Daydreamers
Ren Boldheart, Gareth, The Kingdom of Aeris, between the events of Beg Mercy and Beg Off
"There was a sensation of falling, but when I hit the ground, I didn't wake up."
Ren Boldheart, Gareth, The Kingdom of Aeris, between the events of Beg Mercy and Beg Off
"There was a sensation of falling, but when I hit the ground, I didn't wake up."
Weeks later, Ren and Gareth still hadn't mentioned any of the events that had occurred the day they'd found themselves on the List and met with the King. Gareth hadn't brought it up and Ren had avoided it, going off of a seemingly shared decision that they simply wouldn't discuss it and would pretend it never happened. But it was difficult. Thoughts of that day filled both her waking moments and her sleeping ones. She'd had precious little stimulation for months on end, to the point where the time had slipped away like water going down a drain. Then it had all been blown open in a blur of sharp teeth and orgasms and terror and flying and revelations.
Out of all of it, though, she found herself most frequently coming back to her brief glimpses of who Gareth was when he wasn't around her. She told herself it was because it so ludicrously idyllic as to be almost comical. It was like a stereotype of what she fantasized about when she closed her eyes. Particularly the lake. A lot of her fondest childhood memories were all tied up with the lake she'd been taken to as a child, so vast as to be almost like the ocean--or so she'd been told, since she'd never seen the ocean.
To live right next to a lake as big as the one Gareth's cabin was near seemed ideal. You could go out boating or fishing or swimming whenever you wanted. There were probably smaller ponds nearby that froze over in the winter, allowing for skating. Somewhere, there was surely a creek or a river to splash in and set crawdad traps in. Fresh water, always, an unlimited supply.
Ren, being from the city, had never given much thought to farming, but she had to admit that the flowers had been beautiful. And there could be an apple tree, a huge one, in the backyard, one that would produce a ludicrous excess of apples. All you could eat, and then more, for pies and canning and cider, cores and peels collected for flavoring moonshine. And there would be eggs from chickens and milk from a goat and it would all be fresh and plentiful. She didn't really know how to cook, but she knew Gareth did, because his lunch every day was brought from home, and he'd gotten into the habit of bringing her extras. The inside of her mind was filled with delicious tastes and warm homes and a million everyday pleasures.
These fantasies could stretch on for hours, even entire days. They distracted her from her work, both on the clock and off it. She filled endless stretches of parchment paper with idle charcoal drawings of Gareth's goat and sheep and hilarious fluffy chickens and Byron and the other rats in the stable and what Gareth would look like chopping wood now that she knew what he was hiding under his shirt. Then when she realized what she'd done, and how much no one could ever see them, she'd burn them with the candle, filling the windowless room with the smell of smoke and collecting the ashes to mix with water and a bit of gum arabic she'd swiped from 'work'. With this improvised paint, she moved from paper to walls, painting murals of the countryside she'd glimpsed in shades of gray.
More than a few mistakes, accidents, and one particularly memorable fire were caused by her new tendency to drift off into absentmindedness instead of remaining in the then and there.
"Ren, for fuck's sake, we've talked about this!" Gareth snapped, tossing a fire blanket over the arm that she hadn't yet realized she'd set on fire. "Just because you're wearing safety equipment does not mean you can light yourself ablaze."
She blinked owlishly, readjusting to being someone in welding goggles in a workroom and not, as she'd been thinking about, someone taking a nap in sunshine on the back of a giant wolf. The wolf wouldn't have liked her in reality--dogs never did--but she was learning not to let that stop her.
"Oh, oops, sorry," she said absentmindedly. Gareth stopped batting at her fire-blanket draped arm.
"...Why don't you take a break from that. I need you to come work on this diving bell."
"Sure," she said, not having actually registered what he said at all.
"Actually," he decided. "Why don't we go for a walk."
"Yeah, I'll get right on--did you say a walk?" She looked up, blinking with confusion, certain she'd misheard something.
"Yes, a walk. That thing you do with your legs," he said sarcastically, then paused. "You can walk fine now, right?" he added guiltily.
