Nadia X Lincoln

Thwack. The axe sunk into the log, splitting it down the middle. Lincoln tossed the pieces into a growing pile of firewood that was ready to be stacked and stored for the upcoming winter, a job that Lincoln would do later this afternoon. He stood another log up, lining his axe up for the strike. Thwack. He probably had enough firewood to carry him through the winter, but he still found himself slaving most days away chopping wood. The work was monotonous, but it allowed him the simple pleasure of turning his mind off while his body cycled through the repetitive motions. Besides, there wasn’t much else to do and Lincoln hated being idle. When he stopped moving, he had time to think. Thwack. Lincoln was far enough south that the winters weren’t unbearable, and he’d learned to adapt to the colder temperatures. It had been an adjustment at first, everything had been an adjustment at first, but now Lincoln had fallen into a pattern and each winter passed as uneventfully as the one before it. Thwack. Each day was more or less the same as the day before, lacking anything of significance that prevented it being completely interchangeable with any other day in Lincoln’s life – and that’s how Lincoln liked it: quiet, predictable, and consistent. Thwack.

Winter was approaching but it wasn’t here yet and the air was still hot and sticky. Lincoln paused to reach down and grab his discarded shirt, using it wipe some sweat off his forehead before he lost himself in the automatic motions of chopping wood. Lincoln’s shack was way off the beaten path; his shack was in the middle of a swamp, surrounded by thick vegetation and waist-deep waters. If that wasn’t enough to keep people away, then the wildlife surely was; if people persisted through the hoard of insects, then the alligators and aggressive wild boars usually did the trick and scared them off. It wasn’t the ideal living situation, but Lincoln valued his privacy and isolation above all else and if he had to deal with a few bugs and some alligators to achieve that, then so be it. His shack was built on stilts anchored into a mass of land and was just that: a shack. It took him a handful of years to realize the only way to stop the yearly flooding was to raise it up off the ground. The plan wasn’t foolproof and if it rained too hard, the shack let in water like a leaky boat, but the flooding was manageable. Life was arduous, the long days filled with whatever needed to be done, but it was the way life needed to be and Lincoln had grown to accept that. Out here in the swamp, his secrets were hidden, and they needed to stay that way.

Lincoln used hard, physical labor to keep his thoughts at bay during the day, but he had nothing to protect himself against his dreams. At night, he was haunted by the memories of mountains of wealth. He was atop of it, half-buried in the piles of gold and silver coins and trinkets and adorned with precious stones. The dreams were uneventful, just painful reminders of the peace and wealth he had lost. Then he would wake up in his dilapidated shack, trying to ignore the sense of loss that gnawed at him as he started his day.

Then something happened that hadn’t happened any other day previously: someone screamed for help. Lincoln froze mid-swing, his head snapping in the direction of the cry for help. At first, he tried to ignore it, he really did but as the seconds ticked by, empty of screams, Lincoln found himself wavering. He didn’t know whether the silence was a good or bad thing – maybe someone else had stopped to help? Maybe they had passed out, possibly died? Fuck. Lincoln’s face morphed into a scowl as he finally lowered the axe to his side, abandoning the wood and heading in the direction of the road. The walk to the road was only about ten minutes but soon Lincoln had broken into a run, easily navigating the terrain. He tried to tell himself he didn’t give a fuck, that he shouldn’t give a fuck, but the fact that he was literally running to the aid of a stranger was enough evidence to the contrary. He couldn’t figure out why he cared, and that’s what really bothered him.

Lincoln stopped just short of where the path would have spat him out onto the road and crouched in the undergrowth. The path was hardly conspicuous, hidden among the dense foliage. It resembled more of a deer path, created similarly by the repeated steps of Lincoln. There was no reason for the robbers to assume that anyone else was around. The sound of flesh-colliding-with-flesh was loud enough that even he winced, watching the woman fall to the ground. For a long second, Lincoln wondered if she had been knocked unconscious and he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding when she finally pushed herself to her feet. Some foreign language spewed from her lips, undoubtedly unsavory words. Her courage was admiral, especially in the face of three men who were all larger, stronger, and armed. Then she literally spat in the face of one of her attackers, making Lincoln repress the urge to shake some sense into her and revise his original thought; her courage was stupid.

