She whispered. Even though it had only been less than two days, it had still felt like an eternity. Then she started to hit him, though it wasn't very hard since she didn't have much strength at that point. "Idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot!" She repeated childishly, though she wasn't certain why she was angry at him. She knew she had thought up some kind of reason the previous day, but it had completely escaped her mind by that point.
 
Tal let out a soft grunt of surprise as she threw herself at him, though of course he caught her carefully, aware that she had some physical hurts though he did not know what at the moment. Her firsts were little better than gnats so he simply sat back and let her take out her emotions, confused mess that they were. He tried really hard to ignore the guilt that gnawed at her saying she missed him. It was entirely the wrong thing to say, she should be gearing up to never see him again.

Eventually he decided she had pounded on him long enough and caught her hands. "I know you're an idiot no need to repeat it so many times." He smirked down at her and ruffled her hair. "It's okay to cry you know, I won't tell Archer. We'll get you home soon and then you can forget about all this." He ignored the feeling in the pit of his stomach that was telling him he had just set off a bomb on purpose but why not get it out of the way early right?
 
If he hadn't stopped her, she would probably have done it herself just moments later. But it did feel slightly better when he did it for her, as it made it seem like he had given up before her. What a stupid thought, she thought. Seemed like she was full of those these days. At first she were about to take him up on the offer, but the continuation after that stopped her from doing so.

Home... Home as in home? All the warmth she had felt when he ruffled her hair was suddenly gone. He were going to take her home? "What are you talking about?" Confusion painted her face. Though she weren't confused because she couldn't understand, she were confused because she didn't want to understand. "I won't forget anything just because I get home." She backed away and locked her arms over her chest defensively.

"I won't go back home. You can't make me!" So far she hadn't really become angry. Probably because she thought he wanted to send her back because he thought she wouldn't dare to stay with him any longer. And once he realized that she weren't going to leave he would just say okay and let her stay. Just like when she had told him she would follow him even after realizing what he was.
 
Tal sighed inwardly and let his grin die, frowning sternly at Aisha. "What are you talking about? You just spent two days with perhaps the kindest people you will ever get kidnapped by. The next one's may just kill you outright. If it wasn't for them sending someone like Archer with me you could have been stuck there for weeks before I figured out a way to free you. We won't always be so lucky." He took a deep breath and forged on. "I can't afford to have you around Aisha. You need to go home where you will be safe under my father's watch. It was not even a week before things degenerated to this point. You are sitting here in front of me after being tortured. There is no reason not to take you home!"

He was not backing down this time. Aisha did not belong in his dark world. If he had to drag her back kicking and screaming, well he was prepared to do that. It would probably amuse Archer to no end.
 
It stung to hear those things, especially since she had denied everything as hard as she possibly could. "I don't need protection." She burst out. "I need to learn to fight for myself. I won't be able to do that at home." While it indeed just had been a week since they set off on their journey, she had already gotten new perspective on her life. She was weak. No matter who it was or for what reason, she would not be able to defend herself from an attacker. And no matter what the reason, her mother wouldn't allow her to hold a sword.

"You said you would teach me to use a sword. So do that. Stop deciding my destiny for me and give me the chance to gain my own power to decide for myself." Two days ago she would never even have believed she could hold a sword steadily. But now she was certain she could even kill someone if she had to. Not in the way Archer had, not when they were already down. She hadn't lost he morals, but she had gained the strength of wanting to fight back. Now she just needed the strength to actually do it. She could not turn back home. With or without Tal, she would continue to travel. If it had to be without him, then she would chase him to the end of the world, just as she had promised.
 
Tal was briefly stunned into silence. Of all the arguments he had anticipated, he had anticipated her demanding he teach her. After all the fuss she had put up before it caught him completely off guard. He came up with a thousand different responses, some of which his own words shot down immediately and the rest of which he could already see what she was going to say. He pressed his lips together and pressed on anyway. "It- you-" He felt a strong need to hold his head. Why couldn't she see what she was doing to him? Or perhaps that was the point.

