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The sea was told and sung (Rania Lark x Wolvenrogue)

Having finally felt the tension slip from her exhausted body, Anders finally allowed himself to rest , even though he had worked on her body for hours, he wasn't fatigued. He had worked harder and longer on many a day, and the task he had just performed, working on the most beautiful of female forms was certainly pleasant. As her breathing slowed and and she slipped into a state of complete calm, He let his hand slow to a stop and lay lightly against her smooth flesh.

He slept lightly and waited to see how long the woman would rest. Some eight hours later, when she still rested peacefully and had not moved, he finally got up quietly and summoned the maidens. He had them quietly brew some tea, and prepare a breakfast of fish, fruit, toasted bread and milk. Finally he had them draw a bath. When all was in readiness, he sat gently on the bed and gently began to rub her back and shoulders.
 
Melisende slept soundly for the rest of the night and into the next morning. Her mind was dark, no dreams penetrating into her thoughts as the baby within her belly demanded her energy, creating an exhaustion she had never before experienced. Her body never moved the whole night and she continued sleeping soundly even when her captor awoke from his slumber and movement began around the lodge as the maidens set about obeying his orders.

It was only when she felt his calloused hands moving over her shoulders and down her back that she began to stir. Groaning softly and inhaling sharply through her nose, she awoke from her sleep, still feeling tired from the pregnancy. Placing her hand on the bed, she turned her head, burying her face as she struggled to wake, stretching her back, her muscles sore from the past two days. Exhaling slowly, she turned her head once again and opened her eyes. Not registering where she was at first, she blinked a few times before she realized what was happening. It was then that she shot up, her eyes wide as she pulled herself away from his touch, yanking the bedding up over her nudity.
 
Anders didn't flinch at her sudden movement. Instead he held out an open hand. "What are you hiding from? You have a hot bath waiting, and breakfast. Besides, I've touched every part of you the last 24 hours, even your insides, Its all beautiful you know, especially when you are not bruised and sunburned. Come on now, let me help you in to the bath while its is still hot. It will help with the soreness." The smile didn't leave his face, and he bided his time and waited for her to reach out and take his hand. "Don't worry, I won't hurt you. We have had more than enough of that by now. "
 
Melisende wasn't sure how to take his sudden kindness. But she did comprehend his statement regarding her hiding from him. She really had no reason to hide from him, even from before the past day. Her eyes narrowing slightly, she examined his face for a long moment, assessing his genuineness. Her muscles were tense which made the soreness even more painful throughout her body.

Deciding it best to obey, Melisende dropped the bedding and moved to slide off the bed. Not taking his hand, she opted to walk slowly and awkwardly across the floor, her muscles spasming every few steps as she made her way to the bath at a snail's pace, still refusing to afford him any type of agreement by accepting his help, but she knew that doing as she was told would afford her the chance to regain her strength.
 
Anders frowned lightly as he pulled up a chair next to the tub. "Your mother didn't raise ladies did she?" he asked in a clearly rhetorical tone of voice. " Is it still necessary for you to be rude? Perhaps my first love was wrong about you after all? She thought you would make a great queen, but now I wonder. Do you have the grace for it? Grace is not required of a man, but a woman? It should be what defines her. Even more than courage, for it takes great courage to be graceful, and very little to demand revenge." When the Maiden brought a piece of lambs wool to wash the woman, He took it from her and motioned for her to move away. Dipping the soft wool in the water, he lifted her hair and gently washed her shoulders. "I am not asking for that which i am afraid to grant to you first. You were unrestrained last night, and yet I neither feared you or restrained you. I slept at your side unarmed and unprotected. There were no guards on the lodge, and their are none now." When he had finished with her shoulders and breasts, he moved to the foot of the tub and washed her feet. His touch was extremely gentle and slow. Far more than anyone in camp save his first love would believe.
 
Melisende stepped into the tub. her legs screaming in protest as they were raised up over the metal sides. Once she was inside the metal walls of the bath, she lowered herself in as the water climbed up her body. She sat with her shoulders hunched forward as he moved around behind her, musing about making her queen and the need for her to have grace and whether she was truly fit. Melisende remained silent but turned her head to listen to him, her face expressionless.