Lincoln should have walked away. He didn’t need this kind of trouble. This wasn’t his circus, wasn’t his monkey, wasn’t his problem. Instead, without giving himself the option of talking himself out of helping, he drew his arm back and threw the axe. The axe cut through the air and embedded itself deep into its target with surprising accuracy; the back of the neck of the largest of the three assailants. For a second, Lincoln stared at what he had done, the way his axe protruded from the back of the man. Fuck – now he really didn’t have a choice. He had to finish what he had started.
The man took a long time to fall. It was probably only a handful of seconds, but it felt like longer than it should have been for someone with an axe neck buried in their neck. The men didn’t seem to immediately realize the danger they were in, their confusion only turning to horror when their comrade finally did fall, revealing the axe. By then, Lincoln was right behind him, and he put a foot on the man’s back and pushed down as he stooped to yank the axe free. The two other men slowly processed the rapid change of events and finally the horror on their faces gave way to anger and fear.

Lincoln didn’t move, letting the other man make the first move despite his attempt to provoke Lincoln into coming at him with some derogatory slurs. He wasn’t committed to killing all three of these men and in fact, preferred if they just surrendered and took off, but Lincoln wasn’t holding his breath given the look on the man’s face. Even though he had a long-handled axe, the weapon was heavy and slow compared to the knife, allowing his opponent to be quick and nimble.

“Retarded faggot, you’re going to pay for killing him. You piece of shit,” The man sneered, but Lincoln remained impassive. His apathy only increased the man’s rage tenfold, and when he realized that Lincoln wasn’t going to come after him, he finally charged. As predicted, the man relied on being quick and nimble. He faked a low strike, changing courses at the last second and raised his arm up to embed the knife into the flesh of Lincoln’s shoulder.

The pain was jarring, but the only reaction Lincoln had was a soft grunt. When Lincoln didn’t even falter, the man’s eyes shifted uneasily between the knife and Lincoln’s face, his face rapidly losing color as he realized his mistake. The man had been expecting some sort of retaliation, some sort of attempt to stop him from stabbing Lincoln in the shoulder, but he hadn't. Lincoln had let him stab him, and it took the man a second too long to realize why. The attack had left his side wide open and with his other arm, Lincoln swung the axe up and lodged it deep into the side of the man. The man’s face froze, eyes drifting down towards the axe sticking out of his side, and back up to Lincoln. If he was looking for mercy, he found none in Lincoln’s apathetic eyes. Lincoln yanked the blade out and blood erupted out of the wound and the man fell to the ground, twitching for a couple of seconds until he finally went still.

When Lincoln looked around for the third assailant, he found him gone. He glanced down the road, raising an eyebrow at the lone silhouette hauling ass in the opposite direction of them. With the third man gone, Lincoln double checked the other two men on the ground, confirming they were dead. Only then did he finally shift his gaze to the woman, his eyes sweeping over her to check for injuries. Besides the bruise she would be later sporting on her cheek, she seemed unharmed. Lincoln tried to think of something to say to her, but his mind came up blank.

A throbbing pain in his shoulder redirected his attention, and he brought a hand up to gently touch the handle of the knife sticking out of his shoulder and he winced. When he pulled his hand away, his fingers were wet and sticky with black blood and his eyes widened a fraction. His foolish heroics had not only earned him a knife in the shoulder, but the presence of his black blood threatened to expose his secret – something he couldn’t let happen.

Wordlessly, Lincoln turned away from the scene of the massacre and started back towards the path that would lead him to his cabin with quick, purposeful strides. His mind spun; the wound wasn’t the worst he had endured, but it would require stitches and he abhorred stitching himself up. All Lincoln knew was that the mess was bound to attract attention, and Lincoln and his black blood needed to be safely hidden away before the cavalry showed up.

The woman blew into Lincoln's sanctuary with the force of a hurricane. Her presence filled the room extended to every corner, filled every crevice of his shack, stifling him with her unspoken judgments. He could see the critiques in the disapproving way she looked around the interior, making Lincoln bristle defensively. He wasn't blind to the state of his rickety shack, but her gall to judge him after he had saved her not once, but twice sparked indignation. Anyways, he hadn't exactly invited her back to his hut and if she didn't like it, then he was more than happy to open the door and shove her back out. But besides a subtle darkening to his stoic expression, he didn’t say anything.