Her talk of destiny in particular just hit all the right/wrong buttons. It made him think of things he had long since decided were denied to him, yet had believed in enough to run away from home and forge his own life. "Obviously you have a death wish! By the time you would be anywhere near proficient with a sword you would probably be dead twice over."
 
Wow, had she just made the awesome, majestic, all too perfect Tal, stunned? She almost felt like doing a victory dance, but that would probably kill half the country. "I will die ten times over if that's what it takes." She replied, before she lightened up a tiny bit. "And beside that, we still have an unfinished bet." She mentioned as if it was the most important thing to finish. "Apparently your toes would be able to survive my oh so graceful dancing technique." She reminded him.

In that very moment she wouldn't care what they did. They could even do something as horrible as dancing, and she would be completely happy. As long as she didn't have to be reminded of everything, at least not right then and there. Eventually she would probably be able to bring it up herself, but for now she really didn't want Tal to know what she had been through. What that kid had done to her. She was much more comfortable with Tal coming up with his own conclusions to her wounds.
 
If Aisha could see the state she put Tal's emotions into at the way she nonchalantly treated the chance of her dying he really hoped she would feel some sort of guilt because it was him who was going to suffer for it. He finally gave in a rubbed at his eyes, as if that would block everything out and make it better. "You are the worst. The absolute worst." He growled at her, fixing her with a fiery expression. "You know I always win anyway." He went ahead and took her bait to talk about something else, mostly because he could not take much more of this himself. The pull between old him and new him was not a comfortable feeling and if he could avoiding setting off the conflict as much as possible he might just not start destroying everything in sight again.

He supposed he should just be glad that Archer was not inside to see him bested so quickly. "You're going to have to wait for a while though. I'm afraid we are both currently lacking in clothing and it is hard to dance in a blanket and bloody clothes." He was actually fairly happy with himself at that front, despite what he had done to the twins that had been him. Stone cold, in no way demonically raging blood lust him. He paused as he realized then that she had gotten all up close and personal with his bloody self. "…sorry about that, by the way. You should probably refrain from jumping on me again." He paused and smirked. "Unless it's for something else entirely of course." As usual he didn't even think about it, the flirting was automatic.
 
Even though he said that, she had already won this round. Danger temporarily averted. But then a blush started to cover her face and her victorious smile started to fade. She had completely forgotten that she were completely naked except for the blanket. Even when Archer had gotten into her room, it had been something far away from her mind. But now it started to dawn on her. With his last sentence she could feel the extreme heat in her face.

"Idiot." She yelled as she embarrassed covered her chest. The macabre part of what he had spoken of hadn't even registered into her brain. "No one likes a pervert." She complained. Though she knew that was far from true. Especially if that pervert happened to have money. How red was she at that very moment? Probably very. How come she always felt so embarrassed in front of him, but had felt next to nothing when Jeremy, Jensen and the guards saw her full naked body? The only time she had felt remotely similar was during her bath, but still it hadn't felt as bad as it did with Tal. Her body was just plain weird.
 
Tal was somewhat bemused by her sudden turn around but it was quite amusing nonetheless "Honestly, I already said I knew you were an idiot no need to repeat yourself." He waggled a finger at her chidingly. "And I had nothing to do with it, you were the one who jumped on me. You can hardly call me a pervert." Aside from destroying all of their clothing but that was entirely unrelated and she had been the one to get kidnapped anyway. "Besides, doesn't a rescuer get a reward?" Normally this would be the moment where he would follow up with actually 'perverted' actions but while he was still unaware of what actually happened to her in the mansion he was still very much like a kicked dog when it came to actually doing anything sexual to her. She had pushed him away once and now he had an aversion to it.

