Work Text:
Akrisae was determined not to waste even one more second of his time.
He'd been sleeping fitfully, and every time he'd woken, there were a hundred new possible disasters weighing on his mind. Too many problems, not enough solutions, and with the entire world at stake...
He simply could not fail.
He'd got out of bed in the middle of the night, got dressed as if it was day, and immediately headed for the strategy room. The corridors' torches were long since out, but the path was burned into his mind: recent days seemed divided entirely between the strategy room and the few hours of sleep he would manage in his bedroom.
He envied Silif sometimes, going in the field and out of this stifling air. Sometimes seniority had its downsides.
Here he was at the familiar doorway, which appeared to be open --
Oh.
Clearly, he wasn't the only person struggling to sleep.
Idria, one of those perplexing Guardians of Armadyl, was pacing in her constant, familiar pattern; she may as well have been hypnotised by the slow back-and-forth, for all the awareness she seemed to have of the world outside her mind. Akrisae doubted she'd even noticed him. Chances were, she was occupied by thoughts that weren't too dissimilar from his.
The single lit torch in the room cast shifting shadows on her pale robe in a ceaseless flowing pattern. Akrisae watched, suspended in some strange reverence: he dared not interrupt, dared not interfere. For a moment, he observed, and his mind was quiet.
That peace was finite. Worries always did slither their way back in, with no care for his efforts to dispel them. He could make out tiny details on the table -- an outline here, a marker there -- and as much as he wanted to leave Idria undisturbed...
Akrisae entered the room; Idria came to an immediate halt. She twitched her head round, staring at him with her bright, open eyes, and he caught a sharp breath.
"Hello, Akrisae," she said, and her voice was soft. Soft as the firelight that danced on her eyes. "I could use some company on a night like this."
Could she? Or was that simply a polite excuse?
He shouldn't, mustn't overthink this. The stress of current events had struck chaos into his once-ordered thoughts, toppling mental bookcases like dominoes. Pages of thoughts were strewn in disorder. One idea would flood into the next, down a thousand different channels, splitting and dividing and cracking and, and, and
"Akrisae?"
She had come closer. He hadn't noticed, just as lost in his thoughts as she had been.
There were a hundred thousand things that he was desperate to check or change, but one came to mind most immediately: "Idria, have you had trouble thinking lately?"
He was hit by a sudden worry that she might take this as an insult... and even having that worry was a surprise. He knew that his words had all the subtlety of hammers, but more often than not, he would bring them down with their full force regardless -- no matter who the target was.
Except here. With Idria.
She responded: "Oh, absolutely." Not a hint of being insulted; he thanked Saradomin for that. Yet a trace of melancholy tinged her voice when she went on to explain: "I cannot keep hold of any one thought. They fly away faster than I can catch them."
He'd suspected as much. "Do you think you know why?"
An obvious answer. But why not hear it in her words? Her voice?
"I do know." There's such a heaviness there, hardly fitting for her or her pagan religion. "Just three nights ago, I attended to the death of several fellow Guardians. I performed what rites I could, but I worry that I came too late. I fear their souls are still chained to the ground, unable to ever break free."
That struck him. Even the Temple Knights hardly knew a thing about the Guardians, but one thing he knew was that they were very few. The loss she had suffered... it would have affected her far more than it could affect him, in a way he simply had not realised until now.
Just another error in judgement. He was no good to anyone like this, least of all her.
"I'm sorry," was all he could think to say.
No, it was about time he got on with what he came down here for. Extracts from Movario's notes had been copied down and covered from edge to edge with annotations, underlines, commentary. He reached a hand for one to bring it closer, knowing there was something he had to have forgotten--
Idria's hand was touching his, and suddenly the point of contact consumed the whole of his focus.
"It's alright, Akrisae," she stated with gentle firmness.
"Is it?" he found himself saying, snatching his hand away. "No, how can you say that? Nothing is alright! Your people have been attacked, for no reason but sending a brutal message. Nobody is safe, Idria, and they are only the first of many!"
For a moment, there was silence between them: time enough for Akrisae to breathe, to realise he'd raised his voice -- and regret it.
"I know, Akrisae," said Idria in controlled exasperation. "What's happened has happened. I don't like it, neither do you, and I can see it's got the both of us losing sleep. But all that we can do is work with the situation as it stands."
There was something quietly resolute about her: a constant strength of determination, in her posture and her voice. For all the Guardians claimed that they had no true leader... Akrisae knew one when he saw one.
"There is a solution to this," she said. "And Akrisae, I know that we can find it."