Then she felt her raven locks being lifted up as something soft ran over the protruding bones of her shoulderblades and over the arches of her shoulders. She didn't resist him as he washed her body, moving the soft wool over her back before moving to her breasts. She leaned back slightly to give him access to her front as he moved over her skin, the warm water soothing her muscles as he worked.

She still refused to speak and merely listened to him, her spiteful words gone for the moment as he explained his actions with her, his lack of fear of her and his choice not to restrain her. She let her leg relax as he lifted her foot from the water to run the wool over her leg, washing that as well before releasing it back into the warm water and continuing on with the other leg, his touch a sharp contrast to his touch for the last weeks. It was gentle, almost....loving and the turnaround set Melisende's mind into a spin of confusion and distrust.
 
He could see the tension in her brow and feel it in her limbs and shoulders as he gently washed her. He set down the wool and went the table and brought her milk, bread and fruit hoping that it would set easy on her stomach , so that she might eat while he bathed her body. "You know, that if I wanted to give you pain, I easily could have last night. Why do you fear my kindness so? what have I possibly to gain by giving it that I cannot take by force except possibly the grace of a woman. You can possibly believe that with nineteen women of my own, I can't find enough of that to survive without putting up with rudeness for its own sake? I don't require that you cower or degrade yourself, but common courtesy is another thing, and your lack of it is pushing my patience." He felt the tension rising within himself, and so he stopped, took a long deep breath and continued with the washing.
 
Melisende watched as he let her other leg drop back down into the water before leaving her in the tub and walked over to the table. She expected the worst, but it was not to come as he returned with a metal plate and cup with various foods and drink within and atop the dishes. Taking the offered sustenance, Melisende sat up straighter in the tub as he moved back down to then end of the tub at her feet.

The food turned her stomach and it showed over her forced frown and her turning her head away from it for a moment but with the past actions of her refusal to eat, she decided it would be more comfortable for her if she ate the offered meal. Forcing herself to eat small pieces of the food, he began to wash her once again, speaking to her of his other women, of his unneeded kindness towards her, or her disrespect. Melisende's eyes narrowed at her brow furrowed slightly as he stopped to calm himself down before she spoke quietly.

"If you have so many women to choose from, why choose me?" she asked simply.
 
It was an insightful question and one he had to think carefully to answer, but he realized that it was her ability to ask it that was at the heart of the answer. "I will be honest with you, not because you have earned it as my first love has, but because it is a very intelligent question and part of its own answer. A queen is more than a wife to a king and the mother of princes. I suspect that my first love is a far better wife and my second a far better mother than you shall ever be. But you, like me are cunning, intelligent, strong, and willful, and you have these characteristics in your blood. In a woman, none of them are highly prized but in a man they are the essence of greatness. I plan to raise a race of men like the world has never seen, powerful beyond measure! and you shall give them life. You will either do so because you wish to or you will be forced to do so. I am sure by now that someone as intelligent as you realizes the truth of what I have said. Depending on your view of it you are either the victim or the beneficiary of a king's ambition. I am sure you realize that you cannot do this alone either." He sat silent for several minutes before saying " If you ask my first love, she will say that I know how to love a woman, and it was she that bid me to do so. I shall, for her sake and the kingdoms, and if you will return that love, it will be yours from the heart.

Andrea had slipped out of her clothes and entered the lodge silently. She had heard the last few words he said. They shocked her but she accepted them with out the least judgement. She walked silently up to to where Anders sat, and offered him her dripping breast which he took in silence. She spoke quietly to the woman as she held the man's head. He believes you to be an intelligent woman, but if you cannot recognize the gift you have been given, then your intelligence is wasted on a fool." Her voice was soft and gentle, and she turned her eyes to the man she loved more than herself.
 
Melisende listened to his explanation as to why he chose a woman who outwardly despised him and his people. A woman who openly accused him of stealing her village's lands, of enslaving her people with no remorse. She was strong-willed and independent, a trait she had grown up with as her own family struggled to survive from their own farm lands, lands that were now stolen from them. However, her face still showed the emotions she felt, despite her attempts to hide it, to appear strong at all times. She had been forced into leadership, not born into it and now she was being forced into the role of mother, or so she was being told.