"It wasn't broken," she told him for the millionth time. Her ankle had been sprained pretty badly from kicking the King, but despite Gareth's fears, she had recovered quickly. Frankly, the sodomy-related pain had stuck around longer. The King had gone in completely sans lube, not long after he and Gareth had done their best to replace her internal organs with their dicks. "I'm fine."
"I've seen you say that under clearly un-fine circumstances," Gareth pointed out. "Pardon if I find your testimony suspect."
"You'd hardly be the first," she said, rolling her eyes. "The hell d'ya wanna go for a walk for? Don't we got work to do?"
"As your manager, it's my job to ensure your time is used effectively," Gareth informed her. "And you just set yourself on fire and then agreed with me when I gave you an order."
She blinked. "...Isn't that what I'm supposed to be doin'?"
"The fire is absolutely not what you're supposed to be doing."
"I meant the second part."
"Yes, but you've never done it before, without extensive persuading."
"Is that what we're callin' yer dick now? I thought it was 'workplace accident.'"
"You seem to be feeling better."
"D'you call it 'extensive persuading' with the King?" Ren mused it. "Because that seems to be what y'use it for."
"Never mind, you're clearly fine," Gareth said, rubbing his hand over his face.
"Where would we walk, anyway?" she scoffed. "Through the fuckin' hallways? Down to the cafeteria?"
"Outside, obviously."
Ren froze in place, then turned slowly towards Gareth. "...I'm not allowed outside."
"Not out of the complex," he said with a sigh. "Just around the grounds. There's a walking path for a reason." Ren had never seen the walking path with her own eyes, but was aware of its existence thanks to extensive rat recon.
"I'm not allowed--" she began again, but Gareth cut her off.
"I know it's not your recess hours, but it's fine. I'm your manager; I can take you wherever I want as long as I think it's safe and necessary for your work ethic."
Ren tilted her head to the side. Recess hours? Was that one of those privileges he kept saying she'd earn if she just worked hard enough? She supposed the other prisoners must have something to fill their time with, while she was locked in her room.
"But as you're clearly feeling much better, we can just get back to work," Gareth was saying. Ren shook her head furiously.
"No. Y'brought it up, now I want to," she insisted. "Let's go for a walk."
Gareth let out a long sigh. "Fine. But when we come back inside, you're going to focus on your work and be more careful."
"No promises."
"Yes, promises! That's how this works!"
"Fine, fine, let's go!"
She hadn't actually seen the outside of the complex. She'd had it described to her by rats, but it was impossible to get a sense of scale doing that. Plus, you couldn't just send rats scurrying across open fields. They'd get snatched up by something. And a lot of Grilka's snakes liked sunning out here.
Ren stretched, pausing to enjoy the sensation of sun on her face. There was a nip in the air that made her wish she owned a jacket, and also that they had settled on something other than shorts when renegotiating her uniform. Well. Renegotiating was a strong point; she'd just kept the shorts from the other one and kept wearing them instead of the skirts. As they were one of her only articles of clothing that she'd shown no inclination towards destroying, Gareth had been letting her get away with it. Or, possibly, it was because he could still admire her stockings in them. She was never sure how he made his decisions, which always seemed completely random and arbitrary to her.
Still, even chilly, fresh air was incredible. She had been breathing in smoke and paint fumes all night lately, and the workshops always smelled of machine oil. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs. There was a bird singing. Why could she never hear these details from her room? Well, most of the actual complex was underground; that probably had something to do with it. What they were in now was probably technically a courtyard of the castle or something, but it wasn't anything she was too familiar with. Her range didn't extend far enough for her to gather information about the surrounding environs. What she did know, from what she'd seen before when she'd been dragged to the castle, and what she saw now, was that she was not nearly so far from the King as she would have liked. This King's Guard complex was basically his shitty backyard basement.
She didn't know what the King's Guard had done here before the current King's rule. Gareth probably knew, but she hadn't asked... He had gotten a weird look on her face when she'd asked if he'd been in the King's Guard before, and inexplicably, she didn't want to pry. He hadn't looked angry or proud or anything she might expect. If she didn't know any better, she would have said he looked scared.
