"I am.... Unproven." There was a stigma attached to the proving of a female, and not every man wanted to do it. In Kara's culture, the ancient bond of marriage had been instituted. She let this thought slip into her head.

Rion's eyes were steady. We have the right also... marriage is sacred.

Kara infused her thoughts with Foemen deflowering defenseless searcher girls. Your kind do not honor it.

He was indignant. "I said it is sacred."

"You haven't a clue what sacred means." She slapped the tree with her burned hand, causing searing pain to flash through her at his casual belief that what he called marriage was anything even remotely resembling what she held dear. 

"An oath is an oath, Kara. We would die to uphold it. What you showed me-- (he shot the image of Foemen and searcher girls back at her) -- is lust, not marriage."

She snorted in derision and he stared at her figure in the starlight.

He shot an image of her in the crystal field, this time showing her eyes that were clearly welcoming his further intimacy. 

"What were your thoughts in that moment, na'shilean?" He took a step away from his pile of rocks, demanding she acknowledge the growing feelings between them. She owed him an answer.

"That you are protecting me."

He sat in the hammock again, one leg on either side of her body. "I offer you my protection. I offer you my knowledge of the planet and its people outside of your domes. I am offering you healing."

"For a moment, in the field, and again on the beach... it felt as if you were offering me something more."

"Yet you do not believe me capable of offering anything similar to your marriage oath? You think I will simply force you without your consent? You think all men of my caliber are the same?"

She tightened her lips. "No, not all men are the same, and no... I don't necessarily think that you would... hurt me.... or take...."

"You sense honor. I do have that, na'shilean. I will not take you against your will. Ever. You have my oath."

Kara nodded, and Rion rested his forehead against her neck. "You believe me now?"

She allowed the sudden intimacy, unable to stop her own trembling heart. His palms slid up her shoulders, cupped her cheeks and as he looked into her eyes shadows deepened between them.

"That doesn't mean that I don't want you, Kara."

She felt her insides light up with his words. Was this the reason that he had taken her out of the mountain and kept her? Were their feelings developing in ways that neither of them had ever thought possible?

"You are free."

He stood aside, flourishing a hand as if to tell her to get up. When her wobbly legs betrayed her exhaustion, he extended a hand. Kara did not reach for it. She realized that if she did it would be giving him the symbol of her independence. Each little symbolic act that had turned a little of herself over to him had served to strengthen the bond between them and this-- she could not allow. 

Rion allowed his breathing to return to a normal rhythm. His heart beat slowed its frantic pace, and he wiped his hands on his legs. For a moment they had been of one accord. These moments were becoming more frequent.

However, there were pressing concerns at hand.

"We do not sleep here." 

She stopped with her back to him and waited. Free, she muttered to herself, freedom meant something different to her.

"There is a path a few miles from here. It will take us to the village where I grew up."

She pinched two fingers against the bridge of her nose. "And?"

"I have family there." He grabbed her hand, squeezing her fingers tightly.

Kara dug in her feet. "If you value family, let me go to my family. If you let me go here, I can get to the mountain--."

"No." He began walking at a very brisk pace and Kara had no choice but to follow him.

"So much for your freedom." She stumbled resentfully, her legs tingling and sore.

Rion grunted as he yanked her to his side. "I meant you are free to walk unchained."

Kara's mouth hung open at his bald-faced lie. "That is not what you meant at all."

He squeezed her fingers tightly, but Kara didn't know if he meant to remind her of his power or reassure her of his intent to keep her.

"What if I meant you are free to marry."

"I have always been free to marry."

"Oh, so no fatherly dispensation? No betrothal or arrangements?"

"There can be that, but my father will never force me against my will."

"You can choose whom you wish to marry?"

"I believe I can, yes."

The terrain was bumpy from small animals, rutted stones or bad weather. As they got away from the crystal field, it became more manageable. Kara was able to smell the salty flavor of the ocean and as they came out of the trees she looked out over its vast expanse. She faltered mid-step. Rion sensed her awe. 

She could hear it, breathe it, feel it in her blood. She closed her eyes, listening to it, as she never had before. Even the starlight glistened off of it. She'd never imagined it was so vast.

