Who: Natalie Kelly & Dexter Henley (npc'd) What: Happily Ever After? When: 3/37/2010, Late evening Where: Chicago, IL Warnings: Angst, Mild language?
A friend of a friend once said that it was probably a bad idea to go walking in Chicago after dark, but he also said it was a good way to sort things out when you had a lot on your mind. So she walked.
The trail through the park took her on a meandering route through scattered trees, which helped to break up some of the stagnant energy that had gathered around her. Natalie/Keleios' particular energy may not have manifested the way that Dex/Dresden's did, but when a couple of magic types spent as much time together as they had been lately, they tended to rub off each other. Not that it was always an unpleasant sort of rubbing...
But Kel still had to much weight on her shoulders for the thought to really cheer her up just then.
It had all started to settle in about a week ago, when they received word that Dex' roommate and fellow hunter of things that bump and grind in the dark--and not in the fun way--was taking an extended vacation. Now, Natalie was as used to Jax' coming and going as Jax had probably grown to hers, but this time, it didn't look like Jax was coming back. Add to that the news that Camelot was planning a coup de grace against CORE, to be carried out within the next two weeks' time, and there was a lot hanging in the balance. Right over her head.
She fingered one of the charms around her neck that allowed her to teleport safely, easily, and directly into Dex' house without fear of getting zapped by his protective wards. Her Dial-Home Device. Or hearthstone. The two of them had worked out the spell together, and infused it into the simple, stone pendant that she kept with her at all times. But she wasn't ready to face him just yet. Besides, it would be a waste of magic not to just walk the few blocks back to hearth.
And then, almost as if she had summoned him with a thought, he was there; approaching from the opposite direction with his staff in hand, the collar of his pea coat turned up against the spring drizzle that seeped through the sparse cover of bare branches overhead. He didn't say a word as their feet carried them to meet in the middle, just offered his hand; tucking her beneath his arm as they walked back to his place in companionable silence.
Once inside, they lit a few candles around the room, again meeting each other in the middle. He put his hands on her shoulders, gazing down at her in the half light, as if searching her face for answers to unspoken questions, but at the same time offering to bare his own soul. She looked into his eyes then and saw herself. Saw the scars they both bore, and felt him look beyond them, to places that nothing and no one else had ever seen, or touched. He knew that she still struggled with the memory of Richard Hardwell's death, and Ache Silvestri's lust for blood, just as she knew he wrestled with Laschiel's temptation, and the alluring power of the Black. They were kindred. They had both been tried by fire, and and come out on the other side forever changed. But maybe it would be for the better.
"I won't lose you," he said, his voice pulling her back into the here and now, drowning out the echoes of the past. "Do you hear me? I won't lose you, Natalie."
Natalie drew a deep breath, stepping into his arms, to lay her head over his heart. "I love you, Dexter Henley," she whispered, invoking his name as well. "I just have one more battle to fight for Camelot, and then I'm done."