Sensitive Negotiations: Part 1
Despite the passing of spring, the snow falls heavily when they arrive in Vitsjo. Obi is learning, as little as he likes it, that in the North the seasons are far more fluid, far less inclined to make a distinct four. So close to Sama, anything that is not high summer is liable to include snow. He yearns for a place where at least in spring the snow melts.
Vitsjo’s lord is there to greet them, his sons flanking him to either side, fur cloaks bristling with snow. Hideo’s brow is heavy, his face angular and grim, but as they approach his mouth widens in greeting. His smile transforms his face, highlighting the creases around his mouth and eyes, well-worn from good humor. Obi finds himself liking the man before they are even close enough to speak.
The feeling does not extend to his sons. Their faces are long and petulant, and when they ride close enough to be clearly seen he does not miss the way their gazes slide covetously to the cardinal red peaking out of Miss’s hood.
Hideo throws open his arms, the gesture encompassing all of the stones around him. “Welcome to Vitsjo!”
Miss’s smile is bright and earnest; he’s seen it a thousand times, but his breath catches anyway. There is no getting used to the way he feels about her. “Thank you for having us, Lord Hideo.”
“It is an honor, I assure you, my lady.” He slants his head toward the manor. “Come, come. You are wet and hungry. We may not be as civilized as the capital, but I promise you will be greatly entertained during your stay!”
“Don’t tell your sheep story,” Miss warns him.
She is lovely in her dinner dress, a muted dove gray that makes the porcelain of her skin nearly luminescent in the candlelight. In the south, where seed pearls and delicate beading were in fashion, it would be considered plain, but Obi has always liked its lace trim, its very subtle embroidery. It fits her in a way he can’t explain. Poetry does not come easy to him.
“I don’t have a sheep story,” he protests stubbornly. “And even if I did, by your account these lords would lap it up.”
“You do so.” A blush settles high on her cheeks, pronounced against her pale skin. “You made me listen to all of it when you were deep in your cups at Lord Tadashi’s, and you --”
She purses her lips, the stain on her cheeks creeping down to her neck. “In any case,” she continues, looking anywhere but at him. “You’ll eventually run into a lord who isn’t charmed by the thunder beast. I don’t think Lord Hideo or his sons are the type who find barnyard animals diverting, unless they’re on a platter.”
“Miss.” He presses a hand to his heart, shocked. “You never said I told you all of the story.”
She stiffens guiltily, her fingers trembling on the wool of his formal coat. “Oh, I didn’t? I could have sworn --”
“You’ll have to tell it to me,” he insists, grinning as her flush deepens. “Then I’ll finally know about this supposed lord of thunder.”
“No!” The word bursts out of her, surprising them both. “I mean, it was just…very confusing. And I was…distracted…”
“Distracted?” His brow furrows. “By what?”
“You were just…” She still won’t look at him. “Oddly emphatic about certain parts.” She rubs her free hand over her thigh. “Very emphatic.”
There’s something odd about how she says that, enough that he wants to press.
“Sir Obi,” Lord Hideo calls out as he approaches. “We thought you would never make it to dinner.”
Miss takes the opportunity to flit away from his side, greeting Lord Hideo with a wide smile. Obi frowns. She has another thing coming, if she thinks it’s that easy to give him the slip.
Hideo does not disappoint. There are over twenty guests at dinner, nearly five full courses, and the dishes are so savory that not even the palpable hostility between his sons can sour the meal. Seated between the two of them, Miss does not seem to share his opinion.
Obi, for his part, can’t complain about his place. Though he had hoped to be closer to his miss, the young woman he escorting into dining room -- Mika, she says he should call her -- is pleasant company, if a little dull.
“His lordship’s sons are quite brotherly,” he remarks during a lull in conversation. “I’ve never had one myself, but I assume the intense rivalry is expected.”
“Oh.” She is a pretty thing, wide blue eyes and hair the color of summer wheat. It’s no surprise Hideo has seated her at the other end of the table to display her to her best effect. He wonders which son she is meant for. “No, they quite hate each other.”
He blinks, surprised at her honesty. “There’s a story behind that, I’d bet.”
