The confines of society and the restriction of social status have no meaning in the darkness, with nothing separating them but a fine sheen of sweat and the press of hard leather, linen, and rough wool.
Here there is no way to measure their wealth, no means to weigh and judge the titles which seem to burden some and exalt others. Here they are alone, apart from the rest of the world, and there is no one to judge her as Lady or him as Sir Knight.
Here in the dark, their worth is entirely of their own making, of their own desires.
It is just the two of them alone in the blackness - just her and him - and the simple but perfect combination of them together.
Meeting like this, it's easy for Gunther to forget he doesn't belong in her world any more than she belongs in his, and that under any other circumstances, ones more than a stone's throw from normalcy, they would be kept far, far apart. He'd have to be dead - cold and dead and immune to the world - not to see the insurmountable gulf between them. There is no way, no means to reconcile it; like his own ambition, her complete and utter rejection of convention, expectation, or obligation does nothing to change the distance between them.
She is above and beyond him in more ways than he can count, can imagine or even begin to intuit, and it is this difference in station - if he's being completely honest with himself, in very being - that should keep them far apart.
But here, away from the prying view of their keepers, away from the lords and ladies and the judgemental eyes of their betters, they are close.
As close and intimate as two friends, two lovers, two enemies can be.
Pressed together, pulled apart. Tangled, over and over again in an age-old dance. They are body to body, skin to skin, and panting in harsh staccato with the effort of their exertion.
The slivered moon escapes from the clouds which conceal it and Gunther catches a glimpse of her flushed face. Her pale skin is tinged pink with a blush that travels down the curve of her neck, up and over her collarbone, and continues down into the alluring dip and swell of her cleavage.
Her eyes are heavy-lidded, her expression intense and unreadable.
She is magnificent.
His breath catches as she moves towards him. Her fingers - calloused and strong, but no less feminine for all their scars and imperfections - skim the hard line of his jaw and leave a trail of fire where they scrape across his skin. They tangle in his hair and her short, unladylike nails score his scalp. It's painful and wonderful and goosebumps rise to race in response to her touch.
Jane gives his hair a hard yank and releases him. He doesn't realize he's pulling against her until she lets go; his head wrenches back and at his gasp of surprise the corners of her mouth turn up in the slightest of satisfied smiles.
She wants to surprise him, to be rougher than expected, and while it hurts the pang of discomfort sends a jolt directly to his core, spurring him on.
He rocks back on his heels, needing to ground himself, needing to step back and recenter - if he doesn't this will be over too soon for his liking - but she is on him, pressing close, taking advantage of his surprise.
She curls her fingers into the fabric of his shirt and pulls down hard, bringing him closer, closer. Twice in so many moments Gunther finds himself struggling to find his feet. She nearly topples him, nearly throws him completely off his balance to bring him crashing down on top of her. It is likely what she intended, but he manages to stop his forward momentum just in time.
As much as he wants to, he cannot give her so much, so soon.
He grunts at the effort to right himself, pleased by her fervor.
She smells like sweat and leather and smoke and a future that he cannot dream of beyond tonight. It makes his stomach churn and his legs weak and watery. She's driving him crazy - heart pounding, head spinning - does she know what she's doing to him?
He reaches out, his desperation mounting, wanting to catch some part of her. Her wrist, her shoulder, a soft curl which has escaped the confines of her braid -
-but she's gone, dancing away from him with a twist and a muffled sigh - long and lithe and gracefully seductive as any courtier - only to return again, closer this time.
She knows.
He is at her mercy and he hates it - the lack of control, the feeling of being under someone else's power - even if it is only for these few, fleeting moments where they are alone. With her every movement, every lingering touch or teasing brush against him, he can feel his command of self retreating. He is surrendering himself to her - whether he wants to or not - and he can feel the last bits of his composure slipping, falling, crashing down between her. It is everything he can do to keep himself from falling completely apart - though he knows it is only a matter of time before he does.
Jane knows it too, and laughs in the darkness.
She's the master here, and she gives no quarter.
It's a blow to the chest and one to his gut, and once again he tries to regain his footing, reclaim some of the ground between them, but she doesn't relent. Each touch burns like the sun, leaving his blood pumping hotly in its wake, only to replaced with the cold of her absence when she moves away again.
For all her apparent innocence - the veil of purity and honor she wears like a mask for the rest of the world - here with him, alone under the starless sky, she is someone else. Jane is someone better and stronger and somehow more real. Alone with him she doesn't discard the pretense of her other life. No - she flings it away, forgotten, embracing this secret, hidden side of herself.
His heart aches to see her such. It's an honor - nay a privilege - to see her so honest, so at peace - free and happy without the obligation of birth and gender. She's so beautiful she's hard to look at, and he resists an absurd urge to raise his hand against the shining righteousness of her glory.
