Besides, Dafi fit so well in his arms... and that thought brought him sharply awake. He just barely managed to keep from tensing up, and waking her as well. Dangerous thoughts, especially when he needed to remember she was his responsibility, not his mate. He would get her to the Baron, they would make their reports, and that would be it. He might see her at the court proceedings, if things got that far, but after that... she was the Dama of her county. There would not be any reason for them to even see each other when this was over, much less share anything else.
No matter how much he might wish it were different.
~=*=~
Dafi dreamed of dangling over the clouds again, but it was only a moment before she was pulled into strong arms. She woke up with tears on her cheeks, and Dal gently hugging her, murmuring, “It’z only a nightmare, schh, hyu’re right here, ve’re all right...”
“I-I-I’m... awake, thank you,” she said, shakily. “Sorry, I do not know why I am so...” Dafi sniffled, and Dal put a handkerchief in her hand.
“Hyu’re onder schtress, und better for it to come out now dan out on de trail.” He patted her shoulder, “At leazt hyu’re not haffing a fighting nightmare, not egzactly enough room in here for dot.” A few moments more listening to the rain drumming on the tarp before he said, “Do hyu need to talk about de nightmare?”
She tucked the handkerchief into her sleeve, “I am.. not sure. I do not know what is making it a nightmare. I am not prone to them, and it is not a repeat of the battle.” Dafi hesitated, then laid her head back on Dal’s shoulder. “This is a little embarrassing, having night terrors of sunlight on puffy clouds.”
Dal gave a short chuckle, “It’z a leettle schtrange, ja. Of courze, it’z not az bad az de guy in my firzt patrol who vaz afraid of botterfliez und mothz.” When she lifted her head in confusion, he patted her shoulder, “He tought it vazn’t fair how dhey could schneak op on him.”
“Oh, dear... that would be a problem. Did he ever overcome his fear?”
“Ho, ja - bot only efter ve had to clean out dot cave of vempire Luna mothz.” He shrugged, “Hy dun’t know how ve vould go about finding floffy cloudz for hyu to keell. Bot if Hy get an idea about it, Hy vill tell hyu.”
Dafi finally laid her head back on Dal’s shoulder and sighed, “Thank you, I appreciate that.” Though she did not speak any further, sleep eluded her. She had been with Dal less than two full days, and she already felt she could trust him. Part of it was that they were in service to the Baron, in their own ways, but there was more.
Then there was the point that he had treated her with the respect due a fellow soldier, nearly from the beginning. He had plenty of opportunities to take advantage of the situation, yet he had not. Even now, huddled together in the rain, he was being comforting without being salacious. At first, she had thought it was because he did not find her attractive, that he did not think of her as anything but a soldier. But there were subtle hints that he might have an interest in her.
One not-so-subtle hint was occasionally nudging her hip. That did not mean anything, true - he could be thinking of another. For all she knew, he could be married, and missing his wife. It still seemed early in their association to ask such personal questions, but this was an odd situation. The rain showed no intention of abating, and they were stuck here until it let up enough for them to descend. Though it was a delicate question to pose in their current position, she still felt the need to ask it. In a quiet voice, she asked, “Dal? Are you married?”
“Pfft, who vould haff me? Nah, Hy’m not married, Hy’m not a keptain.” He chuckled at the old joke with her. “Vhy, did hyu vant to introduce you boyfriend to my vife vhen dis iz done?”
Dafi chuckled ruefully, “No one wants to court me. They want...” she sighed, losing the brief flash of humor, “The ones that have showed an interest were looking for an alliance. I could be a boot-faced sow for all they cared. They never tried to meet me, much less talk with me, just sent inquiries to Father.” She frowned to herself, wondering if the Baron would be using her as a marriage pawn, now that Father was gone. She hoped that if it was necessary, it would not be horrid. “I understand the need for alliances, but would it have hurt to at least try to get to know the woman behind the title?” she mumbled into the darkness.
She would do her duty to the Peace, as she was taught. Papa had instilled those values in her well. Though he admitted he had not met her mother before they had been presented to each other at the altar, he did come to love her. That may be why he had not remarried after the accident. Or perhaps he thought he did not have time for more family. He worked hard to carve out and defend the hour or two after supper to spend with her in the evenings. At first it was story-time before she went to bed, but in later years, it had developed into his debriefing of what had happened in the day, the things yet to be done, and asking how her day had gone. She would miss the closeness of those evenings....