Even though Nadia wasted no time in making herself comfortable in his space, Lincoln was tense and awkward with an intruder inside of his sanctuary. Only a handful of people had even seen his shack, but Nadia was the first to ever step through the threshold – and it wasn’t much. The inside of the shack was essentially one room, with a single door towards the back that separated a small, basic bathroom. A small fireplace and rudimentary chimney were tucked away in one corner, and a bed and a small night-side table in the other. The second half of the shack was a kitchen and storage area, complete with cabinets filled with fresh and dried fruits, herbs, and meats and assortment of nuts, a single table, and a single chair. Still, run-down and neglected as the shack looked, it was something that Lincoln had built from the ground up with his own two hands and it was something he was deeply proud of.

The woman's obvious distaste for his manner of living and the subtleties in the way she held herself and spoke left no doubt in Lincoln's mind that she was some sort of nobility. She had been traveling by carriage when she had been ambushed, so at the very least she was wealthy. He hadn't noticed much of her dress during the conflict out on the street and the trek through the swamp hadn't been forgiving to the expensive fabrics, but Lincoln wasn't daft enough to see that at one point, the dress would have been beautiful. Her accent was exotic, maybe from someplace across the sea, and it reminded him of what he used to sound like but years of living here and little interaction had diluted it down to nearly unnoticeable. Before he could stop himself, his mind fantasized about the sort of lifestyle she lived and the precious treasures she doted over - the sort of treasures Lincoln used to seek out, steal, and hoard.

A flash of light caught Lincoln's attention and the breath got stuck in Lincoln's throat as fear choked him. It was a blade, a sword, he was sure of it - but when he looked again, it was just the way had light had reflected off the woman's shoes. The perceived threat, even though it only lasted for a split second, had shocked Lincoln's heart into beating ten times faster and he had to discreetly wipe the sweat from his palms off onto his pants. He swallowed nervously, trying to get a grip on his spiraling anxieties. He forced himself to focus on the facts; the dress the woman was wearing was all wrong, and they were in his shack instead of on a beach. There was no water, no waves, and no swords. No one was coming for him. By the time Lincoln was calm enough to emerge from his thoughts, the woman was already pushing him towards the chair, and he collapsed wordlessly into it.

This was the second time the woman had triggered him in the span of an hour or so, and this episode had been worse the first. This was why Lincoln had become a recluse, living in the wilderness. It had taken years to get his episodes under control and based on pattern, Lincoln knew they were only going to get worse. The residual anxiety redirected itself towards the source, Nadia, and Lincoln fought the desire to toss her out the front door. As soon as the boar passed, he reasoned with himself, she would be gone and out of his life for good.

Her impatience earned her a sharp glare, but he did what she requested, nonetheless. At first, he hardly reacted to her introduction; his head was leaned back, his eyes closed. But after a long minute, he finally opened his eyes to look at her with dark brown eyes that were so dark they were almost black. “Nadia, hmm?” He repeated her name, letting it roll off his tongue. “Next time, someone might not out there to hear your screams, Nadia,” He drawled, making no effort to introduce him.

Lincoln didn’t remember closing his eyes, but they were closed, and he was pliant to the touch of the woman – Nadia. He hadn’t felt the touch of another beyond an accidental brush of the fingers or shoulder in an exceptionally long time, even longer for the touch of a woman. He couldn’t help but relax as she turned his head and examined his wound, her fingertips brushing up against him delicately. His thoughts wandered, and he imagined the scene as Nadia as an artist with his blood as the paint, his body the canvas.
Nadia wasn’t moving fast enough, “Damnit woman, cover that up or I will toss you out and this time, I will not come when you scream!” Lincoln demanded, retreating until his back hit the back wall. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the jewelry but now he was looking at it like it was something that lurked in his darkest nightmares, something that he was truly scared of.

