Night Watch I: Eliza, Ward of Andrew

*Andrew’s POV*

Dani must have sensed I wanted to speak to Eliza alone, as he went to go fuss over the reanimated cù sìth for a while, some distance away. It had been so eerie, having it follow us around quietly, unbreathing, a gruesome reminder of what we’d done. I decided it was worth enduring Dani’s mockery of my pants when I caught Eliza furtively eyeing my package as I came closer. Excelsior! I chuckled. “Hey, I was wondering if we could talk?”

Eliza smiled when she said “Of course,” but now that I had felt her fears, I somehow knew that a part of her was afraid I was about to say I wanted to leave her, that she was disgusting. The knowledge of the anxieties and terrors that had been hammered into her over the course of a lifetime came flooding into my head; it was involuntary. I shook my head to try and clear it. The feelings were overwhelming and dreadful! Looking at Eliza, I never would have guessed she was feeling those things, worrying about me doing those things to her. How she could look so natural and composed while feeling that way, I wasn’t sure.

“Ugh, no-no, that’s not it.” Eliza wrinkled her forehead, looking perplexed. “Sorry, I can sense, just- I’m not going to leave you, I love you! That’s not at all what I want to talk about, not at all!” I glanced over at Dani, and saw he was busy with his creation. I stood closer to Eliza and spoke quietly in her ear.

I wasn’t used to this kind of insecurity, Eliza had been able to build up a tolerance over the course of her entire life. Almost nothing had really made me afraid anymore, I was more prone to anger. I felt weak and kind of pathetic; I wanted reassurance. “Kiss me! It’s been hours, I’m dying!”

Eliza looked up at me, and I felt one of her rough hands slide under my vest. “You came to get kisses?”

I shook my head, and started smiling despite myself. “No, but I realized I need one desperately. One at the very least!” I tugged on her shirt, and sneaked my other arm around her waist. “You’ve given me a taste for them, and I don’t think kissing Dani would be the same.” We both chortled.

I heard Dani shout over. “I am a married man, Andrew, for pity’s sake!” Both of us started laughing out loud. As we caught our breath, I decided I couldn’t wait, I was too impatient. I brushed Eliza’s dark hair aside and brought her face to mine.

It makes no sense that a man’s heart should still, that the very progress of time should slow, while his mind explodes in the euphoria offered in a given moment. But then, under a crescent moon, feeling Eliza’s lips press against mine, everything seemed to stop for an eternity as my very being touched hers, and reveled in it. The gentle caress of her lips took me in and I knew I could never go back. My heart belonged to Eliza, and I would be lost without her.

The moment passed, I felt my heart beating once again, and I felt Eliza smile against me, then part my lips with her tongue. Our kiss became a bit heated, and my mind started to fog, as the sounds of the forest predominated.

Abruptly, I realized I was wearing the wrong pants for that sort of thing. Embarrassed, I broke our kiss. “Um… later?” Eliza grinned at me and cheekily groped me before I was able to swat her away as she grinned wickedly, making me turn scarlet. I heard Dani clearing his throat loudly from over by the cù sìth corpse-thing. Ugh.

Eliza looked at me in a very forward, flirtatious fashion, almost like a drunken man would. I wasn’t accustomed to this at all! I was used to Eliza ignoring all my efforts, not squeezing my genitals! She was not at all demure or shy. It was kind of distracting… and so puzzling! Eliza was so brash, forward, and strong, on the one hand, but on the other... I had seen some small parts of her injured spirit. I hoped she would continue to open up to me.

I also assumed that, um, while on Watch, there would be no touching of my privates. Eliza seemed like an excellent Watchman, so I doubted she’d do anything unprofessional. For my part, I seemed to be, well, making some improvement with regards to, well, getting constant stiffies in her presence. I decided that an experiment to see if frequent (possibly very frequent) love-making hastened my progress was clearly in order as soon as we got back to the shelter. Absolutely!

I took a seat on an overturned tree, noticing a huge fer-de-lance watch me for a moment from a distance, before slinking serenely away into the Forest behind us. At such a large size, almost 7 feet, maybe a bit more, she was surely female. Fer-de-lance were deadly venomous, but they’d never given me any trouble. Nevertheless, I kept an eye out for a few moments to make sure she was well on her way. I’d picked up an interest in snakes from Juliet; she’d loved them.

Eliza joined me on my tree, scrutinizing me for a while. I was struggling with how to bring up the things I had still wanted to talk about originally, so we could get going on our bizarre quest. Eliza was pretty astute, however, and had clearly dealt with the whole need-to-punch-her thing before. “Andy, you need to get over it. Every Watchman will have to get over it. Whether you are my partner or not is irrelevant there.