She brushed the thought from her mind and started following Gareth as he ambled down what definitely was a walking path around the courtyard. It looked well used and they kept passing things like benches or odd looking exercise equipment or even a stone garden that appeared to be populated mostly by snakes. The whole thing was still very enclosed by the tall walls she'd gotten so used to, and definitely had the air of a prison despite being so close to the castle.
"Oh!" she said, pointing. "That's the tree." She'd heard about this tree. It was on the east side of the courtyard, and was the one thing her rats had managed to impart on her. It actually was pretty big; she'd thought they'd just been being rats about it.
"Please don't climb it," Gareth said, and she scowled.
"Why not?"
"You'll fall out."
"I don't fall!"
"The last time you said that, you fell off a dragon and almost drowned."
Ren stiffened, momentarily thrown by his sudden break from the rule of no discussion, and for so petty a jab. Or maybe she'd broken it earlier, just by mentioning the King.
"Given that no one's used their dicks to hollow me out lately," she said, after too long a pause to pass for natural, "I should be fine."
"How about instead, we sit under the tree like normal people who don't have climbing fetishes."
"If I had a climbing fetish, I'd want you to climb the tree," she snapped.
"Are you implying you find me attractive enough to be the subject of your numerous fetishes? Because thank you, but we already knew."
"Ugh," Ren replied, shoving at his arm. He leaned exaggeratedly away from her, as if her push might knock him over, and she rolled her eyes. "Dick."
"Is that a request or--"
"Shut it! Oh my fuck, yer impossible to deal with. I need a nap." To emphasize her point, she plopped down in the grass under the tree. It felt nice, but it would have felt nicer if she wasn't comparing it to the grass by Gareth's cabin, which had been longer and softer and less spiky and had wildflowers, which were completely absent from the King's Guard courtyard, which struggled to grow much of anything, resting as it did in the shadow of the castle and surrounding walls for most of the day.
Now that she was laying down, she was aware that she did kind of need a nap. It was funny to think about, since she used to do nothing in her room but sleep. But she'd been busy lately, with her proposal and painting and secret projects and escape plans. It was nice to have something to fill the days with, even if most of it just gave her headaches. She'd been working so hard on managing her rats lately that she was starting to worry she was going to break something in her brain. Trying to keep a hold on more of them for longer, so she could use them to escape, but the strain it put on her was enough to give her a migraine even without the added issue of trying to read.
She heard Gareth plop down next to her, and opened one eye to glare at him. He had already settled in with his back against the trunk of the tree. She was about to say something bitchy about getting grass stains on the uniform when she realized he'd actually put down his jacket--designed to catch stains--down first and sat on it. She didn't normally get to see him without it on. The tailored shirt might seem to leave little to the imagination, but she knew now that he was hiding a wonderland under there, selfishly refusing to share it with the world. He had a book, and she realized belatedly that it was one of hers, one which she hadn't bothered to take because the text was tiny and dense and she had no hope of reading it.
"The hell are y'readin' that for?" Ren demanded, which was a good question as it was a book entitled "The Socio-economic Status and Socio-emotional Health of Orphans in Crithe and Abroad."
"It's interesting," Gareth replied. Ren squinted at him. She wanted to say he was a bad liar, but he delivered everything with such matter-of-fact flatness that it could be genuinely hard to fucking tell sometimes.
"I'm callin' bullshit," she decided.
"And yet, I continue to read."
She frowned at him. "I guess it's possible," she admitted sourly. "Tha' one was the most boring, impossible-to-read book outta the whole stack. Maybe that's what ya like in books." It genuinely seemed like it might be, but lately she'd been imagining him reading gardening quarterlies and farmer's almanacs and the like. Definitely not a thick, unreadable tome on foreign orphanage economics.
"It's not so boring. Listen--'The link between socio-economic status and health status (both physical and mental) has been well established, although causality is still being debated. For instance, a range of studies has shown a relationship between lower socio-economic status and higher incidence of mental health problems Mental disorders occur in persons of all genders, ages, and backgrounds. No group is immune to mental disorders, but the risk is higher among the poor, homeless, the unemployed, persons with low education--"
"You find that interestin'?" Ren interrupted.