Lincoln didn't breath until her fingers had curled around the jewelry, hiding it from view.  The pressure lifted off of his chest, allowing his lungs to extend and hoard the air they had been previously denied.  Now that the precious gems were safely out of his line of sight, the rest of the world slowly slid back into focus and his eyes found Nadia's.  There was no adequate explanation to give her, not without giving her the truth - and that was not an option.  He wasn't opposed to leaving her stranded amidst her confusion, floundering for some sort of explanation that he wouldn't give her.  Soon, she would return to her life and the memory of the strange man in the swamp would fade until it was only something she hardly thought of.  

Even though he was no affronted with the discarded jewelry on his table, in his home, Lincoln was still shaken.  That had been worst episode he had suffered in years, and the threat of falling back into flashback was looming over him, ready to devour him at any moment.  He was acutely aware of the gems, tuned in to the knowledge that they lay just within the delicate hands of the mysterious woman in front of him.  His impulses, while dulled compared to moments before, still reminded him how easy it would be to reach out and overpower her.  It would only take a handful of seconds; he would just wrap one of his hands around her delicate wrists and squeeze until her fingers were forced open.  He could see it all; the gems would fall from her fingers into his outstretched palm, and he could almost feel the shockwaves of pain that would shoot up his arm.  He would only be able to hold onto the gems for a second or two before his muscles contracted with pain, creating trembles that would force him to drop the gems whether he wanted to or not.  The pain would immediately lessen, but remnants of it would linger like a burn, leaving sensitive, painful reminders of what he no longer had for days.  The worst part was that even knowing this, understanding that he would only have a mere second or two to hold the gems, he was still painfully tempted to reach out and grab them - a second or two, no matter the consequences, was better than nothing at all.   

Lincoln was stronger than his impulses, but just barely.  He remained rooted in his spot, backed into the corner, staring at Nadia as she approached him.  She had seen his weakness for what it was and without understanding it, was obviously willing to exploit it.  She caged him in, blocking all avenues of escape unless he wanted to charge through her - but Lincoln knew that once he put his hands on her, he would be powerless to stop himself from taking what he wanted.  So he was left with the only other option - pressing himself as far back into the corner as possible, creating as much space as he could between him and the gemstones that plagued him.  He wished he had never saved this woman.  Her blood would have never been on his hands, and her death, much like her life, would have been inconsequential to him.  Instead, he had invited this woman into his home and practically invoked this episode in himself.  

There was absolutely no chance that Lincoln was going to relax until this woman was out of his house and out of his life.  The assurance was hollow and it was obvious that she believed it just about as much as he did.  Her next questions, however unwelcome her probing into his personal life was, successfully allowed Lincoln to focus on anything other than the gems she had just slipped into her pocket.  He gulped; had she purposely flashed him another view of the gems, the obvious source of his discomfort?  He realized that his eyes had followed the gems down to her pocket, and he snapped his gaze back up to her face. 

"I am not contagious,"  Lincoln said after a long moment, completely ignoring her request for his name.  His name did not matter to her and he was no inclined to share anymore information than was strictly necessary.  "You deserve nothing,"  Lincoln pointedly reminded her but even though his words were sharp, his tone was not, "I saved you twice and am hospitable enough to let you stay in my cabin until the boar move on,"  He paused, letting his words sink in before he continued - against his better judgment, "Do not worry about being... contaminated.  My condition is hereditary, afflicting me since birth."  He spoke slowly, as if trying to search for the right words to use.  He seldom spoke and when he did, his brain was slow to conjure up the correct vocabulary.  

He didn't know why he felt the desire to soothe this woman's worries, even though she had brought nothing but trouble into his home.  She didn't even seem all that concerned - she was far more curious, staring at him like a puzzle she couldn't figure out, but hardly worried.  Still, the thought of her being worried didn't sit right in him, especially since she had no reason to be.  It was foolish, the same foolish drives that had spurred him to save her out on the road and let her into his cabin.  

"Not special,"  The words spilled out of Lincoln, a certain hardness to them that implied he resented the very possibility, "Just... different."  He heaved a sigh; it was only natural that Nadia was seeking answers from him, especially given his near-panic attack over something so ordinary, but it still made Lincoln deeply uncomfortable.  His heart bled with her next words, unprepared for the painful reminder that there wasn't anyone else like him, not anymore.  In an ironic twist of fate, his curse had turned out to be the very thing that saved him from the grisly fate of his brethren.   "I'm not...,"  Lincoln paused, struggling to come up with the right words and becoming increasingly frustrated when he couldn't, "I can't do anything.  Not the way others can.  My blood is just... different."  His speech was uneven, wrought with abrupt pauses and misplaced stress on certain words, and Lincoln was becoming more and more frustrated with his difficulty in putting his thoughts into words.  It was becoming increasingly obvious that the differences between Nadia and Lincoln spanned further than just the color of their blood.  

