[Lattarsh] The end of a relationship

[Celeste Andaris]

61st Ashan, 718
following: this

It had probably become quickly obvious that Tessa Anders was used to covering up bruises and blood. She'd done so with practiced efficiency, but other than her working outfits, there was really very little that she owned which was suitable for being seen in public with. And her working outfits were a definite no. She had one knee length skirt and top, but those were covered in blood from the massacre which had just occurred in her house. However, Tessa was used to having to improvise and she had two skirts which were long but which had slits literally all the way up the skirt on two sides. So, she wore the red one with the slits front and back, over the black one with the slits either side. It made it look like it was one skirt and it was entirely decent. A top was more difficult, but she put on one of Benji's shirts which she belted. Those who noticed such things might spot that she belted it with Benji's thick leather belt. The one he had given to Rafael Warrick to beat her with. She wore that over a strappy top which was so tight it was obscene, but the loose shirt covered that. She quickly pulled her hair up and then, put on the sling for her babies.

On the way here, as they walked together, Tessa had been almost entirely silent. She'd made shushing noises to the babies if they made a sound and she had, of course, answered any questions asked of her. But the woman was in deep shock and so she followed the men who had come to her home and saved her, she thought. But Benji was dead. Fear gripped at her at that thought and her breath shortened in her chest. Benji was dead. She'd made sure to stop, before they left, and she'd retrieved the money from the place where she'd hidden it from him. It was for the babies, that money, for them when they grew up and she squirreled away a little bit here and a little bit there. It had added up, though not to much but it was something. That and Benji's purse full of his winnings, the pot by his side of the bed and the other places throughout the house where he hid things from her. Each one, she went to.

But she didn't speak. She simply made her way with them and into an Inn. It was a very nice Inn, by Tessa's standards, although Celeste would most certainly have turned her nose up at it and declared it barely functional. Tessa dropped her head to the children, letting the bits of hair which she had kept loose fall forward and hide the bruises and split lip. They'd walked her through, her and the children and then shown her into a room. Whose room was this, she wondered, but she went and sat where the Knight told her to sit.

Sitting there, not having seen the people they passed, nor anything really except for a vague idea of where they were, Tessa looked up at him and her deep brown eyes showed her shock and confusion. There were a hundred things she wanted to ask, but she didn't know what any of them were right now, only that she had all of these questions in her head.

And that her heart hurt.

She felt alone and afraid and the Knight who had been so kind seemed to still be that, yet also distant, aloof. Torqin, he seemed more friendly, but she was wary of him. He was one of Them. Benji's people, the fighters and gamblers who won whores like her. He was in those crowds and she didn't understand for a moment that he had been there looking for her - to her mind, it was all just one strange situation. And her heart hurt, and she was alone. She'd never been alone, she didn't know how to be and Tessa felt panic rise in her at the thought of it.

"Am I yours, now?" Her voice was afraid, but she wasn't sure which answer she was more afraid of. Yes or no. "I'll be good, sir, I will. I've never been alone an' I'm.. " She had no tears, she couldn't remember the last time she'd cried, yet her voice shook. "I'm no good at anythin' 'cept bein' a whore, an' I can't look after th'children on my own." She knew that was true, and the baseline for her? "I have to know they're cared for." She didn't even know his name and yet for just a moment, just the slightest, briefest trill there was a flash of defiance and fire in Tessa Anders' eyes, "And I am not doing that any more, I don't like it and I will not be doing it." Her chin jutted stubbornly as it had just before she threw an ornament at him and as she spoke her defiance?

As she spoke those words, her diction and pronunciation was perfect. Yet, no sooner had the words come out of her mouth than she gasped in surprise at herself and lifted a hand to her mouth, as though to catch the words and put them back in.

[Xander Andaris]

They sat there for a little while in silence, Xander on a chair and her the edge of the bed. In truth he wasn't completely sure where to start, there was so much he couldn't explain and so little he could. He thought he understood how she felt but then he really knew he didn't, her mind must be so mixed up and confused. Sadly his bitterness was rather consuming in this moment as he could think of little more than his own frustration and his hunger for justice. Some had been dealt out but there was more to do, work that would last a lifetime.

She broke the silence though, speaking and the fear in her voice disturbed him. Was she afraid of him? He wondered if he had done something wrong but then again he was currently struggling to keep track of his own feelings never mind hers. Still the words were even worse. "Stop." He murmured, it was barely audible as she spoke, going on about her inability to do just about anything. He felt his jaw tighten as she basically called herself a good for nothing whore. It was painful to see his powerful and proud wife reduced to such a weak and shameful woman. It killed him to think it but this was not the woman he had fallen in love with over an arc ago. "Stop." The word was louder now, not aggressive but firm and assertive as he spoke over the last part of her sentence.