But her attention was distracted by another woman entering the room. It was the one who had tried to manipulate her into submitting to her captor. Turning her head away as the man let her leg descend back into the warm waters of the bath and took the other woman's swollen breast into his mouth as she spoke to Melisende, calling her a fool if she did not recognize the gift of her own captivity. Melisende took a moment to form her response before speaking, her voice calm and collected as she replied to both of their words.

"Love is not something that can be demanded," she replied, remaining still within the bath as her black hair fell into the water with her shoulders as they lowered slightly, "It cannot be taken, stolen or captured. It is a gift that only the bearer can provide. You may marry me and I may bear your children but I do not offer my love to you, for I cannot. You have not proven yourself worthy of that gift and unless it is proven, it shall not be given."

Melisende had no choice but to submit to her captor or she would lose her life, but she was not going to allow him to steal the one thing she still had control over; her own feelings. Those would be given when and if she felt them.
 
Anders let go of Andrea's nipple and calmly answered her. "You seem to hear things the way you expect them to be said instead of how they are. I did not demand your love. I offered you mine first what i said was I know how to love a woman I shall and if you will return that love, it will be yours from the heart. Yes , you have to bear a child , but no you don't have to love me, but if you can, I will love you first and from the heart. I don't desire your love unless you give it willingly. I can forgive, can you? You are carrying a child, my child, when it is born, you may leave it and go, or remain and it shall be yours and many more besides. That choice is yours. I will not have a loveless queen. If you leave you will leave with nothing and live in constant fear. If you stay you may gain my love and have everything."
 
Melisende sank deeper into the bath water, lowering her sore shoulders down into the warm liquid right up to her neck as her captor scolded her for her misunderstanding. But he did offer her a choice when her child was born and that was to leave with nothing, not even her clothes which had been cut from her body on the first night of her capture, and forced to live in fear.

She didn't respond to his offer as he indicated that she would be living under his thumb as a captive if she was with child. Then he spoke of forgiveness, asking her if she was capable of it. Melisende didn't know if she was capable of forgiving him. But that would have to wait. She just stared at her captor and his lover as they sat at the end of the tub, trapping Melisende within its confines.
 
Anders watched as the woman brooded. "look, you need not answer now. You aren't being coerced. But let me warn you. I won't be coerced either. Just as you may accept the offer at any time, until you do accept it, and I mean with a full heart, I may withdraw it at any time and return you to utter slavery.. Let me remind you. There is no doubt. You carry my child, and I shall not be robbed. If you try such a foolish thing it will cost you and the child your lives. I am an honest man. Remember well."

As he left the lodge with Andrea, he instructed the maids, "See to her complete comfort but should she attempt escape, kill her where she stands, child or no." He turned back to Melisendre and said "No harm will come to the child unless you are more foolish than I think you are." With that he wrapped an arm about Andrea, and the pair left her, dressing at the door.
 
Melisende matched his gaze as her captor spoke to her regarding her choice as well as his. Maintaining his control over the situation, he ensured that she would be under his thumb, with the constant threat of being returned to a slavery she was captured in. And he re-iterated that he knew she was with child and threatened to kill her should she try to escape from him.

Once he left, Melisende stood up in the tub, her muscles soothed slightly from the warm water. The maidens approached and dried her off, refusing to even give her anything to cover herself as they ensured she was completely dry before stopping. Melisende's mind was spinning as she fought with his offer, with his threats. Along with her mind, the early pregnancy hormones were starting to wreck havoc on her emotions. She remained silent as she returned to the bed.

Slipping her nude body beneath the covers, it was the first time Melisendre felt truly trapped and helpless. Completely out of control, she curled up into a ball and wrapped her arms around her legs and tears came to her eyes. Turning away from the maidens that stood in the corner of dim lodge, Melisendre allowed herself to express her emotions and she began shaking slightly as silent sobs racked her body.
 
Anders left the woman with her thoughts for two long days and nights. He spent them trying as best he could to return his life to the normal which had existed before Melisende had inserted herself into his life in the middle of the night a fortnight ago. Despite taking the time to see each of his women and bread four of them who were i season, his thoughts seemed always to be on the captive in his lodge. Though he had said she could leave if she wished, in his pwn mind, he was as much a captive as she, but the chains that bound the man were his heart strings. he had said that if she would return his love she would receive it from the heart, but if he were honest it was well past that point, and his second love knew it.
As he lay in bed with Andrea, she held him softly and buried his face between her soft full breasts. " She has stolen you from me." Andrea said gently, but I shall never begrudge you her pleasure. Only promise that you will always return in my time of need and leave me with another child to bring you glory and me comfort. Now go to her, and don't leave until she belongs to you, heart body and soul. This is my advice."