“Not as much as you’d think,” she replies, eyelashes fluttering demurely. “Daisuke is his first wife’s son, and Tarou the second’s. They never got on well, and Tarou has always been a little too ambitious for his own good.”
He smirks around the rim of his wine glass. “Eager to be an only child?”
“Exactly.” Obi clamps his lips down from spitting out his drink. She only smiles wistfully, tracing the rim of her glass. “The only thing they hate more than each other is Hideo’s third wife.”
That intrigues him; he hasn’t seen a woman to put the title to the whole evening, and he’s about to ask just where the Countess Vitsjo can be found when Hideo stands.
“If the ladies could follow my wife out,” he says with a pleasant smile, “I believe it is time for port.”
Mika stands, smoothing her skirt. “If you would follow me, ladies.”
“The third marriage is best,” Hideo confides in him, two glasses deep. “That’s when you marry for love.”
Obi finds that highly unlikely.
It is just as Lata warned them: in the North the word of a man is twice that of a woman’s.
Hideo is at least amused by Miss’s arguments for the olin maris over dinner, wearing the same expression an indulgent father would. His sons are far worse; whichever one champions her cause, the other must shred to pieces, and their bickering is as ubiquitous as the clattering of sliver against porcelain.
No matter how much headway Miss tries to make during dinner, it is always undone by dessert, and it is left to Obi to impress the seriousness of their request over port.
That is, until tonight.
He is about to broach the topic – his lordship and his sons are drunk enough to be swayed, but not so much that they won’t remember their promises in the morning – when the study’s door bursts open.
His miss is flushed, though he can’t quite tell if it is with anger or drink, and she strides up to the table, throwing herself down at one end.
“Pour me a glass,” she demands, and then, mind having caught up with er mouth, adds, “If you would, please.”
Obi has traveled all over creation, but he’s never seen cows like Vitsjo’s, all shaggy coats and curling horns. They look more fit for battle than milking. Tarou is insistent that they can be tipped, if only you know the trick. Obi thinks its more likely for Vitsjo’s walls to fall.
“But will it hurt them?” Miss asks, face screwed up with concern, running a hand through one’s damp fur.
They’d only had two or three more glasses of port – enough to make him a little unsteady on his legs for a moment, and more than enough to make the lords stumbling drunk, excited to go out and chase sheep and wreak havoc. Miss, already bold with drink, had seized the opportunity.
She’s a city-girl, not used to the games bored country children invent to pass time, and he only remembers when she shies at the edge of the field, admitting she’s not sure what tipping cows involves.
Daisuke’s mouth cants in a mean-spirited grin. “Oh yes. Makes their stomachs burst when they land.” When she squeaks, alarmed, he creeps in closer. “Not to worry, lady. What’s on our land is our property.”
Obi doesn’t realize he’s clenching his fists until his blunt nails big into his palms. It’d be stupid to strike a lord’s son, not if he wants Hideo to agree to Miss’s proposal.
It doesn’t mean it isn’t tempting.
“Don’t listen to him,” Tarou spits, glaring at his brother. “It doesn’t hurt them in the slightest. They just get back up. And then you run.”
She blinks, turns to look up at him. “Run?”
Later, he’ll point out just how wrong she was about the barnyard animal thing. Right now, it’s hard enough just keeping her alive.
“You could ride with me, lady,” Tarou offers, holding his hand down, “I’ll see you safely back.”
“No, come with me.” Daisuke elbows his brother out of the way. “He’ll only try to lead you astray.”
“Me?” Hideo’s second son looks ready to demand satisfaction.
His miss sways awkwardly, hunching her shoulders, as if by making herself small she could make them overlook her entirely.
“Apologies, my lords,” he says with a grin, “but my mistress rides with me.”
They grumble a bit at that, but both are too canny to argue with such a convenient compromise. After all, what threat does a knight pose for an heir and an ambitious second son?
He waves them on, only goading them to action when he mentions how their father might soon awaken from his stupor and find them missing: sons, entourages, and diplomatic envoy all. They make noises about duty, saving face in front of their hangers-on, but he knows they are driven more by their father’s displeasure than any great desire to serve him.
