Waking from a particularly vivid dream the night before, I went to write it down and this is what came out. Maybe it's a fairy tale long lost, a legend from another time, or maybe it was just a flight of fancy in my dreams, none the less as times grow dark it's a time to share such tales.
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No m’lady you should not wish for a love like theirs, pray the Gods don’t hear you. It’s not a tale of love overpowering duty, or a man questing for the maiden's heart. Theirs is a tale of blood, of sacrifice, hope lost, and hard won. For he was the Sacrificial King. The brother chosen to kill and be killed, to return this land to it’s former glory and redeem himself from his old ways. A doomed man from the start, he knew better than to hope for a life and a future. But the heart rarely listens to such stout logic when it meets its match.
She had her own part to play in the coupe that won it all. She out of all of her strange companions stood forward to be the bait and lure the Beast-that-was to his death. It had to be one of them you see, those strange beings from another place. Because no one here could touch the trinket that kept the Beast alive, that kept him immortal.
And so when the time came the Sacrificial King sat unknowing that his beloved was the one hiding in the dark waiting for the nightmare to come and chase her. Not knowing until that moment when she came barreling past, the furies of hell at her heels and planted a kiss on him that she loved most dear.
“Come back to me.” She said, though she had no right to say it. It was meant to be his fate to die that day, but she dared their Gods and Destiny itself to deny that spark that was lit between them. As quickly as she appeared she was gone, her own mission yet uncompleted. For she had a journey ahead of her to destroy that which could not be destroyed and prayed to return to a free land, and a living man.
And when she did return, her heart in her throat, beating with worry, beating against the odds that he had come out victorious, that he had come out alive. All around were smiles, and rejoyousing. He had been victorious at least, with a raging heart and fury of love of land and the love that may not be, he had torn the Beast limb from limb. Ensuring his place in the Halls of Heroes and legend. But no one would stop to tell her whether he lived to hear it or not. As she came in nearer she saw him, lying on a hero’s pyre. She could little understand how there could be such jubilation in the wake of the death of such a man, and as the tears fell pitilessly on his body and her heart began to break and tear at her soul, a heavy and calloused hand clasped her shoulder.
“Now, now pretty little one, you’ll ruin my best tunic.”
Startled she jerked back to see the man on the pyre not dead but wounded, and grinning like the rouge scoundrel that he was, please as punch to see he had such an affect on her. And as the tears still rolled down her cheeks, she beat at his chest in frustration and relief, throwing loving insults before the emotions of it all took what little strength she had left and she collapsed in his arms.
Confusion wrought across his face, for this was no fond embrace, she was limp and beyond the reach of his words. As he shifted her weight, his hands came away from her waist moistened, wet with blood.
She had not escaped her part in the final battle unharmed. For as she stole the trinket and ran from the Beast-that-was, it had manage to claw at her side in an attempt to regain his immortality. But the clean crisp wound merely a finger width deep had turned ragged and rancid tearing deeper in her side on her wild run to destroy the foul talisman. She had not stopped a moment since she crossed the Gods and begged him to return to her. She ran both night and day, with little thought in her mind but to destroy the item and return to see him. Though the mission did call for such haste, the toll was great on her poor mortal body.
And so the roles reversed, it was he that knelt weeping at her bedside, as the fever and infection wreck havoc through her body. He cursed to the Gods that he had killed that Beast mercifully, and now wished for the chance to exact vengeance for the pain he cause such a marvel of a woman.
As her life hung in the balance, the Brother Kings wondered silently. Was this was the will of the Gods? For their Brother had lived through his task, a feat that no one could have foretold, and now the brave foreign lass lie at Death’s door...in his stead? It seemed too cruel even for them, for never was man more torn apart with grief. And as the worst drew near, and everyone held their breath for Death’s quick hand. The impossible happened.
She lived! Weakly she awoke, and turned his grief to joy. But it was not yet over for them. Fragile and weak as she was, he did not trust himself not to break her with his passions and so kept himself away. Doubt began to grow where words were never spoken, and in the company of her countrymen she felt herself being pulled away.
They wished to return to their native land, and sought to convince her to do so as well. True she was healing, but surely she would heal better there. They missed their home, they felt astranged in this strange land and wanted to feel the comfort of their old lives once more. But it was she that held them together here, she who had lead them through the darkness, had kept them alive, and the journey home seemed perilous without her.
For herself there was nothing left in their native lands. Never had she felt more alive than here, never had she felt more at home. Always she had yearned for something more. Yet could she stay if he did not love her? Would the adventure and the land be enough for her to call home, without someone to share it with?
As the companions parting day grew near, her decisions was still yet to be made. At length he did come to her, unable to keep himself away when the whispers reached him that she might go.
The conversation was not easy, emotions too great choked at the words they would say. Was it the wind or his voice that had at lasted whispered the words?
“I came back for you.”
Finally they locked eyes, the force of which was enough to break into a thousand pieces the silence and doubt that had grown over the months. It was not a feeling she was use to, the vulnerability of love, though the tremble in her voice was an enemy to her, she could not help but ask without asking.
“I had thought that you had changed your mind…that my weakness made you think better of it—“ She was silenced without a word, two crushing lips and possessive arms that strength of will could no longer keep in check.
“You make me envious of her Martha. To be loved by such a man.”
“Nay, madame’ The love of such a man would overwhelm you, till you would shrink at the sight of it. No, it was the way of things that any other woman would have been frightened by the passions in such a kiss, in such a man. For they were fierce and relentless, and knew little of gentility. But where other women would have shrieked out of pain, she strange creature that she was smiled. Smiled and matched him, passion for passion. Smiled in the knowledge that even in her weakest state, she could be the undoing of him.”
Fin