Anders did not need more prompting, he rose immediately and entered the dim light of the lodge and dismissed the maidens.
 
Melisende spent much of the two days in the bed, her tears ending after the first couple of hours she was left alone. She only rose to eat as the maidens were still following orders to have her fed three full meals a day, whether she wanted them or not. She was left alone, without any discourse or contact with anyone other than the maidens for two days and two nights. Over that time, she began to feel tingling within her stomach, her pale skin becoming softer with each day.

On the morning of the second day, she arose from the bed and walked to the table to accept her breakfast. Eating the offered vegetables, fish, bread and fruit, she then rose from her meal and walked to the hearth, the fire burning at about half. Sitting down, her body still naked, she sat down in one of the chairs facing the flames within the hearth. Pulling her knees up to her chest, she remained there until she heard the heavy wooden door of her prison opening and the heavy footsteps of her captor entering. Only turning her head slightly to see him out of the corner of her eye, she then returned her attention to the fire, the orange flames flickering within her crystal blue eyes as he dismissed the maidens, leaving them alone together.
 
Following his own custom, he disrobed at the door and pulling up a chair by the fire, he sat beside her and watched the gently flickering flames as they made playful patterns on her alabaster white skin. "I have missed you." he said simply without embellishment. If I am honest even though i have promised that you may leave if you wish, I curse the day I uttered those words. For fifteen years, I have wanted for nothing that a man could dream of. I have the best of everything. Food, comfort, even women, for even before you arrived everyone envied me all of my women but especially Hilde and Andrea. Since you have arrived though that which I want most is not mine to take except by force, and what I most desire is to by taken by it or rather you! What is it, if anything that might convince you to give yourself willingly to me. What is the price of true love. Not something half-hearted for that would only let me die of desire but true love from the depth of your heart?
 
Melisendes eyes remained fixed on the flames flickerIng within the fire as he approached and sat down next to her. She scoffed at his simple words of missing her. It was the closest she had come to a smile in weeks despite its sarcastic and disbelieving roots. But he continued, professing that he had come to a realization. An epiphany that despite his cruelty, his control and her imprisonmenr, that he was finding himself with an affection for his captive.

Melisende listened without interruption as he spoke, questioning what it would take to win her heart, her eyes still following the dancing flames as they flicked across the hearth. Pulling her knees closer to her chest, she rested her chin on them, unsure of how to reply to his confession. Was it a trick? A ploy to manipulate her into a vulnerable state? What did he want from her? Her mind was running circles through the myriad of questions as she didn't answer his question, as her eyes began to glisten slightly with the beginnings of tears, the pregnancy effects causing her emotions to swing wildly, despite her minds protestations.
 
"I guess I scarcely could blame you for not trusting me" he said when she didn't answer. I don't really want to buy your love. I told you that honestly before. Like it or not you have my love already without a price. Walk out the door if you wish. No one will harm you. Say the word, and your clothes will be restored. I won't hold you by force another minute, but do not toy with my heart. I want to threaten you to keep you, but my heart will no longer allow it. Go if you must, I release you, but if you so crush me do not expect my trust again. My comrades will think me weak for my decision, and hound me at my door seeking their chance to conquer a lovesick hero, but they and you will find a bitter enemy if you return to me later. Stay with me."
 
Melisende felt a warmth growing within her as he spoke of love. Of loving her, of offering her the chance at departure all the while despairing at his feelings of loss should she decide to go on her own. Melisende took a few moments of silence to contemplate what he was saying. It had been said so many times that she was beginning to believe that she was, indeed, carrying his child, her body's early changes further solidifying it. And she began to feel pangs of guilt rack her mind as she contemplated leaving. She would be left alone in the wilderness, her home destroyed as she would struggle to survive with a bastard child. Here, the child would be safe and cared for. Melisende's heart was torn between freedom and her captivity, between rebuilding her life with great difficulty alone, or having her child and herself cared for and comfortable at the hands of an invader.

"If I stay," Melisende offered, still not sure whether she could trust his words, "Will you release the people of my village and return their land to them?"
 
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