Story for the Day: Rautu's Deliberations

From "The Commander and the Den Asaan Rautu", available on Amazon.

Deliberations

Rautu took his nightly deliberations to the main deck, pacing with brooding worry over this. Another obstruction had been placed in his way. Just when he had surmounted his own hesitations, he would now have to renew them when he wished very much to do otherwise. He began to think of other circumstances and of how she would have been spared if only he had surrender to his selfish delights. If he had only not asked her to join him, if there would have been a way he could have revisited his home and come back for her at a later time, if she would have come to the islands as a convert, if he had only stopped her from walking into the temple, but he knew he would have had other questions to solve. If they had not ventured into the temple and if she would have stayed within the shelter of his home while the battle was going on, she might have stayed another few days and then he would have been faced with the issue of separation once again. A parting without his brothers being on the island to bolster his suffering would have been unbearable. Ghodhina was there and so might have been other acquaintances, but they could not compare with the warmth of a brother or the coldness of a Hakriyaa. This was the best outcome, Rautu decided. He would be with her until the end of the season, and though it was a season he despised, she would be a most agreeable addition to his bed for comfort and warmth through the end of the Frewyn winter. Here he stopped himself. He must not surrender, he must first find a means of amnesty before he pursed their connection further. He sighed, knowing there was little time left for him. She would ruin him eventually: a touch of her chaotic hair, a hint of her skin’s fragrance, a look, a touch, a closeness and he would be done.