Amika puts Samaren through an exercise in control, to unexpected results (post-GotBL)

[guardiansverse]

"One day," Amika said, "you will cross a line even I cannot cross back."

Samaren looked unconvinced by the concept. He sat on the corner of her desk one foot up, one against the floor, in perfect balance. His chain-whip was unspooled in his hands, gleaming metal pulled casually between his fingers. "He wanted a duel. I granted him one."

"A duel implies some even chance for both parties."

"And calling me to one implies asking for something."

"We knew the man was a reckless fool, and all men who are not already fear you. What did this prove?"

"What does it matter? He wanted to die, I wanted to kill, and we both know that you wanted him gone."

Amika opened her mouth, and closed it again. A problem with the Rogue Guardian, this: he said a hundred things he mustn't, cold and graceless and casually cruel, but none of them were ever lies.

She glanced down at the missive in her hand. The Kaiser was very rarely inclined to outrage, but when driven to it he wrote of it with distressing eloquence. "If I extricate you, that is the first thing tongues in court will wag over." They were wagging already, with vigour and relish - and not all of them with outrage, in truth. That was worth considering later, perhaps. In the meantime, here they were.

Samaren shrugged. She would never get him to repent. "It was a lawful duel. Gloves were thrown and all the rest."

"You are not yet a Hyemi nobleman, Captain, to be able to duel legally." Her tongue was acid on the yet, and he laughed. "You cannot go about killing every fool overjealous of his honour."

"And what of my honour?"

Amika snorted, not without genuine amusement.

She sighed, letting the missive drop among the riot of work on her desk. "I shall remind Franz that you are not his subject and are outside certain laws. But this cannot repeat. In the long term, this death may be a relief..."

Samaren said nothing, only twisted the length of the chain-whip in his hands.

"But in the short term, many from the Kaiser down will not well tolerate that you obey no law an no word."

"None but one."

Amika straightened sharply in her chair. He said it often, and as often as he said it she believed. And yet, sometimes, sometimes...

"Stand up."

He did not obey readily; never quite that. He gave her an odd look. But he did slip off the desk corner and got to his feet, and stood at easy parade rest as she came up beside him. Moved with her, curious and uncommenting, as she ushered him into a corner away from the windows. A lantern was affixed to the wall there, just beside the door, with ornate bronze fittings. She placed him under it, the curved metal just brushing the top of his head.

"Raise your arms," she said, seeing through her impulse. "To either side of the lantern."

"What is this?" He sounded flatly confused, without suspicion. As he held up his hands, catching them together from both sides of the metal - she could predict his physical habits with sometimes unnerving ease - Amika worked one of the ribbons holding her crown of braids free.

She had to stretch herself to tiptoes, but that was just enough to let her reach and tie his wrists together. The white lace fluttered above the cold bronze.

Samaren made no sound, even as her reach made her press against his chest. He stood very still as she completed the knot: a tight one, but only as fabric was tight. It could not hold a man of any conviction. It would never hold him.

She stood back.

He raised an eyebrow at last. "Am I meant to stay here?"

"Just as you are, yes."

"How long?"

"As long as I command it."

"What for?"

"For the sake of my command."

He was already uncomfortable, she could see: not yet in pain, that would be some time, but his hands had lost colour as the blood left them, and the bronze sat between them awkwardly. She waited.

Samaren tipped his head back, eyes wide and glinting, and did not move.

Slowly, Amika backed away and returned to her chair. She did not keep her eyes on her handiwork. Her desk was full of papers, in a disappointing state of scatter and neglect: reports from her Guardians, missives from parliament, notes from petitioners and the occasional nobleman's stab at winning favour through poetry. Ordinary work. She began to shuffle them into piles, sorting by urgency and the length of time it would take her to compose a reply. The afternoon stretched before her, long and quiet and full.

The line between sunlight and shadow moved across her papers in the lazy shift of minute degrees, gleaming now and then off undried ink. She did not look at the corner. Now and then she heard the faintest scrape of boots on the wooden floor, as Samaren shifted his weight, too minute to signal much of a change in his posture. Once there was a louder clatter, but when she glanced up from her pen it was only a bird by the window. He had not moved. His back was erect, shoulders up in the balanced tension of perfect control, and his face was sealed: she had turned to other business, but he had never looked away.

It must have been at least an hour. He had not flagged: she had never expected him to, but there were new lines of tension in the muscles of his shoulders, his chest, faintly straining against his shirt. She saw that particular set of his jaw that said pain. His eyes bore into her.

She inclined her head, just a fraction, and saw the set tighten. The edge of a tremor that had begun in his arms disappeared. Another man might have seen in the gesture the acknowledgement it signified: Samaren saw only challenge, as he saw anywhere and everywhere.

She did not strictly know how long a man could hold the position before it started to do him damage. There was something very fine, she thought suddenly, about the strain in his strong, graceful body. The shape of muscles brought out and defined in their effort, the tight control over slow, deep breathing; the hint of harrowing effort shaking the exhale. She started sneaking glances, between papers, at the ribbon of fine lace that was all there was between him and relief. The flimsy fabric was fluttering like a small being's heartbeat, but never fell lower, never lost its tension.

Her ribbon. The delicate white between the steel of his wrists and the cold bronze. With every glance she begun to feel the expectation in her own shoulders and arms, a needling heat. And she began to feel it lower.

She stopped herself shifting in her seat, privately appalled to realize she had begun to do so. Tried to focus on the piece of water rights legislature laid down on her desk. She was not used to this pooling sensation in the pit of her stomach, pulsing faintly with her blood. A faint, rasping hiss of breath drew her attention to the corner, but she dared not look again. The sound itself had already rushed down her spine like small lightning.

Plenty more paper on the desk. At least another hour before supper. She could linger here good while longer. Listening: every breath he took was between gritted teeth now, but she had not heard him shift his position. He had not yet. He would not if it killed him. Only she could command that he -

With the feeling of being rattled all over, she turned in her chair, leveled her look at him. His arms were very faintly trembling, the core of his body tight as he drew on the strength of larger muscles, pain giving a clammy tint to his skin. His face was lowered, eyes narrowed. Straining herself to breathe steadily, she rose from her chair for a closer look. She did not want him incapacitated, or driven to collapse...

Samaren did not look up at her. His trousers, she realized, were very obviously tight.

Amika pulled back with a start, the only thing stopping her from a much sharper response was the look of biting resentment on his face. Not quite to the point of anger, more a defiant misery, as he followed her gaze down his own body. He had expected every bit of the pain, but most certainly not this. She quirked up a brow, fighting to keep her face otherwise still.

"Stop staring, doma," he said in a grunt. She pursed her lips so hard they almost hurt, against any number of unacceptably pleased sounds. "I promise you, this is news to me."

She was sure of it. He would never have permitted the exercise if he had known. And yet here they were. Amika could think of no possible way out of the situation: none save one. She would regret it later. But at least she would regret it in private.

"For that," she said, arch and cold, "you may stand here for another hour. Do not slip. I will know."

She turned on her heel then and walked out the door, talking with every grace and composure until it was shut behind: with no idea of how she might know, but very sure that it did not natter. She already knew all she needed to, and possibly, quite possibly, more.