i think i outdid myself

Page: 54
Word Count: 43083
Words Left: >10k or >20k, depending on how you look at it


Okay, so I think this is my favorite scene yet, and in regard to metaphors and symbolism and general storytelling, I think I outdid myself. I'm not entirely sure I understand all of the nuances.

Analinn went about the damage tour in a daze. She led the way, physically speaking, methodically going from room to room, but Jarik was doing all of the actual inspecting. Fortunately there wasn’t anything else to really notice, because it all looked the same to her.
She was in some sort of delayed shock; not from the storm itself, but from the true and deep realization that there was no way, no way, she was escaping her old life. Even if by some unnatural fluke of fate she managed to separate herself completely from her family in the Upper Realm, and cut off association with the Ajanais (admittedly harder, given Tanel’s job and relationship with Noam), her old training would still rise to the surface when prompted by specific events. Whenever she felt herself to be in a crisis, the emergency training would dictate her behavior. She hadn’t even thought to grab her phone and house key—she’d never owned such things back at the manor—but clothes and vital items had managed to translate into that. She did always have evacuation routes in the back of her head, even if she didn’t consciously notice them. She had the manor, the Ajanais, and Jesra and Tanel’s to run to if she had to. With a crystalline clarity she was fully aware of the fact that she had several behaviors and procedures drilled into her, pushed into the almost instinctive layer, and every time she engaged in one of those behaviors it would remind her of her dual nature. She had a dual nature. She would never get rid of it. Trying was futile; denial was just dumb.
Well, if she couldn’t get rid of it, and she couldn’t ignore it, she may as well embrace it.
Jarik drifted in front of her to look more closely at the big bay window in the kitchen, and she glanced nervously at him. He had probably known, acknowledged, and come to terms with the fact that she would always be half ex-Heir a long time ago. Probably even before he’d proposed. He was conscientious like that.
Well, damn. I sure can’t bring it up now, then. She stepped backwards, closer to the stove, so he could finish looking at the rest of the windows. He’ll give me that look again.
Not that that was necessarily a bad thing; for all that it was frustrating, made her feel self-conscious, and remarkably like a little girl, it also kind of made her knees weak. There were other things, though, that had that same effect without the uncomfortable vulnerability.
Well, if he was okay with it, and by extension so was his family, then there was really no point in getting herself all riled up, and really, she should just accept it as an integral part of her personality, of who she was, and get over it. Especially because if she continued to dwell on it and stew, he’d notice, and pull it out of her, and then she’d end up feeling like frustrated, self-conscious little girl with anachronistically weak knees after all.
She blew out a big breath of air and forcibly relaxed her shoulders.
He’d said that it had finally hit him that morning, that holy shit, he’d married her. And she’d agreed. Going through the storm the night before, coming back and checking their house for damage—it had hit her too. That sense of surrealism she had been dealing with ever since buying the house had finally lifted, broken in the storm, and had left behind shining clear sunlight: this is who you are now.
She still felt nervous, still felt like something would happen and her dream life that she had finally settled into and accepted would be ripped away. That was something else she had been taught, even as a child. These lives were fragile, they were at the whim of the public, everything could change at any moment, take nothing for granted.
Okay, I hate that lesson. Jarik disappeared into the garage. She leaned her hip against the counter. That lesson can fuck itself. I’m not letting go of this life. Not for anything. They can’t bring me back without an act of legislature, and in the event that they need me, the people necessary to sign it off probably won’t want to anyway. Wish I could pick and choose lessons to keep. Emergency was handy. This one, not so much.
It really was disturbingly, almost obscenely, sunny. Sunlight poured through those big bay windows, beamed on the floor, diffused to practically every stray corner in the room. The last of the clouds had been chased away overnight, leaving a brilliant fall blue sky overhead. It really was a beautiful day.
Analinn stared pensively out the window, at the sunshine reflecting off their impromptu lake, at a bird alighting on the fence and eying said lake suspiciously. Her body language was anything but open and thoughtful, anything but positive; she leaned against the counter bent in such a way that her shoulders were even with her splayed feet and her arms were crossed insolently across her chest. If anything, she looked surly.
Another bird landed beside the first, and after a second, both took off to whereabouts unknown, at least to their observer.
Okay, fuck this. She decided suddenly, pushing away from the counter. Her jeans were still damp and uncomfortable and pulled against equally damp skin when she moved. Her hair, she imagined, was a fluffy mess. She didn’t care. I married him, really married him, and we have almost no damage. An image of the crying woman outside her divided house flashed into her mind’s eye, fading out just as quickly. Fuck this.
Since Jarik hadn’t come back out of the garage, she assumed he was still in there. Probably fawning over his precious car, maybe murmuring the sweet nothings that she’d deck him for if he tried it on her. She walked over and pushed the garage door open. The garage was dimly lit even in the best of circumstances, featuring only a yellowed rectangular light in the ceiling. She couldn’t see him in the shadows, not after the brightness of the kitchen. “Jarik?”
Movement stood up behind the far end of the car and turned into Jarik. “Yeah?”
Analinn had started walking as soon as she had seen that telltale movement, and by the time he spoke she had been halfway there. She had to look down and concentrate because the garage, his sacred ground, was in true form a mess. She had to pick her way around to him, and he waited those pin drop-long precious seconds expectantly.
“Ana—“
She grabbed his face and kissed him hard, reveling in the pronunciation of that second ‘a’ in her name. Of course he appreciated and didn’t question the gesture, and they fell a few inches back to lean against the side of the car because they had better things to do than concentrate on supporting their own body weights.
After, though, when oxygen deprived lungs finally got tired of enduring and began protesting too loudly to be ignored, Jarik managed to laugh, “I don’t know what the hell that was for, but this is why I love you.”
Still winded, Analinn managed a sheepish grin at him in response, but her eyes were brighter than the kitchen.

<3 <3 <3