After her time at the academy, she no longer held fast to the romantic notions that the traveling players spouted in their shows. Many of her fellow students were resigned to their alliances, some of them begun when the prospective partners were still in the nursery. Some were putting a good face on it, studying the finer points of their prospective mate’s holdings if they could not find any shared interests.
While in her last year, one case caused a bit of an uproar. After a year of negotiation, one of the Alpine border counties announced a generations-long feud was to be resolved with a wedding, even though the bride and groom both had established companions. The elders had taken it into consideration, and had even arranged to have the couple’s respective consorts join their court, making for an interesting ceremony.
There were other tales, of those who gave up their titles for love. Those were usually tragedies, which is why the players did not present them often. However, the history books gave the dry details of the various ways things went wrong for the people who owed fealty to the ones that left their posts. Truth be told, there were some happy endings, but they were the extremely rare exceptions to the rule.
The playwrights also did not seem to understand that with the title came heavy responsibilities. She was taught that abandoning your post, when there was no-one suitable to take it up in your absence, was cruel to the people you had sworn to protect. It might not be so for others - for all she knew, the Fifty might have a reversed view of things. However, Dafi knew she could not ethically leave her post. There were too many families that relied on her family to keep them safe. She finally drifted off to sleep, with her oath at her confirmation as Dama and her father’s heir replaying in her memory.
~=*=~
Dalibor waited for Dafi to continue her questions, but it seemed she slid into an fitful doze. So, she knew the problems she faced. With her father gone, there would be those who would insist she be married immediately-if-not-sooner, either because they did not trust a woman to know how to run a fortress, or because there needed to be an heir. The first worry was absurd to anyone who knew her record, Dalibor thought, but he also knew how few people actually got to know their rulers, or their neighbors. The second problem was a real issue, especially on the borders.
Dafi had not mentioned her father remarrying after her mother’s death, nor had she mentioned any siblings. Early days yet, but being the Dama implied the eldest, if not the only. The title alone meant she was important enough that his role as bodyguard was of primary concern. Considering the plan detailed in the documents they carried, there was a good chance the conspirators would want Dafi married or buried, preferably buried. So, since his assignment to her would be until the Baron released him to other duty, it looked like he might have to steer them clear of churches as well as ambushes.
She was young - he guessed Dafi to be just entering her third decade, but still so aware of what was expected of her. When had she found out she might have to spend her life bound to a stranger? She seemed resigned to it, now. That was one bit of luggage he was happy to drop, when his family abandoned him to the Jägercorps. There had not been any boot-faced sows in the pack of young ladies presented to his elder brothers, but none of them had displayed an inclination beyond fashion and gossip. The ones that had been rejected by his older brothers were beginning to hunt him, when the Heterodyne had attacked.
He had been a different sort of person then as well. His focus had been on being his brother’s military hand, and had breathed a sigh of relief when his eldest brother had wed. Dalibor had no interest in ruling, but had a keen interest in in protecting the family. That was why he was in the forefront of the commanding officers. It had not mattered, all of the commanding officers had been captured, as the Heterodyne had needed new stock for the experiments. He had no idea why of all his brothers, he was the one to survive the Jägerbrau. The Heterodyne had found it “interesting”. But no answers were forthcoming then, or after.
His interest in philosophy had not fully emerged until his second century, with the raid on Odessa and the library there being brought back. What did not further the current Heterodyne’s studies was left out for anyone to pick up. By then there were a number of the Jägerkin that could read, though they generally did not do so in public. The Jägermonsters’ secret library was overseen by an old monk that had been given the Jägerbrau, at the perverse whim of the Heterodyne. The monk, who had taken a vow of silence before his capture, and maintained it after his transformation, had never trained to be a soldier. However, he could be counted on to further the studies of anyone who braved the cellars of the castle. Safe to say Dalibor was a much different man, in many ways, than the one who hid in the salle from the twittery ladies.
Dalibor chuckled inwardly, thinking that if Dafi had been among the girls in the marriage market at the time, he would have been more put out about the approach of the armies, rather than glad for an excuse to escape the salons. Of course, the way his uncle had treated the one sister-in-law he had, after his brother’s deaths were reported, was horrendous. Would Dafi have allowed the old goat to shift her off to a nunnery, even if she was pregnant? He rather thought not.
Of course, one of the old auntie’s saws of “might-have-beens won’t fill the bean-pot” filtered past his memories. Dalibor, for all his philosophical bent, was practical enough to stay grounded in the present. Even so, he lightly stroked Dafi’s hair and wistfully imagined a few servings of might-have-beens.
