Too Far was. In all these important lessons that were crucial for the development of a true queen, she'd figured out how to pace herself and prioritize.
Right now, the man sitting on the beach with her was that... a dear, sweet priority, who deserved time, attention, healing, and more. A good man who'd backed himself into an ego corner, had lashed out, and gotten hurt, but now needed her, his woman, to open the secret door to salvage his pride. So she danced a flowing dance, explaining all but not everything. She let his mind fill in the blanks during every delicate pause and breath.
"Now does that make sense?" she said gently, still talking with her hands as they sat side by side.
Carlos nodded, but kept his gaze on the sand. "I thought you weren't coming back," he admitted quietly. "After all the mess I've done, I couldn't blame you."
"I wasn't going nowhere," she said, hoping that he'd look up and see the truth in her eyes. "I had to be the one to go get the Caduceus... it has healing powers that only work from a woman's hands. Eve gave it to me, so it holds my charge, and I have to be the one to give it back to the queens for safekeeping."
"That why they called you for the meeting?" He'd asked the question while digging a small hole in the sand with a shell.
She paused, evaded, but would not he to him. "They wanted me to learn some lessons."
"Guess we both got taken to school today, huh?"
She smiled when he looked up at her. But his eyes seemed so sad as he considered her disheveled condition and went back to digging in the sand.
"Like I said, I can't say nothing to you about what probably went down... or whatever you had to do to get him to give up the staff." Carlos shrugged absently and pitched away the shell. "I ain't mad; I don't have a right to be."
Damali looked over her revealing outfit and sighed. "They sent me in there with theater," she admitted. "Thought it best if I went in unarmed, and appealed to his Old World sense of what a woman was supposed to be, instead of going head to head with him as a warrior."
Carlos nodded, the muscle pulsing in his jaw. "I know. I understand why you had to be the one to do that, and why I couldn't. It's cool."
"They wanted me to catch him off guard," she said quietly, "but not kill him." She let her breath out hard. "They also didn't want me to kill you... and I told them that if I went too far, it would."
He looked up at her with a very quiet, unspoken yet urgent question shimmering in his brown irises. Then he looked at her hands. "Did they give you those?" he whispered, staring at his tattoo in her palms.
Damali turned her palms up for him to inspect. "I wanted to go in there very clear about what I would and would not do." She could almost feel the silent one-ton weight lift from his shoulders. "He was very disappointed that I had only come for the Caduceus. But he'll have to get over it."
She watched Carlos swallow a smile as his quietly pleased gaze sought the sea. "I'm sorry that I allowed him to nick me in the throat," she said. "That was wrong."
Carlos lifted his chin, pride putting tension in his shoulders again. "Like I said, it was cool." "No, it wasn't," she said softly. "But for the record, it didn't leave a mark."
He gave her a sidelong glance. "Hey, we don't have to talk about it. It's squashed."
She began digging in the sand between her feet with a small shell. Ahhh... Nefertiti was so wise, the queen's bath so mystical... "I want you to lean in, open your vamp radar, and inspect my throat."
"That ain't necessary, D, after all we've been through and everything you told me. It's enough for me that you know what this asshole was trying to do against humanity, so--"
"Do it for me," she said softly. "So I can sleep at night knowing you know, even if you don't care. Thinking that you still don't trust me, even if you do, will worry me beyond the grave. It's a woman thing... can you do that for me, baby?"
Carlos gave her a slight scowl. "Only because Mar showed me how y'all's minds work am I gonna do this,