Finn
Laura had changed since I last saw her. Her hair was longer and there was a new level of confidence in the way she moved.
I promised myself that I wouldn’t blame her, even though I was mad at her for having caused my friend so much pain.
“Do you live around here?” I asked and looked out the window from the coffee shop where she had agreed to meet me.
“I’m not telling you where I live, but no, it’s not close to here.” Laura was distracted by two women who had recognized me, and were trying to get my attention by waving.
“I warned you it was a bad idea to meet in a public place like this,” I muttered. “Don’t be surprised if there’s a picture of us on the news tonight with a fabricated love story.”
Laura’s eyes darted around the room. “I thought you were just exaggerating.”
“I wasn’t. It doesn’t matter, you and I both know why I’m here.”
Squirming in her chair, Laura looked down. “Magni sent you, didn’t he?”
“He wants you to come home, Laura. He loves you.”
Her head shot up, and she looked at me with a little frown. “How do you know? He never spoke those words, did he?”
“Maybe not those words exactly, but that’s just because Magni isn’t exactly a big talker, is he?” I ran my hands through my hair in frustration, trying to find the right words to convince her. “He waited a long time for you Laura.”
“I know. It’s been almost six months since I left.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh?”
“Magni passed up five tournaments, waiting for you to turn eighteen.” I leaned forward. “Did you ever wonder why a man who was a given winner of any tournament he participated in would choose not to take part in them?”
“I just thought he wasn’t ready for marriage,” Laura said and blinked those pretty blue eyes.
“Then you’re naïve.” Leaning back again, I crossed my arms. “Magni lost his heart to you after that episode at the Gray Mansion.”
“I was just a child then; surely he didn’t think I was serious.”
“Do you know Magni at all? The man has always taken life too fucking serious.”
Laura creased her brows. “That makes no sense. That episode happened eight or nine years before we got married. I doubt he even remembers.”
“You asked him to marry you,” I reminded with my brow lowered. “It might’ve been the first marriage proposal from a female to a male in the Northlands, so yeah, he fucking remembers alright.”
Laura rested her elbows on the table and let her face fall into her hands. I waited until she looked up and spoke. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Then how do you remember it?” I asked and her eyes grew distant as she went back in time.
“We had been invited to the Ruler’s palace and my mother had done my hair and dressed me in my finest dress. I was so excited, but it turned out to be boring with nothing but adults drinking coffee and talking for hours. Desperate to see some of the large palace, I snuck out and went exploring. That’s when I found two men fighting. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know that it was Khan and Magni. I just spied on them, enthralled by how elegant they looked as their large, sweaty bodies danced around each other in swift movements. To me they were grown men. Looking back, Magni can’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen at the time.”
While she spoke, Laura was twirling a lock of her hair between her fingers. “Being a child watching something that I didn’t understand, I saw Khan provoking and kicking Magni to the floor over and over. It was scary to watch, and I was scared Khan would kill him.” Her eyes focused on me as if coming back to the present. “Magni always got up again, but I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t fight back. It made me want to cry.”
“That doesn’t sound like Magni,” I commented.
Laura smiled a little. “He must have been teaching Khan some special technique or something. In the end, it became too much for me to watch, and I knew I had to do something to help him. I wished I could fight off Khan myself. Of course that was impossible. There was no time to get my father since Khan was being really mean to Magni. That’s why I entered the room and pretended I was lost.”
“Clever!” I nodded my head. “What did they do?”
“Well,” she breathed, her eyes distant with memories again. “They stopped fighting at once. I think both of them were surprised to see a nine-year-old girl. I can remember Magni rushing to me asking me where my protector was.”
“Did you tell them that you had snuck out?”
“No, I was afraid of getting into trouble. I just told them that I had been looking for a bathroom when I got lost. Magni offered to take me back to my parents.”
“Is that when you asked him?”
Laura rubbed her collarbone. “He had such nice eyes, blue like mine, and I was so worried about all the beatings he had taken. Then it dawned on me, that this nice man would surely die if he entered a tournament, and I didn’t want him to die.”
I couldn’t hide a smile. “You pitied Magni?”
“Yes, so I begged him not to fight in a tournament, and I promised that if he would wait for me I would marry him.”
I laughed. “He never told me that part. Did he know you thought he couldn’t fight?”
Laura lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. “Probably not, but he tousled my hair and called me a sweet kid, and that’s all I remember from that day.”
“But he did wait for you.”
She smiled. “Yes, he did, but I had no idea that it was related to that episode.” Shaking her head, she lowered her voice. “You make him sound like he’s a romantic, Finn, but we both know that isn’t true.”
“Define romantic,” I said.
“Well, for one he doesn’t express his love to me, and he’s always bossing me around, warning me about this or that.”
“There are many ways of saying I love you,” I pointed out. “Being protective is one.”
Laura looked thoughtful. “I guess you have a point, but coming here has opened my eyes to how limited my life was in the Northlands. I’m happy here, Finn, and I get to train in martial arts.”
“Laura, tell me you don’t miss the Northlands at all?”
She drew her eyebrows close together. “Of course I miss home. I miss my friends, my sister, and…” She swallowed and exhaled with force. “And I miss Magni too.”
“So, come back with me,” I exclaimed, pushing to the edge of my seat. “At least for a while. If you can’t make it work then you can always come back here. Just give Magni a chance to talk to you.”
“He’s mad at me,” she said and fidgeted with a blue bracelet. “I know he is.”
“True. But that’s because you left without a goodbye.” I softened my voice. “Laura, he worries about you and he misses you.”
Biting her lip, she sat quiet for a while, deep in thought. “I’ll think about it.” She raised her chin in a defiant way. “But you’d better tell Magni that I’m not the same woman as when I left. I won’t allow him to boss me around anymore.”
Shit. I could only imagine how Magni would react to getting a rebellious wife back to replace the sweet one that had left him.
“Maybe it’s better if you tell him yourself,” I advised.
Laura tapped her foot with nervous energy. “The reason I agreed to meet with you is that I’ve been thinking about the Northlands a lot these past months. I feel guilty for leaving the way I did. Maybe it would be good for Magni and me to talk about our marriage.”
“You’re not thinking about divorce, are you?”
“All I know is that I’m not willing to go back to what we had, and with Magni…” She sighed. “Let’s just say he’s not the most flexible person in the world.”
“No, but he’s probably one of the most loyal,” I argued, my heart racing from fear that Laura would be cruel enough to divorce Magni. His pride and honor had already suffered a great deal when she left him. If she insisted on a divorce, it would be even worse.
“Yeah, I guess that’s true. He is very loyal.” She gave a small nod and looked down, taking a little time before she spoke. “Finn, what time are you leaving tomorrow?”
“There’s an official ceremony by the border at noon. After that the five of us are returning.”
“I’ll let you know what I decide before then,” Laura said and stood up. “If I’m not at the border when you go back, don’t wait for me.”