Nadia finally had mercy upon him, stepping away and allowing Lincoln to take the full breath of air his anxiety had been denying him.  He didn't move from his spot, but his eyes followed Nadia as she floated around his cabin.  At first glance, it probably appeared that Lincoln was the one intruding upon Nadia's home based on their respective levels of comfort.  Nadia obviously had no qualms about making herself at home, choosing to seat herself back on Lincoln's bed instead of the vacant chair.  It was a silent, subtle act of dominance, one that Lincoln didn't retaliate against.  This situation had spiraled far out of his comfort zone and Lincoln was clueless on how to precede.  The more he saw Nadia, watched her subtleties and analyzed her choice of her words, the more he realized he needed to protect himself from her.  It didn't matter that she was half the size of him - he was starting to believe that she was far more dangerous than she appeared.

The idea of other's finding out about Lincoln made him genuinely sick to his stomach.  The idea of abandoning his home, the very hut he had spent years building from the ground up, was devastating but he was starting to think that there might not be any other choice.  This wouldn't be the first time he would be forced to start over and this time, he had enough experience behind him that it wouldn't be a horribly painful transition.  Despite his hatred for the swamp and his shabby shack, Lincoln found his life oddly gratifying and the thought of losing it was heartbreaking. He wasn't worried about persecution, not in the way she meant it.  He knew that once his secret came out, he wouldn't have to worry about the frightened masses who would probably want to kill him.  It was the people with power - the people like Nadia - who would ensure that he was safe.  Safe, in this case, was subjective; he would be alive, and he wouldn't struggle with the morbidity of knowing he was living on borrowed time.  But he wouldn't be free, wouldn't be able to stop them from bleeding him dry.  

"I value my privacy.  Not everyone wants to live among... others,"  Dragons were solitary creatures by nature, only intermingling to procreate.  Afterwards, only the females took on the responsibility of raising the young and even then, it wasn't horribly long before they, too, left to venture out on their own.  Apart from his necessity to keep his true nature a secret, Lincoln simply couldn't stand the thought of living among a community of people.  Everything was too close, too claustrophobic, and he felt no need to connect with others the way humans did.  The territorial desire, while mostly faded, still made him uncomfortable with the idea of others existing so close to his home.  He hoped it was enough to get his point across: that he didn't want anyone knowing that he was out here.  

Her incessant probing was starting to get on Lincoln's nerves, allowing his irritation to subdue his anxiety.  He couldn't remember the last time he had spoken so much, and he despite the fact that he was carefully withholding almost all information, he still felt uncomfortably exposed.  Lincoln had been waiting for her to bring the jewels up, but he still wasn't prepared for it and all of the tension immediately seized him again.  His expression hardened, unwilling to talk about the source of his anxiety.  She didn't need to know.  "My secrets are my own.  I would think that you would be respectful of that, considering I just saved you twice."  He snapped, reminding her with a pointed look.

The tension that had been holding Lincoln hostage slowly released him and he moved forward enough to look out the window.  Relief flooded through him like a shot of adrenaline as he realized that his front yard was empty.  His yard was trashed; his garden was trampled, the meager plants he had spent painstakingly ripped up and eaten.  They had toppled over his neatly stacked firewood and his axe was halfway across the yard.  Lincoln simmered at the sight, silently vowing that as soon as he finished cleaning the mess up, he would start constructing a trap for the pigs.  He refocused himself, eyes attentively searched for any signs of movement but there was none.  He turned back to Nadia, his bravery restored with his newfound mission to rid himself of this woman, "The boar are gone.  Get up, I'll escort you back to the road."  He thought of just shoving her out the door and letting her find her own way to the road, but the thought of her lingering made him reconsider.  The fastest way to ensure that was gone for good was if he brought her to the road himself, and that he would be could watch her ride off into the distance with his very own eyes.