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He was just as handsome as she had remembered.
"Venn," she stumbled over his name, her melodious voice little more than a whisper as she stared into his midnight eyes. "It has been... too long." So caught up in the moment was she that Larien didn't even notice when the monk that had led her there left the room. In the young woman's mind, they had been alone from the start. "I have thought of you often." The words were past Larien's lips before she could stop them... and immediately after speaking them, she wished to take them back. The blush that crept up from the hollow of her neck traveled slowly as it flamed over her angular cheeks, painting her pale skin a delicate shade of pink... yet, she could not look away. It had been too long -- far too long -- since their last meeting. She didn't want to waste a single moment averting her gaze in embarrassment when she could instead be drinking him in.
"Yes... tea... thank you..." Her pale emerald gaze never shifting from his, Larien moved to sit in the offered seat, immediately grateful as the warmth from the hearth curled against her chilled skin. Rubbing absentmindedly at her arms, the young woman waited on the edge of the chair until Venn drew near with the tray. She could smell his scent, that heavy musk that had intoxicated her so many times in the past. It was all she could do to resist falling under its spell then.
Her fingers ran nervously through her long auburn hair as she continued to watch him, her eyes caressing slowly across the line of his nose, the angle of his cheek, the curve of his jaw. In her absence from Natura, she had forgotten the extent of Venn's good looks... he was breath-taking. For at least a handful of long moments, the young woman forgot her purpose in coming. Had it been possible or even productive, she would have sat there all through the brightening studying him quietly. But it was not to be. Eventually, Larien's memory returned and she shifted deeper into the seat, her pale hands folding in her lap as she continued to regard her ex-fiance with her eerily light green eyes.
"I have come to you on this brightening as a friend, Venn... a friend that needs your help. Word has traveled to the ears of my cousin Calairiel about suspicious movement coming from the Orcs. We do not trust them... I am being sent in her place to speak with the Regent in Prime in regards to these rumors... though afterwards, I was planning to travel to the source of these rumors to find out the exact nature of this suspicious movement for myself." Pausing, Larien rubbed her pale hands over her legs in an almost nervous caress as she dropped her gaze from Venn's for a split second before returning her pale green eyes to his midnight once more. "I am not afraid," she whispered, her voice ringing true for indeed, Larien could only speak the truth. "But I do not wish to go alone. I have a few of the Gil'dae Quicksilver Guard in my company, but I still do not feel like that is enough... especially if the Regent assigns them to some other task and they are not free to travel with me on my scouting mission. I was hoping... I was hoping you could help me. I was hoping to find a few paladins that could travel with me to help me scout out the situation..."
Her voice trailing off, Larien swallowed against the dryness of her throat before continuing, her voice quiet with her silent pain at what she was to say next. "I would not ask you to leave your wife, but I was hoping you could help me all the same."
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