"Anyway, we'll go for a shopping trip in the morning. Or well, I will. You should probably stay in the room." If she was freaking out about only wearing a blanket in a carriage with him then she would definitely not have a good time walking around the town like that.
 
Of course he had to turn everything around on her. Not because she was much better. They were both stubborn idiots whom hated to loose. He was just better at hiding it. Of course there was no way that she would walk without any clothes on in town, she would prefer it if she didn't have a thousand eyes staring at her as in those nightmares she used to have as a younger teen. Almost everyone dreamed the dream about being naked in public, and she wanted it to stay a dream.

"You're right. My rescuer should get a reward. Archer was his name, right?" She just couldn't resist, as both of them knew that Archer was the one whom had specifically rescued her, while Tal took care of the people that might come after them. Thus technically making Archer her rescuer, and invalidating his not so demanding demand. She had almost gone for the 'you were the one putting me in danger from the start' argument, but she was afraid he would actually take it by heart. Especially as she did believe it herself from time to time, while other times she felt it impossible to blame him.
 
Tal smirked, flashes of the night before running in his mind. "Well, you could try but I don't think you're his type, despite your disguise." He made a pointed gesture towards his midsection. That being said, Tal would certainly be doing some rewarding tonight if he had anything to say about it. He probably looked a bit like the cat that got the crème at the moment. "Perhaps if we made a party of it." He was mostly joking with that suggestion.

"After dinner though, running around the countryside is not conducive to eating…" He really had not eaten much in the past day or two. He had the breakfast with Archer and before that the dinner with Aisha and his stomach was making itself known now that his emotional chaos had retreated back to its proper place in his mind.
 
She looked at him with narrowed eyes for quite some time before she finally spoke. "You two had sex, didn't you." It was not so much a question as a statement. She could have brought up the fact that he had been having fun while she was being tortured, or at least sexually and mentally abused, but she didn't for one or another reasons he couldn't really grasp at that very moment.

"Is there anyone you haven't done it with? With the exception of people from our hometown." She wasn't sure if she wanted to blame him for it or if she joked about it. It came out as a weird mix of the two.

His suggestion of a threesome was completely ignored and rejected, even when it was a joke. Though with him, jokes usually turned serious pretty fast. After what she had been through, having two guys in bed was the last thing that would be on her mind.
 
Tal shrugged in response to her question. He could tell she was upset and even kinda sorta understood why but he felt no shame over it. There had been a lot of reasons for what he did and honestly she had given up the right to say anything about his sex life when she decided she didn't want to be involved in it. "Oh come now Aisha I do have standards. Just because not everyone lives their lives as temple virgins doesn't mean it's a bad thing." Not that he would have cared anyway. It was a large part of his coping with life strategies as well as being one of the more enjoyable methods.

He had known from the beginning that his sexual proclivities were going to be a point of contention for them. The fact that they were more a problem than his job and all the blood on his hands seemed absolutely ridiculous but that was Aisha all over. "I told you right from the start I was not going to change what I did, both in occupation and recreation."
 
Her stomach turned a bit at the mention of her virginity, and her arms automatically moved away from her chest and down to her abdomen slightly protectively. "I know." A simple answer to a topic she didn't know how to handle at the moment. Two days earlier she might have ranted about how it was better to wait until marriage, or that he might one day meet up with his own child, or some other reason that didn't make much sense. But now she had only one reason not to do such things. She was incredibly frightened of it. On top of that she still felt slightly jealous over Tal's many bed partners.

"But I will still crush your feet once it comes to that." She couldn't even change the subject in a smooth way. Oh how she wished she hadn't brought up such a subject. How come they always ended up on topics that made both of them frustrated eventually? If she remembered correctly, most of the times had been because of her. Those awful siblings certainly had one good point. She should learn to shut her mouth sometimes now and then.
 
