Lonely Night, Drunken Night

Writers: Paula, Eimi
Date Posted: 1st December 2017

Characters: Erassa, Corowal
Description: The drunken Lord Holder finds himself in Erassa's company
Location: Emerald Falls Hold
Date: month 2, day 4 of Turn 9

Corowal poured himself a new drink while he studied over yet another
report. It would be so much easier to just sign them without reading.
But he could get swindled that way, so he read every sharding thing.
Especially now that he didn't have a proper steward who he trusted. He
kept hoping that Sarban would come back but that was very unlikely. So
he rotated the position among the under stewards, hoping one of them
would stand out. So far, not good. Then he realized that nothing was
happening, his glass remained empty. The carafe was empty. A sign that
it was time to quit for the night.

He got up and looked out of window. The night had fallen and
everything was quiet. Everyone seemed to be sleeping except the night
guards and the watch wher prowling the grounds.

He was tired but not sleepy (and bit drunk). As he often did during
nights like this, he crept to check his children, including the
extended ones. They were all sleeping restfully, so sweet and
innocent. Coria slept with her butt sticking upwards and Collyn had
kicked off his blanket. He tugged him back in and then sneaked out
again. Or tried. He hit his shin to the table corner. "Who the shards
left the table there?" he tried to suppress the string of profanities.

Erassa jumped at the sound as she reached up to put the last plate
back in it's place. Thankfully she kept hold of it. "Are you all
right?" she asked over her shoulder as she carefully stacked it on top
of the others and tried to calm her beating heart.

"Oh, Erassa," of course she would be awake. "Bloody tables," Corowal
muttered and limped to a couch. After sitting down, he had to get up
again and fish out few building blocks.

The fostermother frowned as she watched his obviously impeded
movement. "How bad did you hit it?" she asked, showing the same
concern that she would for one of the children. It was just second
nature to her now. She couldn't help it even if she wanted to.

"Probably left a mark," Corowal replied. "Why aren't you in bed?"

I didn't have time to wash the dishes between feeding Coria and
getting all the kids ready for bed." She wiped her hand on the towel
and walked over. With her best mothering voice, she said, "Lift up
your pant leg. Let me see."

"And now she wantsh the pantsh off," Corowal said, slurring a bit. But
he did obediently roll up his pant. "Don't we have drudges for that,
washing dishesh?"

"I've always washed the dishes," she said simply, ignoring his first
comment. "I think you bruised it, but there doesn't seem to be any
blood."

"Told you so," Corowal grunted and leaned to pull the pant back down.
Their heads met, his forehead resting against the top of her head.

Erassa froze at the unexpected touch. Any time Corowal touched her,
it was a surprise. After he had kissed her in public at a Turns End
celebration, they had avoided any physical contact, despite what the
Holders might have thought.

"What happened to us?" he asked. It was mostly rhetorical question, he
knew what happened: Felyna. For her sake, Corowal had ignored Erassa.
They had been so close once. But not the way the holders presumed and
not the way he had wanted. They had been friends and he had been able
to talk to her.

When she found her voice again, she barely more than whispered, "We
made our choices. That's all."

"And sometimes we regret them," Corowal sighed.

**We?** she whispered to herself with an inaudible snort. But it did
give her pause. Did she regret it? She shouldn't. It was his
choice, after all. When she first knew him she admired and respected
him. That changed after she realized all she was in his mind was a
skirt to chase. At yet, as much as she did not regret giving her body
to him, she had, surprisingly, missed him. Despite all her anger at
his womanizing, he had been incredibly kind to her when B'lion died,
when her family turned her away... He had certainly treated her son
with incredible kindness for being the bastard son of a servant. Did
she regret the loss of his attention? There were moments when she had
clung to him, and she had to admit, there had been a few times over
the last couple Turns when she had wished she had his strength to lean
on. **We...**

She pulled back, shaking her head slightly. They had never been a
"we", but there had certainly been talk of an "us" once. Long ago.
Could it be she really did miss that? "Where's your drink?"

"Ran dry," Corowal replied. And now he was starting to sober up.

"Figures. Right when I could use one." She sighed and sat back on her knees.

"I have the keys to the winecellar," Corowal pointed out.

Erassa rolled her eyes. "I can't leave the children, and you're also
the Lord Holder. What are you having?"

"Oh, yes, I can send some poor dastard to get us a drink," Corowal may
be sobering but he wasn't sober yet. "I like brandy."

She stood and walked to the door. Leaning out, she caught the eye of
one of the attendants waiting outside his door to send them to fetch
the Lord a bottle of brandy and a fresh glass. "I'm going to check
the children one more time before they come back with your bottle."
Last thing she needed was for one of them to be awake at a time like
this.

"Alright," Corowal replied and leaned backwards. He just enjoyed
watching her move around. He suddenly remembered why he had started to
pursue her in the first place.

Erassa could feel his eyes follow her. **Just like old times. He
must be drunk.** That was something that she hadn't missed. The way
he made her feel like she was his next prey. She hadn't missed that
feeling, but at times she had encouraged it. Being the object of his
interest had secured her position in the household. Truth be told,
she was surprised he had kept her around this long. He could replaced
her with any number of girls who would have made his wife a whole lot
happier. **Why didn't he when he knew I was off limits?**

Corowal's thoughts were running along the same lines but from
different point of view. It had started out as her being nothing more
than another pretty girl to be conquered, another notch in a belt. But
she turned out resistant, a challenge. The more harder she was to get,
the more interesting she became. Untill he realized he had developed
genuine feeling for her. And then had to repress them, for Felyna. Now
Felyna was gone and he didn't know what to do with Erassa. He wante to
go back to the old but a distance had grown between them, a coldness.
Things were much more simple with Dinalee.

When the soft knock on the door came, Erassa answered it. She hadn't
told them to bring more than one cup. It wouldn't help rumors if
people knew she was having late night drinks with the Lord Holder
after the children had gone to sleep. Although, what would it really
matter? She just had to look in his general direction and assumptions
would be made. Sitting across from him, she filled the glass and took
a long sip before reaching across to hand it to him. Her nose
wrinkled as she remembered that brandy was not usually her first
choice. But from the way it burned down her throat and down to her
toes, she knew it would do the job at least.

Corowal took the glass, saluted her with it and drank it down in one go.

Last updated on the January 16th 2018

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Lonely Night, Drunken Night