Gunther knows that later, when they are done, she will retrieve her mask again - smooth the false mein of dutiful virtue over her delicate features - and leave him, alone and cold in the shadows of the night.
But that is later and this is now, and despite the void the knowledge leaves in his middle - or maybe because of it - he forces himself to the present.
Right now, she is his and he is hers.
He wants his full attention, his focus undivided - to see her, to feel her.
It's a funny thought, and he almost laughs at the incongruity of it, because he can't see her, not really.
The moon has again hidden itself away, perhaps unwilling to compete with the marvel that is his partner, and the blackness is almost complete. Still, he can feel her as she comes close - the slight shift in air as she moves in and twirls away again.
For a heartbeat he feels the full length of her body against his before she pushes him back, taunting, teasing.
Jane is playing with him. She sees his weaknesses, detects the chinks in his armor, knows the cracks in his defenses and is reveling in her power - but instead of pressing her advantage and taking him, she's toying with him.
It's ancient, this thing they're doing. This push and pull, attack and parry - it's happened before and will happen again - but for him, thanks to the confines of duty and honor, it is the last time.
She brings her hand up again and he catches her wrist.
How can someone so small, so delicate in bone and feature be so strong? How can anyone burn with such passionate fire?
"Do you believe in love, Gunther?" The sound of her voice runs over him, through him, like silk on naked skin. She's breathing hard in her excitement, and he feels the little puffs of her breath on his neck.
The question catches him off guard - which was likely its intent. She is nothing if not clever and devious, especially when it comes to getting her way, to winning her game. And isn't that what she is doing here? Playing a game, goading him into losing control?
He hesitates before answering, and lies, "No."
Jane gives a breathy little laugh. She hears the falsehood in his words and he tenses, waiting for her touch, some little punishment for the fabrication, but instead she asks, "Do you believe in fate, then?"
"No." He says this with conviction, because this time it is not a lie.
He rejects the idea that his life is not his own, and his decisions are pointless and pre-determined. He hates it more than he hates the imaginary space between them - created by nothing but the chance of birth. Gunther's will is his own, and he will accept the consequences of his actions - like this midnight meeting with her here, in the dark of night - no matter what they bring.
She moves again, breaking his hold on her arm. Jane pulls back and he feels her loss. The void between them - that empty and undefinable space of nothing and everything - seems larger, growing with each passing moment.
Above them the clouds tumble and roll, and for a fleeting second the moon escapes the confines of its imprisonment.
It's hardly any light - just the briefest of wan illuminations - but a narrow shaft of light crosses her face. It caresses her like a lover and suddenly he's jealous, outraged and seething that anything else should touch her - even something so fickle and insubstantial as a moonbeam.
It doesn't linger, the moon is once again hidden by the thick clouds as they roll past, but it is long enough for Gunther to see the deep well of green that is her eyes, the copper and auburn spill of her hair, the smattering of freckles which grace her pale, flushed skin.
"Neither do I," she responds, and it takes him a moment to understand what she's referring to because he's so enraptured by her beauty, so ensnared by the skant sight of her in the short-lived moonlight - everything else has completely left him.
It doesn't seem fair, the way of things.
The space - no - the yawning gulf between them.
But since has anything between them - or even life itself- ever been fair?
If it had been, she'd be moaning, tangled in the sheets of his bed, or him whispering her name over and over under the roof of her high tower.
If things were fair, they wouldn't be out here, hidden from the eyes of others, under the starless sky.
In another time, in another world, she might have been his to keep.
No.
No.
Gunther's mind dismisses this thought because it is wrong. Not just wrong, but erroneous, inaccurate, untrue to its very core.
She is the center and he is the outlier. She is the pull to his push, the shining glory to his darkened heart. In no world or reality - in no conceivable universe would she ever have been his.
No.
All musings and rejections of fate aside, had things been different - station and duty and honor - the best, the most tangible hope he could ever possess would be that he would be hers.
But she is not and he is not, and she will never belong to him and he will never belong to her. They are from different worlds and he has known this from the beginning.
From the moment their eyes met - from that first second - Gunther has understood their relationship would be short and painful and that its ending - inevitable despite the raging of his heart - would be even more painful still.
It doesn't mean it hurts any less, or that he doesn't wish it could be different. That they could be different.
All they have is this moment, this brief span of time, stolen away from the rest of their lives, and for that he is grateful.
She comes to him again - confident, poised - a goddess who has taken mortal form. She snakes her hands around his neck and twists her fingers into his hair. Jane pulls him down roughly, wrapping her legs around his waist. Her weight sends him backwards into the grass where she straddles him, triumphant.