Under the sea, time meant nothing. A person knew it was an illusion, but ceased to care about the falsity. It became a way of life. Nothing even remotely compared to the feel of being outdoors, with the randomness of it, the smells, the wind, the inconsistency. Her heart jumped at the thought of being able to live out here, and she now knew why Galantyne was so driven to free their people. The life they lived was no life at all. 

"What do you see?" Rion reveled in her excitement.

Kara wanted to explain the feelings that were coursing through her. 

He stared at the ocean, a mystery world he had lived with all his life, out there were the enemies, on land was freedom. He'd never tried to imagine it from their point of view. They didn't want to take the land from his people, but rather make it clear so they could share it. It was a large expanse, as large as the sea, and far more hospitable if the air were not toxic.

"Do you feel a kinship with the sea you live in?" 

Kara shrugged. "I live there. It is home. One feels kinship to a place because they are familiar with it. But here!" She threw her arms wide. "This is freedom, Rion!"

He'd never viewed it the way she was at this moment and seeing it through her eyes was astonishing. He smiled at her sudden expressive movement and felt it himself, a sort of wild abandonment came over him and he grabbed her hands and twirled her in a circle. 

"Come Kara! Show me how you feel!"

Kara stared at the darkening ocean and then back at the forbidding mountain and the titular crystal field, it's forbidding spires a glistening reminder of the hostility her people faced every day of their existence. Her fingers flexed, and she stooped to grab a handful of the dirt beneath her feet. Without standing, she let it fall from her hands, and then she straightened and looked up. "I don't know what I feel."

Rion gazed over her head toward the village he couldn't quite see, but the hazy smoke of it filled his keen vision. "For a moment you felt freedom."

Kara couldn't argue that point. "For a moment."

"For a moment you didn't think of me as your enemy. I was almost... your friend."

Friend? How can I be your friend? I will never be your friend!

"You can hide it all you want, but I am very good at analyzing your feelings, Kara. I know what I felt. You experienced awe when you stared out at the ocean for the first time, and you felt dismay at the vastness of it, and the impossibility of your quest."

Her breath came shallow. "My quest... is not... impossible!"

"When I first met you, you sensed something in me, do you remember?"

Kara looked into eyes that had become familiar and intent. "Yes. I sensed that you long for freedom, that you no longer care about Quildor's war."

"What if..." Rion mused, staring off into the distance. "What if I were to take you far away? Past the villages, past where men have traveled?"

Kara gulped. Just the two of them? Past where men had explored? What was the land like there? Could anyone survive? And if they could, why hadn't they? "What do you mean, Rion?"

His voice was too husky, too excited, willing her to grasp his thoughts and feelings. "I feel like there is more that I should be doing, more that can be done. There is no need to fight for another person's revenge."

Kara's eyes darted over his face, allowing her distrust to fade into the background. It might be her biggest mistake, but right now, she simply saw him as a man. What was he asking her? Was he really thinking of leaving the known, for the unknown? Of taking her away?

She broke away from his grasp and he let her go, one hand to her forehead covering her eyes. He knew how to survive, that wasn't in question. He was convinced of his need for freedom, and wasn't loyal to Quildor, again: not a question. She could access his core, his deepest desires; he couldn't lie to her. She would know, as would he if she tried to lie. There had come a time in their days together when the feelings they'd first initiated inside the mountain had become cemented. 

Just like she knew right now, he was simply speaking his thoughts.

He hadn't planned on leaving, but his reaction to another one of his elite Quarso Foemen in the area had made him reflect on a new course. This knowledge was beginning to take shape in his consciousness, and she was aware of his intensity.

Her eyes wandered over him. He had become more than familiar. He had become something else... something they both sensed and knew they should shy away from, and yet couldn't.

She saw hope in his eyes and shivered stiffly, as his hands cupped her shoulders. She felt the way his thumbs caressed her skin and swallowed, trembling.

I can see us starting a new life together.

Us...

Yes, just the two of us.

Like we already have-- out here?

In a sense, yes. Doesn't this prove to you that it can be done?

********