"They really did mess with you, I hardly recognise you." His eyes were filled with sorrow as he looked at her bruised face. It was a shame that only her husband had died when there were many more monsters out there that had helped to add to the layers of bruises that covered her body. "You weren't always like this, no you were much much more." He leaned forward on his chair and looked deep into her brown eyes, his blue eyes seemingly piercing into the depths of her consciousness.

The wolf licked his lower lip as he thought about how to proceed. "I need you to answer all these questions honestly and really think about them too." He proceeded, placing both hands on his knees as he began. "What is your name?" A simple question for most but in this situation one he had no doubt she would get wrong. "How old are you and when and where were you born?" Another simple question and this one he wasn't sure what she would answer.

A harder one next. "Who are your parents?" This was one that could have many answers it depended what she remembered or what she believed and it was entirely possible there would be no answer. "Who is the father of ou..your children?" Another harder question and one he had no doubt at all would be incorrect, after all she didn't remember him, she couldn't possibly know he was the father then.

"Who am I?" This question was somewhat out of sorts with the others yet it was as important as the others and so it had to be asked. He wondered if there was truly no memory of his at all, whether their was anything her mind could recall of him. "Why am I here?" The last question was to see if she had been listening and if she understood what he knew to be true or if with all the craziness of the past two trials she had forgotten it all.

[Celeste Andaris]

She didn't need to be told twice, as soon as he told her to stop, she did. But he told her again and she looked at him with fear in her eyes as his voice raised. Her bruised face lifted to him, she didn't drop her gaze but she was afraid and that fear showed in her. She was afraid of him, of his raised voice and the barely contained fury she saw in him. There was nothing in her memory which told her the difference between angry and assertive and when he spoke the command again, she was already obeying, waiting for the beating which didn't come. When he said that he barely recognised her, Tessa thought he meant since the last time he'd seen her and she lifted a hand to her swollen lip. It was because she'd broken his cup, he'd been furious. So very furious.

Then he told her she used to be more than she was. His eyes met hers and Tessa looked at him with confusion in her expression. "I've always been me. Never been no one differen' than me." But he was intense and he leaned forward. There was a lot of muscle, she thought. He had a lot of muscle. She was afraid of him and yet, she felt calm as she looked back into his eyes.He wanted her to answer questions? Was this a trick? What would happen if she got an answer wrong? Her eyes flitted over to the fireplace and she frowned at the sight of the poker there. Would he hurt her like Benji had? She didn't think so, but she didn't know.

The first question, what was her name? Tessa looked down at her hands and then lifted her head again to keep eye contact with him. "I think an' b'lieve my name's Tessa Anders, sir. But you think I'm Celeste Andaris." Did he think she'd forgotten the conversation they had just the night before? Far from it, she'd played it over and over in her mind."When I broke the cup he used the fire poker an' the belt," she gestured to her face. "An' when he'd finished beatin' me, he.." even round the bruises, the blush that stained her face was obvious. "'an' I jus' repeated what you told me in my head, an' prayed it were th'truth." But the questions didn't stop, he asked her another and she shook her head. "I don't know, sir. My first memory I was a slave an' they don't tell us. I was in Andaris, though, sir. Master Leeson pushed me over, I remember." But her place or date of birth? She didn't have that information.

"I believe I don't know that, sir, but you told me I'm th'daughter of Benji an' Mary." She had, after all, repeated it time and time again. Sitting there, Tessa's back was straight and her gaze spoke volumes of just how lost she was. Lost and confused and alone and not understanding why it was that she wanted and needed him to be with her. "I believe, I rem'ber, sir, that Master Peake got th'children on me, th'time he tried to drown me in the bath." Of course, Xander knew that was her memory - what had happened with Peak was something Celeste had told him, but it was different, twisted up. She wrung her hands together and tugged and twisted at her skirt at the memory. "An' then when they foun' out I was carryin', they sent me away. Here. But you believe that they're ours."

Who was he? Even in the throes of this, Tessa smiled. "I don't know yer name, you've never told me. I think of you as my Knight." There was no guile or deceit in her, it was the simple truth. "when yer near I feel..." No, he didn't want her to tell him that, it would make him angry again. "An' you're here cos one of us is crazy. Because you believe that I'm yer wife an' those are our children an' yer savin' us." She sighed a deep sigh and wished that he'd let her sit with him, maybe even hold his hand. Tessa didn't do hand-holding, it wasn't really her skill set or experience, but yet, this man brought it out in her. "I couldn't sleep las'nigh', but I prayed it was true what you told me. I feel safe an' calm when I'm with you, but I don't know why. I b'lieve you'll look after us, but I'm worried th't I'm m'kin' you angry an' I don't know how to be anyone other'n me." Lifting her hand to her mouth, she nibbled on her nail. "If I 'm less tha'n what I was, why an' how's it happ'nd? What did I do?"

