Waiting for you forever

Darkness settled around me like a jewelled cloak of velvet black, hiding me, protecting me. If I were a child, this would be naught but a silly game, one that would end in scraped knees and squeals of laughter, me grinning and my two brothers scowling over losing to a slip of a girl.

Again.

But not this time.

Tonight, beneath the dim light of the half-clad moon, away from the sounds and safety of my Father's hall, I knew there would be no escaping. I was just turned sixteen, old enough to know that this was no game, that I was no longer a child and this man anything but my brother.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are...” he whispered, his voice carrying ever so softly on the cool breeze. “You know I’ll find you, little dove.”

Little dove. How long had it been since he'd called me that? His footsteps crunched on the unswept stones beside me and I pressed myself against the chill wall at my back, willing my gown of dark lavender to blend in. He was so close, so very painfully close.

“You promised, remember?”

The image of that night, its breathless exhilaration, its terrifying promise, engulfed my trembling body. Of course I remembered. How could I forget?

We’d found ourselves alone in my Fathers study, as we had a thousand times before. I in my father's chair, my legs curled beneath me as I watched dampening flames flicker out of existence, and him, whittling away at a tiny piece of wood, the gleam of his blade casting dazzling patterns on the beamed ceiling above.

“What are you making?” I’d asked, my curiosity drawing me into a crouch beside him.

He’d grinned at me, a lopsided smile that showed off the dimple in his left cheek.

“It’s a present, little dove.”

“A present?” I leant closer, trying to see past the tilt of his tanned hand and the confident strokes of his small knife. “For who?”

He shrugged, and I couldn’t help but notice how broad he'd grown, in both chest and shoulder. I shook the disturbing thought from my mind and turned my attention back to the little trinket, held safe in his hand.

“Show me.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Please.”

His blade slowed despite my tone and I could see him mulling it over, deciding whether or not to give into me as he usually did. He sighed, sheathed his knife and slipped the frustrating secret into his pocket.

“Another time, Catty.”

I lifted my chin and glared at him. “Don’t make me wrestle you for it. You know I’ll win.”

He snorted as he uncurled himself and stood, towering over me. I shot up an instant later, straitening my skirts in an effort to hide my fury that he’d outgrown me, not just by the usual hand span or two, but an entire head and shoulders.

“It’s not proper or right for young ladies to wrestle. Besides, that was years ago. We’re not little children anymore.”

It was my turn to snort. He was calling me - me! A young lady? I was a beanpole, a moon kissed stick with barely a curve on her. Budding ones maybe, but nothing even close to womanly, not yet at least. And I had neither the time nor patience for the intricacies of tamed hair and precious gowns of eye catching colours and revealing cuts.

No. A Lady, I was not.

“You’re a woman in your own right Caitlyn,” He said, as if hearing my thoughts.

I stared at him, unable to swallow the thick lump of surprise that seemed to have wedged itself in my throat.

He turned from me without a backwards glance, heading for the door. “I should go. Fynn would kill me if he found us alone together.”