Tal tilted his head just slightly, his eyes narrowed at her. There was definitely something going on there and luckily for her he wasn't ready to deal with the subject either. He purposely banished all ideas of what might have happened to cause her to make that motion. At the same time, he wasn't sure he could deal with her anymore either. The subject change was so terribly clunky he didn't even know what to do with it. So he made one himself and did what he always did when it got too much for him to handle. He ran away.

"I think I'm going to see how much farther it is." He opened the door to the carriage and easily flipped himself up onto the roof before closing the door and sliding down to join Archer in the driver's seat with a tired sigh. He should have made Archer sit in there with her.
 
The peace and quiet was relieving after Tal had left her alone. How stupid could she be? She had been so close to making everything better, and then everything went downhill. Would it get better after a few days, or would they stay in such awkward conversation for the rest of their existence? She would most likely be thrown out on the side road long before the end of their existence was drawing near if she kept acting like that. How she despised herself sometimes.

"You okay?" Archer asked Tal as he suddenly came out and sat beside him. Most people wouldn't climb out that easily. But what else could one expect of the great almighty Taliesin. The assassin whose weak for a girl. Yeah. That did bother him still. And nothing anyone said or did would make him less bothered. The biggest problem was that he wasn't even certain if he were bothered because he was jealous over their relationship or if he were bothered because Tal did something unacceptable as an assassin. Stupid emotions, once they bubble up to the surface they started to cloud the judgment far too much.
 
"Hmm?" Tal blinked and glanced over at him with a grin. Now that he was away from Aisha he felt better. There was still a core of stress but without Aisha stirring it up to unmanageable levels he seemed just like his usual self. "I am fine. I was simply quite done dealing with stubborn idiocy." He couldn't believe that he had already folded to her again after a mere two exchanges. He could feel Archer's disapproval as well which only increased his irritation because he agreed with Archer. They got along so well because they both understood how it was to survive in this world as an assassin and that in no way involved having a weakness like Aisha close by, or at all preferably. And yet his weakness had just shoved their way into his life and now he couldn't seem to get rid of them.

"So I decided a more agreeable companion was in order." He couldn't even imagine what his life was going to look like from here on out. He was still convinced the best circumstance would be Aisha going home and he honestly couldn't figure out why she was resisting him. She had been kidnapped and tortured under his watch, there was no excuse for her to want to be anywhere near him anymore.
 
What baffled Archer the most at the moment wasn't that Tal had chosen to take his childhood friend with him on his journey, nor that he had chosen to have Archer as his companion. What did baffle him was that the man even wanted a companion at all. He had been fine on his own for so many years, been the best of the best. A companion, even one as skilled as Archer would certainly just slow him down. Maybe not by much, but those figures didn't matter. Every second counted, even when you didn't need them.

"Guess why I keep myself away from women." Archer replied to Tal's first comment. Mainly a joke, but small hints of truth shine through as always. While he had no other excuse to why he didn't want to sleep with women other than, they weren't doing it for him. Traveling with a woman though was a completely other thing. At least when it came to their line of work, as they usually were too much of a sandbag. But he had traveled with his fair share of useless men too, though they were far less.

"I can't decide if you two love to hate each other or hate to love each other." Archer eventually said quite amused, obviously having listened in on their conversation. There was a small hole in the carriage, which Archer might or might not have made before they left, which had helped him hear them. Of course it had been very hard over the sound of the horses, but thanks to good ears and an amazing ability to force out certain sounds to make others more audible, he were able to hear some of their conversation.

"You really don't understand why she hasn't given up yet?" He then asked the man beside him with a raised eyebrow. While he weren't certain exactly what their relationship were, he had understood that she probably didn't stay for him anymore, if that had been her previous reason. Now she wanted to do it for her own sake. He hated to admit it, but they were very alike. When a traumatic experience happened there were only few ways to deal with them. One of them was to push them away, pretend they didn't exist and keep going with life to the best of their ability. Another way was to fight. He had once done the same thing, though their experiences were slightly different. While he had lost his family, she had lost a part of herself.
 
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