In part, he thought her naive, but on another level her words resonated: if they had any chance of surviving and not just going down fighting, then this reckless, naive hope would be exactly what they all needed.
"You're right about one thing," was all he conceded: "I don't like it."
He was digging himself deeper, and he knew it. He didn't know how to do anything else.
Idria sighed, setting her hands on her hips. "Must you be so transparent?"
What?! "Transparent?!" he spluttered, in an instant of outrage.
"I expected more of the Temple Knights. You're renowned for your secrecy, and yet you are an open book."
That statement was punctuated by a prod of her finger on his chest. The utter nerve!
She marched around behind him, impelling him to turn: he did so, to see her half-sitting too casually on an empty table behind her. "Tell me, Akrisae," she demanded. "Have you been having trouble thinking lately?"
He said nothing. He clamped his mouth shut in stubborn silence.
"Akrisae."
Fine. "Yes. Yes, I have." There, he'd admitted it. The first and only person he'd admitted it to.
"Then that is where our problem lies... and we must work on solving it."
Idria took him aside. She grasped the sides of his hood and pulled them down around his head: where once only his eyes had flickered beneath it, now his full face was exposed from the shadow.
"That's better," she said. "Nothing to hide now, Temple Knight." Was that a coquettish note to her tone?
"There is always something to hide," he insisted.
"Oh, come now, Akrisae. Must there be?"
Her tone was unmistakeable! What could he say to that?
"'Must there be'?! Idria! Must you be like this?" he hissed, compelled to whisper despite his frustration. "On days like these, and here of all places?" He gesticulated aggressively at the table and all the precious planning it held, not caring one iota about the 'transparency' of his expression.
"Why not? What better time or place? By my reckoning, there's no better setting for this. Both of us, though quite honestly you in particular, could do with some respite from all that." She flapped a hand at the table, mocking his earlier gesture. "Besides..." She stepped closer to him, closing the already-small gap; Akrisae didn't know what to think, though he knew who'd be dominating whatever thoughts he might have. "Your exact wording: 'days like these'. I don't know if you've noticed, Akrisae, but it is the middle of the night. So on that basis alone, I'd say..." She walked a pair of fingers up his chest, finishing at the underside of the chin. "We're off the hook."
As much as Akrisae wanted to reply, wanted to burst out in holy anger at this impetuous pagan... something about the pinpoint placement of that single fingertip on his chin had left him utterly lost for words.
"Something on your mind?" she teased. "Care to share a Temple Knight secret?"
That snapped him right out of it. He stepped back, away from the intrusive fingertip. "Don't fool yourself, Idria," he retorted. "You're still just as worried as I am, as much as you've started pretending otherwise."
She rolled her eyes. "Maybe I am, Akrisae. Maybe I am. Is that really the ideal outcome here, though? Both of us drowning in our own worry? You have nothing to prove, and neither can I. Can't we just drop the pretense?"
"What pretense?" That was weak, he admonished himself.
"Oh, I'm not that naive, and you really are an open book. There's something about me that's caught your interest, and as stubborn as you may be, I think that might just be mutual."
The open acknowledgement struck him silent, and in no comfortable way. Although his Temple Knight status freed him from his White Knight oath, it still felt dishonest to take advantage of that freedom like this...
Idria's voice faltered when she spoke. "Akrisae? I'm sorry, if this isn't okay..."
And yet he hated to see her in such an uncertain state. She deserved better than that, and he...
He took the opportunity to push back her hood, and marvelled at how fiercely her golden hair shone in the torchlight -- allowed himself to feel that admiration, refusing to judge himself for it. He wove the fingers of one hand into it, and felt her head lean back into the embrace. The other hand cupped the soft skin at her jaw.
They closed the final distance, and kissed: just gently, just for a second, but it ended with their faces closer together than they'd ever been before.
That wasn't something he'd ever done before. He was grateful to not be regretting it -- but that was a background concern, overshadowed by the joy of having experienced it.
She smiled warmly, her eyes flickered half shut. "Finally," she said.
"This doesn't mean you win," he made certain, smiling back.
"Oh, I should hope not!" Idria grinned. "The night's still young, and I'm nowhere near done with our game!" Abruptly, she pulled his hood over his head, so far down that it covered his eyes; she took the excuse to dash away, almost giggling from her glee. Disorientated from her devious shenanigans, Akrisae fixed his hood only to see her flee through the doorway on the right.
Well then, he thought. Don't think you'll be getting away with that.
For the first time in days, he wished that the night could be longer.