Summer’s pretty eyes narrowed worriedly before she found a smile again, “So is it really mages that you don’t like, or just Eliot?” she asked with an attempt at playfulness. After all, seeing him sitting there on a beach playing with a small child didn’t exactly make him come across as all that threatening, despite what he was.
He scoffed quietly, “Considering I saw what Eliot did to one of my kind, on this very beach, it’s a bit difficult to separate the two.”
Summer gave him a questioning look, “Well, what did they do to him?” she had to ask.
He just looked back at the child to keep from looking at Summer when he responded, “That’s beside the point,” though his words were a mumble.
Summer couldn’t help a small chuckle, “I’d think that would be the main point.” She then moved on, “Besides, I’m quite positive Eliot has nothing against your kind as a whole, all things considered,” she added more quietly as she looked in the general direction of the club and Eliot’s new house.
He just sighed in frustration, or perhaps defeat, but said nothing more. Still refusing to allow his suspicion to dissipate that easily, he instead returned his attention to his tiny ward.
After a moment, it was clear that he had nothing else to say right then, so Summer looked around once more. Then, looking back at where the little girl swatted at his latest attempt at a sand castle, Summer smiled once more. She then concentrated and closed her eyes for several seconds. A moment later she opened them, raised her hands slightly, and with a few graceful motions, the sand between he and the child began forming itself into a castle that would make the nobles of his mother country envious. Lucian looked on with eyes widened, while the little girl cooed happily and clapped at the very real magic castle that had just appeared before her.
“Sorry, I forgot you don’t like mages. Should I get rid of it again then?” Summer asked Lucian with another playful smile.
"I suppose I can let this particular display of magic slide, this time," Lucian conceded, simply relieved that the child was finally placated.
Offering a smile of victory, Summer spent several more minutes there on the beach with Lucian, watching the girl play, almost as though she felt she had nowhere else to go that night either. Taking another moment to look up at the stars, then back at where Lucian looked away from her again, she had to find more words.
“So, what is this, anyway?” Summer asked curiously, taking another moment to move her eyes over him once he had averted his own again.
“This?” he asked as he cast her a quick glance.
“I mean, is she yours... somehow?” Summer asked with narrowed eyes. “And do you two have names, perhaps?” she added the afterthought teasingly.
“Lucian and Kirielle,” he allowed as he gestured to first himself, then the tiny girl. “And I suppose she’s not mine, in the strictest sense of the word.”
Summer gave him another questioning look, “That sounds like an interesting story.”
“Shouldn’t you be off casting spells or something?” Lucian asked her with annoyance to cover his remaining distrust of these mages, as she and Eliot called themselves.
“Shouldn’t you be off drinking blood... instead of playing nanny?” she returned with a slight smirk.
Lucian just shook his head to bite back a small smile, “Her mother died having her, and then the mother was turned. I was asked to make sure the child was alright. And the mother has yet to come looking for her, even after nearly a year. Satisfied now?” he added.
“Did you turn the mother?” Summer asked with a raised brow.
“What? No. I wasn’t even there. If I had been, I might have been able to save the mother. Or I could have just been killed as well, I suppose,” he added more to himself.
“Al... right...” Summer responded skeptically.
“But seriously though,” Lucian continued, “is this all you have to do with your evening?”
“Pretty much,” Summer stated quietly with a sad shrug. Then she quickly added, “I’m Summer by the way.”
“I don’t recall asking,” Lucian mumbled.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Surprisingly, Summer allowed a small chuckle, “At least the British sound polite even when they’re... not,” she told him with a playful scowl.
Lucian gave a slight scowl in return, “Though I am still wondering why some beautiful, apparently magical young lady is walking down the boardwalk by herself under the stars; and honestly seems to have nothing better to do than chat with an impolite, foreign, nanny?” he finished, allowing the tiniest bit of humor to peek out.
“And build sand castles,” she gestured to where Kirielle was still adding her own touches to the skillfully constructed castle. “Probably for the same reason some handsome, foreign, immortal is playing in the sand with a little human girl. Nowhere else to be right now, honestly,” she said softly.
After another long moment, Lucian made himself speak again, “So, how exactly did you know what I even was, that easily? Is that part of your... magicalness?” he asked as he gave her another long glance.
