The WAR: A Story of Family

5. Trouble

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That this blue exists makes my life a remarkable one, just to have seen it. To have seen such beautiful things. To find oneself placed in their midst. Choiceless. I returned there yesterday and stood again upon the mountain."

BLUE BEACON

The days pressed on and the weather had turned frigid and cold.

After little more than a few weeks together Avyanna and Alistair were still getting to know each other, and the more time that she spent with her new husband Avyanna realized that she had loved him from afar and in the quiet spaces of her heart while they were in school. Now, she knew that she had come to love him so much more.

She liked him, she loved him, and she would choose him in any life.

It irritated her to say goodbye to him each morning... and found herself anxious each night waiting to greet hello to him when he came back...

She was grateful for his patience as they continued to move things physically at a slow pace.

Avyanna loved the feel of his lips, his kisses, the feel of his body against hers. They kissed a lot, gently, slowly, intensely. Every time that he kissed her it was all consuming, but there was a hunger in him that he kept at bay for her sake.

They never did more than kiss, and his hands rarely moved below her shoulders, if anything they moved to settle at her waist and no more.

She loved the feel of him and occasionally he took her hand to guide on his body, he wanted her hands to explore him, to learn, to know him, but her fingers would graze across his chest and down his hard stomach and stop.

Alistair did not push her.

Yet Avyanna would see the burning desire for her in his eyes, but he remained patient. He remained very patient.

Alistair did not touch her how he really wanted to, but he enjoyed the particular pain of tension between them. It was alive and growing, and he watched it curiously, interested to see where it led. And how long he could bear the ache of wanting her physically.

Avyanna alternated her days between Gilder just like she had discussed with Alistair.

And when she were not teaching then she was foraging in the woods of the estate, expanding on her knowledge of Healing and the herbs that benefited ailments and sickness.

She could be gone for hours filling her basket and was always left to her own devises.

On this particular early morning Avyanna had taken the carriage into the picturesque town outside of Hollyheed with Jon, shadowing her again while she moved between the stalls.

Avyanna carried her cloth satchel and browsed the little shops.

She picked up and inspected plants and herbs.

She passed a stall selling used books where she run her fingers along each spine, stopping to pull a title from the cart to scan the pages.

A sense of wellbeing flowed through Avyanna as she walked through the market.  A noisy, friendly haven away from the Manor.

As usual she lost herself in her own thoughts and surroundings, and she had walked so much and so far that she had lost sight of Jon and he of her. Avyanna only glanced once over her shoulder confirming he was no longer behind her before she continued to walk on.

The market was a safe place and fairly close to Hollyheed, there was no need for him to be concerned.

She understood Jon's need to fulfill a role as a sort of guard and not risk Alistair's anger, but it was also not the coachman's job to protect her, and she imagined she was safe in the market.