[Xander Andaris]

Her twisted and warped memories made Xander feel sick to his stomach. The idea that the monster who had raped her would be the farther of their children, it was rotten. It was clear that the webspinners wished him to feel this way though, why else would such dark changes be made. So he gritted his teeth and listened to it all. She had remembered what he had told her but it was still nothing but a dream in her mind, something she would wish for in another life.

Xander sighed and leaned back in his chair, following a crack in the ceiling his eyes traced it all the way to the corner. It was a strangely soothing thing to follow its crooked path above him. "I am not angry at you." He sat up straight again and looked at her, the bruises making it hard for him to look at her face. "I am angry at those who did this to you, the ones who destroyed your life and replaced it with one rotten to the core." For a moment he wondered if maybe he was crazy perhaps this was all in his head, a disturbing thought but one that was impossible.

"I am Xander Calen Andaris, Former Baron and Marshal of Astedia and a Shieldbearer of Ethelynda." The wolf raised his hand, the pale silver make clearer when showed specifically. "I am your husband, your friend and father of our two baby twins and adopted daughter Ala'ni who we ran into down stairs." He wanted to comfort her, he really did but something in him was incapable of doing so, it was like he had been damaged on the journey there. "You were not a slave, you were one of the most powerful and influential people in Rynmere and together we had planned to be seated on the throne of the Kingdom." There was a wistful look in his eyes but it quickly disappeared.

Rubbing his face he tried to keep himself on topic. "Some of your memories are not entirely wrong but instead twisted, for example...Peake did do these things to you but he was not your owner..." Xander paused for a moment these were things he had once wished he could remove from her memory and now he had to tell her them in the hope of getting back the woman he loved. The truth was also in many ways worse. "Peake Andaris was your brother." Xander struggled not to choke up, this was harder than he had hopped. "And, obviously, Torqin did not die for saving you." Xander did not know much of that day and would leave it to Torqin to explain to her exactly what happened.

"We were engaged by our parents, at first you hated me, not that I much cared for you either." A soft smiled crept into his lips as he looked down at the floor, recalling the past and how they had fallen in love. "However, I stood up for you against my father, paid the price for doing so too." He considered what a surprise his father would have gotten had he tried such a thing now. "He beat me that same night, almost bloody castrated me, you helped me get better." The first tear fell from his cheek since he had left Rynmere.

His hands balled up on his legs, knuckles turning white as he fought off the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. His voice caught in his throat slightly. "It all happened so quickly after that, I started to feel and at first I didn't understand it but it quickly became clear that I was completely in love with you." His smile dropped though as he remembered the pig that was his father, a monster of his own right. "I would do anything for you and that is when I truly became Xander Andaris."

He released his hands, stretching his fingers out as if it would release his pent up emotions into the world. "What does the name Xander Krome mean to you?" It suddenly occurred to him that he had been Xander Andaris for a long time now, what had they done to the memory of that name specifically and the memories related to it. Perhaps there was a way in here, there was a weakness in all armour and that was what Xander was searching for and applying to this situation.

[Celeste Andaris]

He wasn't angry at her? Tessa looked at him and she hoped that was the truth. She thought it was, she wanted it to be, too. "I'm glad, sir. More'n I can tell you." More than she could voice, in fairness. He was angry at the people who hurt her and Tessa wondered what it must be like to be Celeste. To be loved by this man who seemed so filled with fury at the thought of anyone harming her. "I think, if it is true, what you say, I must've been right happy."

Then, he spoke his name. Xander Calen Andaris. She heard the titles and places they belonged, she saw that he was marked by Ethelynda but that was not what caught Tessa's attention. He was her husband and her friend? Tessa's expression changed to one of almost wonder when he said that. "You really b'lieve it, don't you?" She frowned slightly and considered it. He did. She didn't believe it, couldn't believe it, because her memory told her different but what if what he said was true. Looking down at the babies, she spoke to him in a soft tone, barely above a whisper. "I wish I could rem'ber the world you do, sir." Was she supposed to call him Lord or Baron? What did she call him? She realised it as soon as she thought of it. "Xander. It sounds like a better world than th'one I know."