“I am fairly strong, it’s true, just, you know, in general, because every single mild discomfort my body goes through, even a rock in my boot, it gets stored as energy, as a power source. If I’ve been getting knocked around for a while, like during a scuffle, I’ll get even stronger, because I’ve been getting blows, that makes sense, right?” I nodded, unhappy, not liking where Eliza was going.

“But, if the Watch needs a really hard-hitter at the beginning of a fight, I need something to pump me up, Andy! That doesn’t mean I need someone to cut my fucking arm off, ok? Obviously, that’s a bad idea! It also won’t help if Pete knocks me unconscious-“ I raised an eyebrow.

“-Could Big Pete knock you unconscious?” I was skeptical. Pete was strong as an ox at the least, but Nikki’s hand hadn’t moved Eliza’s face an inch when he had landed a punch that would have sent most Fae to the ground. I had been afraid Nikki had broken his hand, the sickening way it squirted blood!

Eliza rolled her eyes.“ I dunno, there’s no formula, it’s biological, it’s fluid. It all depends on how much pain I’m already in, how much I’ve been in recently, and whether I’m anticipating a blow or not. If I see it coming, if it's according to my mental plan, something subconscious reinforces me, where I think it will land, I can't control it. I don’t understand it, maybe Dani would. I know a general rule of thumb my Grampy told me is that I can never be stronger than iron. Though I saw him bend steel a few times, I’ve never been able to.”

Bend fucking steel?!? I decided to stay away from all mountains, for all time, just in case any Dark Mountain Elves I ran into weren’t as amenable to my presence as Eliza’s grandfather might have been. Gods! How did anyone, ever, kill any of them? I had read they were formidable warriors, but nothing like this. Maybe tomorrow evening I’d have time to ask Eliza more about this? Surely there were some differences that were weaknesses, because everything she said made her grandfather’s people sound like they should be ruling the world by now?

Eliza smiled indulgently at my googly-eyed expression and pointed at the cù sìth corpse that stood at attention next to a very bored looking Dani. “If you had just punched me, I could have killed that thing a lot more quickly than we did, Andy. Instead you tore its throat out, what the fuck was that?”

I scratched my head, then adjusted my boot, frowning. “You were busy holding it down, I had to stop it from barking a third time… You were in danger,” I added lamely.

I felt stupid. “Besides, why didn’t you just break its neck after that? Dani said it was asking for death, it would have been a lot less messy and dramatic.” I felt like an asshole, I sounded pretty defensive when I hadn’t meant it to.

Eliza snorted. “When you cut out it’s voice box, Andy, I thought also having a broken neck might make it too difficult to work with for Dani. It’s not like we had time to sit and chat about it! Besides, blood was pouring everywhere after you pretty much sawed out its throat alive, my grip would have been way too questionable at that point. I have small-ass, pudgy hands!” I had to make an effort not to laugh when Eliza made little grippy-hands in the air to demonstrate her supposedly miniscule, chubby hands. It looked like she was squeezing a set of air titties. “I just wanted to do something I knew would work for sure and put it down!

“It was suffering, and I thought to Dani that you were in no state to kill it. Firstly, you were having a testosterone-fueled fit and had lost focus. Secondly, I could tell I had hurt your hands so badly I wanted you using them as little as possible. I saw the effects, Andy. I noticed the difference.” Shit, Eliza looked pained.

I fidgeted uncomfortably, then sighed. “Don’t think about that anymore, my hands are fine now. Look, I’m sorry I couldn’t, that I didn’t… I’m sorry I let you down. I just want to protect you, I don’t want to hurt you. But…” I sighed, resigned. “Where have other Watchmen, uh, struck you in the past to give you this energy?” I glowered as Eliza cheered up considerably.

“Because of, you know, the way I am, you don’t need to worry as much about where you hit me so much as not hurting yourself by hitting me too hard. For example,” Eliza tried to butter me up and slid her hand up my thigh, giving me an outrageously alluring smile, “I’m sure if the mighty Second Officer Andrew cracked most Watchmen in the temple, they’d go into a coma.” Eliza batted her eyelashes at me, she did have such bright, green eyes. “If he struck most Watchmen in the sternum, I reckon they’d end up with it cracked right in two, with a punctured lung!” She made a popping noise with her mouth as she squeezed my thigh. Why did that sound so good, the way she said it?

