By Clorinda
Rated: PG
Category: General/Romance
Summary: Farder Coram and Serafina Pekkala, never to face the same pain for the last time. One-shot.
Author's Note: The rotten little lullaby is mine entirely; I doubt anyone else would want it, and I barely think I could trade it in the flea market for the ownership of these characters. (Still reading "Northern Lights," and unimaginably taken by CoramxSerafina anything.)
Immortal age beside immortal youth
And all I was in ashes. Can thy love,
Thy beauty, make amends, tho' even now,
Close over us, the silver star, thy guide,
Shine in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears
To hear me?
Alfred Lord Tennyson
"Rock you to sleep in my arms ... and the moonlight shall come to steal away your fears, the stars in your dreams, my hands cupping your cheeks..."
She sang in a voice that could not, and even then, the cracked melody of the lullaby meant everything ... everything to Farder Coram.
"And the moonlight..."
The branches crackled overhead, a star-spangled sky visible through the thin slashes between the leaves.
On ground, where she seldom belonged, with her arm flung protectively around his chest, the other hand stroking the side of his face ... Two score years were not enough to blot out love, and the sounds of the night alive all around them, Coram lay, his head cradled in the lap of the only woman who had loved him.
"Shall come..."
"You are," he murmured, his voice, an old man's voice wretchedly hoarse, "you are..."
"Hush," she whispered, tilting her head back against the tree. "The night is young."
"And you are the night, my Serafina, my an—"
"Then, you are the moon, eternal."
Every time she cut off his words, he understood a little better each time why it hurt her. But love is not meant to hurt, especially not theirs; you think if they've been through the fire, their burns will heal.
"Sing for me, please, it's a-been forever, and now..."
"Now we have each other."
She had the most tender smile on her lips, and it her eyes, and the paleness of her face looked rosy, and the blackness looked warm, and it felt like they had finally found what they only, truly wanted: not to be loved, but to have someone to love.
"Rock you to sleep in my arms, where, forever, you will lie, my love ... And never to be parted ... And the moonlight shall come to steal away your fears, the stars in your dreams, my hands cupping your cheeks..."
his eyes were slowly drifting closed, and the last he remembered was her smile, soft, slow, eternal, loving. Oh, how he loved her, and how her heart ached, even now, that she had him.
"The moonlight shall come to steal away your fears..."
And he was slowly leaving her, bit by bit, and ever so gently, that it seemed like forever, as she sung Yambe-Akka's hymn, under the stars for him.
—- End -—