She listened to what he said then about Master Peake and she frowned, trying to think about it, but everything was confused and confusing and instead she looked at the babies. As Xander spoke about their meeting, then falling in love, Tessa thought about it and she looked up at him with sudden realisation on her face. "You've lost ev'rythin." That realisation caused compassion to well in her eyes and she didn't hesitate. Lifting up the babies in her arms, she stood and moved over to him. Kneeling down on the floor next to him, Tessa leaned against the arm of the chair where he sat and she put Zara into his arms. "But you haven't, see? They recognise you, don't they?" Indeed, the infant gave a gurgling smile and reached for Xander as soon as she was in his arms.

"If it is true, sir. I'm righ' sorry that you must feel like you've lost yer wife. But if these are your babies, you won't lose them, I won't let it happen. I promise." Once Zara was comfortable, she put Katherine in the crook of his other arm and smiled up at him. Her face was bruised and bloody and he didn't like to look at it, she knew, but still she couldn't hide that she was pleased at the reaction of her babies. "Xander Krome? I.. I 'eard that he he was engaged to a woman from Warrick, sir. Umm... Olivia, I think 'er name was." Tessa frowned at that. "I never met 'er, but I got told she was the most beautiful woman an' he an' her were in love, sir." As she said it, she frowned and looked at him with a most genuine expression on her face. "Do you really love me, Xander? I don't really know what that means, but I 'ope it's true. Cos, if the world is the way you say, then I need you to."

Her brown eyes locked with his blue and she spoke a soft tone to him. "If I'm lost in here, I need you to find me. But I think I'm still me, whether I'm Tessa or Celeste. If you'll do anything for me, truly, will you love me when I don't remember you?" She sighed and looked at the babies in his arms and a sad smile flitted across her face. "I hope you're right. I really do."

[Xander Andaris]

"I don't just believe it, I know it, with no doubt that what I am telling you is true." She came over to him and knelt down, the bruises impossible to ignore as she handed him his babies. The twins were barely over a season old and there little smiles reminded him of a life they had once dreamed of. They had planned the future out with such certainty in the past and now it seemed it had been for naught. Their world had been spun like it were in some kind of tornado, the life they had pictured ripped away leaving only a painful journey to the truth. Xander looked to the babies unable to watch Celeste, the bruises a constant reminder of what had happened to her.

He felt himself begin to tremble a little, his nerves on edge as he battled with the mixed emotions in his mind. "I wonder if they will ever be safe in this world." He swallowed hard as he held them close to him. The once mighty wolf felt like he was going to be sick, his body manifesting some sort of emotion now physically. "They deserve better than the darkness of this world, the evil that has burrowed deep into Idalos's core." It needed to be uprooted, its tendrils cast from the land and sea to free the world of its toxic grip.

As she spoke of what she had heard of Xander Krome he shook his head, it was funny to him that this would be what her mind had been lead to believe. "That is not quite right I know because," It was interesting. Celeste had not liked hearing of his childhood friend, he had believed her to have a constant suspicion of Olivia and now he felt it was clear. "I am Xander Krome or I was, until I married Celeste. Until I married you." He forced a smile, the babies still close into his chest as he refused to lose them again.

Then she asked a question and he went silent, his eyes looking at hers again. In that moment he did not know what he felt, he did not know how to answer the question. He took a deep breathe and locked his eyes with her, he had to be honest or so he believed. "I swore to you when we married that I would always be truthful with you, I would never lie or keep secrets from you but I can't say how I feel. I loved Celeste with all my heart but it feels like she died." It was a dark truth but it made sense in many ways. "You were taken and for all I knew I would never see you again and then I found you but you remembered nothing, you were like a stranger." His face was strangely blank, unsure whether he should cry or shout or scream or smile. It was not simple at all.

"I can't tell you how I feel because I am not sure I even know how I feel." The Shieldbearer slid from the chair and squatted beside her. "Give me time, everything has changed and I am not even sure I can get you back to the way you were before." He rocked forward onto the balls of his feet and kissed her forehead, ignoring what he saw before him and doing as he once had before. "I will always protect you though, whether you are Celeste Andaris or Tessa Anders, I will do my best to keep you and our children from harm. I swear it by Vhalar and Ethelynda, I will protect you, it is my most solemn vow."

The wolf gently deposited the babies back into Tessa's arms, they were sleeping soundly now and he was careful not to wake them. "I don't know what the future hold for us but we have to make it good for them." His eyes looked down to the babies and then back up to her and he nodded resolutely. "I have to go, there is something I need to do, it is important or I would not leave you." He stood and moved to the door. "Get some rest I will make sure Torqin is near and keeping you safe while I am gone, I shan't be long." And so he departed, stepping out of the room and closing the door behind him.

He stopped though taking a moment to just stand their a moment he regretted immediately as it allowed his emotions to consume him. He leaned against the door, sliding down silently against it as the tears poured down his cheeks. His face straight but the tears telling all that needed to be known, he was broken and in that moment the webspinners had won.