“You'd think someone from the mother country would know that that's not even a word," she teased. "And as for my... perceptiveness, that’s mainly due to me being around at least one of your kind for the last year or so. I felt it when I got near you. That same feeling I had when I first met him, only to a slightly lesser degree with you, I suppose, ” she replied in the same soft tone. “That’s why I asked if I’d seen you at the estate.”
Lucian narrowed his eyes, “Him meaning Sean?” he asked.
“That would be the one,” she answered even more quietly, causing Lucian to adjust his vision again, despite the brightness of that damn aura of hers.
“The one indeed,” he said quietly, a moment later.
Summer quickly looked up at that particular tone of his, “You do it too?” she asked with a slight gasp.
“It?” he gave her another questioning look.
She looked around once more before speaking in a furtive whisper, “Read thoughts.”
“Not... exactly,” he admitted, “more feelings, honestly.” He then paused again, “And you seem to have many in regards to the lovely Prince,” he added, his tone slightly cooler as he mentioned Sean.
Summer allowed another awkward chuckle, “So you don’t like Eliot, or Sean then?”
Lucian looked away again, “Well, to be fair, they don’t like me much either.”
“And that sounds like an even more interesting story,” Summer said as she looked over him, her curiosity growing once again.
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Claire remained silent for the duration of the council meeting. Sean also spoke no more than he had to. Given, he did have to speak much more than Claire did at any given meeting while addressing any concerns the council brought up.
When the meeting ended, Claire rose to follow the other Primogen from the meeting, only to be halted by Sean’s voice. “Claire, stay.”
His words easily caused her to immediately tense up, not able to look back his way, but she did stop, even though her silence continued. Sean sighed and rose, moving to stand in between she and the door she had only taken a step or two towards.
“Would you believe me if I said that I assumed you wouldn’t notice either? What with Eliot finally being back and all,” he added. She looked down, to hide her expression then, though her resolute silence continued. “Claire, please. Say something.”
“Again, what is there to say?” she spoke at barely audible volume.
Sean sighed heavily, “You tried to kill yourself to save him. And he was back, at last. Of course I thought that he would be all that really mattered to you from that point on,” he attempted to further explain his last statement.
She finally gave him a look of disbelief, “And the last time I tried... that,” she took a shaky pause, “was when I thought I’d have to die a mortal death and lose what we had forever. So, can you see how ridiculous it is to hear you thinking that something else mattered to me more?” she just shook her head and turned away.
“But that was so very long ago Claire. Of course I had doubts that your feelings about me, us, were the same as they were then.”
“And I could say the exact same thing to you,” she shook her head again, both her eyes and Sean's filled with centuries of regrets.
Sean was quiet a long moment before speaking again, “I just want us to be us again. Is that something that’s even possible anymore?”
“Which version of us would that even be, Sean?” Claire sighed as she looked down. “The mortal version of us who never even knew this world existed? The newly made Kindred version who took years to even try to understand how to deal with our new lives? Some other version?” she asked desperately. “Because, Sean, I don’t know of any version of us that existed before you became Prince could ever exist now that you are,” she finished sadly.
“But that’s not all I am, Claire,” Sean denied, though his voice was a whisper.
“It sure seemed like it was. At least until her,” she had to add, watching him for any emotions to cross his face.
Sean sighed deeply, “I think that’s what it was all about with her, Claire.”
She narrowed her eyes up at him then, “You may have to be more specific than that.”
Another sigh, “I think being with her was a desperate attempt to be something else again. Something other than ‘the Prince.’ I wanted to prove, mostly to myself, that I still was something other than that. And I think I wanted to do it because I missed what we were. What we had.”
Claire was silent a moment before managing a response, “But you tried to prove it by being with her, not me.”
“How could I? You say I’m not really here for you since becoming Prince, but you haven’t really been here either, have you Claire?”
“Because you weren’t,” she replied in a shaky voice, forcing back her sadness at stating that out loud.
Then Sean moved to place his hands upon her shoulders, “We’re both here now, and it sounds like we both miss each other madly. Can’t we please just try again, Claire? We’ve spent so long apart, even while together. And I’m so tired of it. I just want for us to at least actually try. Isn’t what we did have worth trying to save, after three hundred years?”