“But I’m not like most Watchmen, Andy. Pretend I’m made of iron. When you punch me, you’re punching an iron shield you’re very angry at, but you’re not going to do anything stupid, right? No one tries to send their bare fist through plate mail like they have in the far North, right? Or a stone wall. So I’m saying- if a fist is used, you have to be cautious, injuring another fighter isn’t worth it.”

I frowned. All the more reason to stay near Eliza if fighting broke out. If anyone had to be smacking Eliza, I supposed I’d rather learn how to do it, so as to use the absolute minimal amount of force necessary, and so that other Watchmen weren’t breaking their hands or possibly even weapons? Perhaps we could hit her with sticks?

Gods, how did I even come to thinking about this?!? What sort of man did this to his woman? I supposed, the sort of man that is an Officer for a Watch that knows war is coming, an Officer in love with a fellow Watchman that could do gods-knows-what to a troll (after receiving blows from other Watchmen), and who knows that special Watchman could be a significant strategic advantage…

Nevertheless, when were back on Night Watch, I’d have to let Blasko know what I had learned and discuss letting the rest of the Watchmen know that they might be called upon to strike Eliza at her behest, and to bloody well refrain from hurting themselves. Seriously, of all the potential problems associated with being a warden that had cascaded through my mind, when I had walked with Eliza out of the Council Chambers that very first day, this had not occurred to me! I wasn't a true sadist, nothing much more than the odd spanking now and again, really, if anything I really preferred more to cuddle, I didn’t care if that defied gender stereotypes-

Eliza looked at me. “Sometimes I wonder what goes on up there.” She tapped my forehead lightly, brushed some of my hair out of my face, and started picking leaves out of it from when I had fallen on the ground earlier. I'd surely have to brush the damned mess later on, it would be unavoidable.

I chuckled at her. “Not a lot. I wanted to know, though, are you in mental or emotional pain?” Eliza stopped picking the leaves out of my hair and averted her eyes. “Did I do something to hurt you, did I do something wrong?”

I watched Eliza slowly crush the last leaf in her hand, listened to the raspy sound it made as she ground it up. I slowly caught her bunched fist and lifted it up, careful not to restrain her. “I often wonder what you are thinking too. I know now isn’t the best time, but I wanted to know if I had done something to distress you so badly, if that was why you-“

Eliza shook her head. “-No. Your question is a fair one, I just wish you hadn’t asked, because I don’t want to upset you." Her expression darkened as her frown intensified. "I’m always in non-physical pain because of my past. We can talk about that more at some other time.” I felt like an ass for not having thought of that and just looked at the Forest floor, not knowing what to say.

“However, earlier, I was particularly upset with myself. I was above the normal threshold I maintain. I had seen just how lasting the effects were of the damage I had caused to your hands. So, if you were wondering, that is the reason why I was still toothy so much longer after we had buried the creatures heart and voicebox.” Eliza raised a hand.

“Before you try and comfort me, I suggest we use it to our advantage. While Dani drained me of a great deal of energy to heal you, I can tell you that I am still very upset with myself, and have a fair reservoir refilled already. I suggest you wait until we are back at the shelter to attempt to comfort me, Andy. It’s not strategically sound to remove any pain sources until then unless they are physically compromising.”

I frowned. “Fine, well, the sooner we find this thing, then go present it and our little, reanimated friend here to Big Momma, the sooner I’ll have you back home!” I stood and pointed a finger at her. “Mark my words, I will soothe you until you’re sick of my face!”

Dani came walking up with the dead cù sìth trailing behind. “Devil’s pantaloons, you two are ridiculous! I was bored out of my skull! There’s only so much shit I need to do to maintain this thing, I resorted to trying to make it look nice- what do you think?”

I peered around Dani, and to my amusement, saw that its dark green, shaggy fur had been rather artfully braided all along it’s mane and belly. Hmmm… I still needed to get Eliza to teach me how to plait hair. "I admit, Dan- looks good, fancy stuff!"

Notes

(long chapter! sorry- had to get some shit done!)

a few images of cù sìth:





also, the other night, i had a blast seeing AC/DC, and took some videos, if you feel like watching them. they are just cellphone videos, of course, i'm not a professional, and totally shaky. i found that when you use the thing to take the shakiness away, you can't see Angus dancing around as well, haha!

AC/DC play 'TNT' live at the Tacoma Dome on 2/2/2016
AC/DC play 'You Shook Me All Night Long' live at the Tacoma Dome on 2/2/2016
AC/DC play 'Back in Black' live at the Tacoma Dome on 2/2/2016
AC/DC open the show with 'Rock or Bust' live at the Tacoma Dome on 2/2/2016