"Don't you?"
"Yeah, but I'm the subject of study," she said with a snort. "And I'm tryna build an orphanage, remember?"
"Well, I'm not lending you the book. If you're interested too, I'll just keep reading out loud."
"You'll what."
"The functions of learning are very important in all fields’ life. Education can influence noteworthy better results in the lives of vulnerable as well as orphan children’s..."
Ren squinted at him in obvious suspicion, but he was ignoring her. She had no idea what his game was. However, if he wanted to spend their work day outside under a tree reading a book, she wasn't going to be the one to stop him. Ordinarily, she would have been, since it felt dangerously close to a waste of her time, but she actually did need the information out of this book. Having him read it out loud would be much faster than trying to struggle through any of the books herself, not that he knew that.
Also, it was kind of nice. She hadn't had this much fresh air outside of the trip with the King, and this was prime daydream material right here. It wouldn't take much effort at all to pretend this was a tree on a hill outside his cabin, overlooking a rolling field of flowers. She curled up on the grass and closed her eyes, imagining, but not so much that she'd not pay attention to what he was saying.
He had a nice voice, so maybe she let him go for longer than was reasonable. And maybe her neck got a bit stiff, so she shifted her head onto his leg. It was fine. He probably didn't even notice. No one was out here to see, anyway.
His lap was, as always, very comfortable, but this was the first time she'd laid her head in it, rather than being thrown over it or impaled onto it. She thought maybe she could have gotten used to this, but she knew she'd never get the opportunity.
---
Gareth managed to get all the way through the first three chapters before Ren dozed off. It was just as well; his throat was getting a bit hoarse. He paused, hesitantly, waiting for her to shift or protest. She had, halfway through the morning, laid her head in his lap. He hadn't commented on it, because it felt extremely fragile. She shifted slightly, but just to nuzzle up against his thigh, curl up tighter, and continue sleeping.
If she fell asleep in the middle of the day, she was probably in bad need of a nap. He could easily see her up all night, struggling through economics tomes by candlelight. No wonder she'd seemed so out-of-it lately. He'd let her sleep for about forty-five minutes, and then he'd wake her up and they could get lunch.
He probably couldn't get away with making reading research papers to her a regular part of their day, but if he could sneak it in there now and then, maybe she'd spend less time nearly chewing on library books in frustrated rage, and more time sleeping.
It occurred to him that this was his first time seeing her asleep. Obviously. He only ever saw her at work. She seemed even smaller, somehow, curled up and without any yelling or scowling. He wouldn't go so far as to say she looked peaceful; even asleep, her mouth seemed trapped in a frown. Unthinking, he ran his fingers through her hair, pulling it back from her face. He traced a thumb along the back of her ear, and her lips parted slightly for a breathy little noise of appreciation. Face heating up, he quickly pulled his hand away. Her hand chased his, and he thought for certain she'd woken up to him fondling her, but she caught his wrist and brought his hand back to her head before letting her arm drop again and continuing to drowse.
Oh god. That was adorable. He rubbed her head gently, and she let out a quiet, sleepy hum. He was fairly certain she was still asleep, because he couldn't imagine her doing any of this while conscious. Still, he left his hand on her head, playing idly with her hair, and she made no more fuss.
Carefully, with one hand, he managed to get a bookmark into the economics book, and pull from his bag what he was actually reading at the moment: After the Wedding. Not normally something he would risk reading at work in front of Ren, what with the mockery and all, but she was asleep and he wanted to know what happened next.
Well. They'd live happily ever after, obviously. It was a romance novel; that was the law. Still, the author was really making him work for it, and it was a strain to put the book down and get a decent night's sleep every evening. He'd even tried reading it on the way to work, but Nighthoof had almost run him into a branch, and he had been getting motion sick to boot.
Ren shifted, rubbing her face against his leg, but remained asleep. He thought that maybe he could get used to this, but he would never have the opportunity to.
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