Which leaves him with the problem of getting his mistress up on his horse.
“I know how to ride now, Obi,” she tells him, words hardly slurred. He knows better.
“As I said, Miss, it’s my job as your knight to have you ride with me.” Not to mention he’d hardly trust her to ride a cart right now, never mind try to direct a horse.
He’d hoped that the fresh air would sober her, but instead it’s made her in turns giddy and belligerent. She had insisted on checking each massive cow for signs of pregnancy before tipping them, only to remember that she had no experience with livestock and settle for cautiously prodding their bellies.
It had been a long night. And it was promising to be longer if she couldn’t keep a seat.
Her sudden...handsiness isn’t helping either. His miss has always been tactile, ready with a comforting touch or reaching for a steadying hand, but tonight it is more, her palms somehow constantly seeking out the planes of his body. He tries to boost her up onto his mount, only for her to get distracted by the line of his shoulders, or the bristle of his hair. It’s not exactly unwelcome -- as if any attention from her could be -- but it’s certainly not convenient.
He finally arranges her so that she is steady enough to wait for him. He swings himself up, careful not to touch her in the slightest – he had the first time, and she had slid right off – and settles in front of her.
Her arms clench around his abdomen like a vise, and he feels the whole of her pressed up against his back. A low steady heat begins to build in his groin, as it always does when she’s so close. He’s too tipsy to ignore it entirely, but the feel of it is less distracting and more – pleasant. He loves her, he wants her, but he doesn’t need to do anything about it.
Her hands press flat against his stomach, her touch muted by his layers of clothes. “I wish you weren’t wearing your coat,” she sighs, head heavy on his back.
“Oh?” he laughs. His miss doesn’t get drunk often, but when she does it is an experience. “Are you cold? Do you want to be wearing it?”
“No.” Her fingers idly drag over the fur, tracing whirling patterns up his chest and across his stomach. “It makes it harder to feel you.”
“Erk?” he asks eloquently.
“You’ve got so many muscles,” she tells him wistfully. “I like the way they feel when they move.”
“O-oh?” He knows its not her intention, but she has him tense, aroused. Her words have him wound too tight . “Too bad they’re not much to look at with all the scars --”
“No, I like those.” His heart thuds loudly in his ears. He should not be hearing this, not when her hands drift further south. “I mean -- I don’t like that you were hurt, but -- I like how you look like you’ve lived. There’s…texture to you.”
His ribs are a size to small to contain the wholeness of his heart. “Miss,” he manages. No one has ever --
“I wonder what it would feel like under my mou --”
“Miss!” He clasps a hand over her wrists to keep them from moving. His grin is painful, laugh entirely forced. “You shouldn’t joke about such things. You could give a man ideas.”
“About what?” she asks, confused. Her hands still under his. He lets out a sigh of relief; of course his miss didn’t mean anything like that. She tugs her arms, testing to see if she can free them. “Obi, you’re awful strong.”
“Don’t forget it, Miss.” He lets go of her wrists, meaning to tease her about ideas, when they drop down to his thighs and knead.
“I bet you could hold me down with just these, couldn’t you?” Her tone isn’t seductive but rather conversational. “I think about that a lot when I ride with you.”
“Y-yes.” His thighs clench, and he hears her hum against his back. “I could. But we really shouldn’t – that’s not really something I think Master would like you talking about. With me.”
“Do you think you could hold Zen down too?” He groans. This is…not the sort of picture he needs right now. “Or Kiki?”
This has got to stop.
“Miss, if you can’t behave back there, you’ll have to go in front,” he threatens, but he’s not sure how much better that would be, having her all pressed against his front, her curves so close to -- things.
She rears back. “But I am --”
Gravity and inebriation finally take their toll, and she nearly tips right off the horse. He catches her at the last minute, practically manhandling her to slot her in front of him. She’s breathing hard; he can feel her heart beating against his chest.
“Behave, Miss,” he pleads. He can’t take much more of this.
She nods, leaning back against his chest. Within moments, the steady movement of the horse and the alcohol take their toll, and she lies limp in his arms.
Never has he been so relieved to not hear her voice.