Radiant.
They grapple and grab, flesh against flesh, fingers intertwining, legs tangling. The air is thick, heavy, and crowds against them, making the open field of their meeting space feel small. Private. Gunther struggles to breathe against his anticipation, sucking in each breath as though it will be his last - and won't it though? After all, what is left for him once she is done with him?
She lifts up and grinds down hard. It nearly knocks the wind out of him and it hurts but it is also oh so good, but he's not ready to submit just yet. She may have him at her mercy, but Gunther has never been one to give in without a fight - if she is contrary then he is combative - and if this is the last time they will be together like this he wants it to last.
"What are you grinning at?" she asks, annoyed. She moves to touch his chest, an exposed patch of skin where his shirt has been wrenched low to expose his heart.
He stays her hand, wanting her full attention before she goes any further. "Us."
Gunther can't see her face but he can feel her expression. It radiates out from her, turgid ripples in the viscous air. Denial. Surprise. Certainly not the same longing he feels trapped beneath her.
She hisses between her teeth. "There is no us. There is just this." Her hand twitches in his own, wanting to be free.
She's right of course, and it hurts to hear the truth of it.
"I wish this was different." he says, and it is true. He wants nothing else in his heart of hearts - in the gloomy small places where what is left of his broken soul resides. He wants, he wishes, there was some future for the two of them - something beyond the here and now, beyond this dance they are doing in the dark.
Her eyes go wide at his honesty, and she opens her mouth to argue but thinks better of it. Perhaps it is the same for her, but she is unable to put such raw thoughts to words. He takes advantage of her surprise and rolls them over, reversing their position so that now she is pinned beneath him. He captures both her wrists and holds them over her head with one of his own. He plants the other in the dirt and holds himself above her.
She looks frightened for a moment, and she squirms against him, rubbing her body against his own. This is not what she wants, and her frustration, her impatience are obvious. Then her eyes go sly as she changes tactics.
"Can it not?" she asks. Her tongue darts out to lick her lower lip; she's bleeding where she bit herself when they'd fallen. "Can it not be different?"
He doesn't answer, instead allowing himself to be captivated by the movement of her tongue. She's playing games, still trying to get her way, and he finds it irritating and exciting. She doesn't need to go to such lengths, it doesn't matter - he'll give her what she wants, but he's in no hurry. He leans forward, intending to sooth the hurt with his own lips, when her hips buck up into his, nearly throwing him off balance.
She's watching his mouth just as he was watching hers, and they are close, so close, they are almost one being. She is overwhelming all of his senses but the one, and his whole universe has narrowed down to the sight, the smell, the sound, the feel of her beneath him - and in this moment there is nothing he wants more desperately than to taste her.
The sweetness of her lips, the coppery tang of blood still oozing from her cut, the saltiness of the perspiration on her skin - so he does just that.
Gunther drags his lips against hers. They are hot - so startlingly hot they burn - and he is reminded of her touch just a few minutes ago.
She fights against his gentleness, and he goes to pull back, but she surges upwards, pushing her mouth against his, trying to capture his lip between her teeth.
He lets her and it hurts but it is everything he anticipated, and more, and she tastes like joy and sadness and the unrealized potential of a future they will never have. After a second - or maybe it is an eternity, he cannot tell his head is spinning, spinning - she pulls back to study him.
"Can it not?" she asks again.
Gunther doesn't reply, he doesn't think he can.
Instead of answering her, he tightens his grip on her wrists and presses a chaste kiss to her temple, her ear, her pulse point -
She squirms again, letting loose a string of blasphemous curses, struggling against him -
- and he uses her distraction to pull his dagger and thrust it into the empty space between her ribs.
She is not surprised but the look of sadness, of loss, in her eyes is more than he can bear. He pulls back and turns away, not wanting to see that space - that distance between them - grow larger than it already is.
Her body jerks once, twice.
In one smooth motion he releases her hands and stands up, removing his dagger quickly. He doesn't want to cause her any more pain than necessary.
Jane rolls on her side, curling around the wound in an instinctual need to protect herself from further harm.
Not that it matters.
She even manages to pull herself away in a lurching half-crawl. Once, twice, three times she uses her elbow to edge her way along the ground - as though she can somehow escape the stain of the lifeblood which is spreading beneath her.
He allows her this - she is timeless and strong and beautiful - a goddess among rough mortals like himself. She deserves what little concession, what small comfort of pride and honor he can provide her during these last few moments.
He stands there, protecting her - a lover watching over his beloved while she sleeps - until the last bit of fight leaves her. And when she goes - turning her back on him, ensuring they will never reconcile the difference between them - he feels the last tattered remnants of his soul go with her.