I was in the need of some fluff after battling with Interregnum Ch4 and Ivy's bad temper, poor Siegfried. :o( It will be up soon. In the meantime there is this, which I might point out will not necessarily be cannon to the other fic:
Set post SCIV, Siegfried gets a happy ending.
He wakes to glorious sunshine and birdsong.
For a moment, Siegfried stares up into the canopy of the bed and counts the blessings that has brought him to this day.
He then snakes a hand stealthily beneath the sheets, reaching to the sleeper curled beside him, her breaths still even and deep. His fingers encounter soft flesh and hard muscle as they skim over a thigh, following the curve up onto her hip to settle and splay contentedly. His. She is his; and he is hers of course. Siegfried can only grin slightly in remembrance of the first time he claimed that ownership and she had spluttered indignantly that she would belong to no man!
She had relented though, after he had explained himself a little more thoroughly, conceding as she lay warm, glowing and breathless afterwards, that perhaps he did after all... belong to her. The memory of her laughter, of his, gives him an unexpected burst of happiness that almost brings tears to his eyes. Abruptly he rolls over to face his love, counting his blessings a second time as his eyes take in adoringly the sleeping face on the pillow beside him, half obscured by the fall of her hair.
He runs a finger feather light over the arch of her brow, tucking wayward pale strands behind her ear before tracing the curve of the shell; his finger then follows the edge of her cheek and jaw line before swooping down the slope of her nose to press gently against her full lips.
She frowns at the intrusion in her dreams, pursing her lips against his finger then pulls away sightly, rolling onto her back.
Perfect, he thinks, and scoots closer till his body is pressed up against her side. He marvels at the way they seem to fit together when they are close like this; curves and lines melding as though they were made to be part of this whole from the beginning. Siegfried likes to think this may have been so, for what else would have brought them together otherwise than their destinies, entwined as they were with a cursed sword.
He presses his lips to her shoulder, then her collar bone, before tracing the faint scar that runs from below the base of her throat to the top of her right breast with his tongue, planting a kiss where it finally ends. His mouth still pressed against the curve of her breast his hand sneaks out again to lay against the flat of her belly before sliding down to tickle the crease of hip and thigh, following the line into the curls between her legs.
She moves against him, squirming slightly, thighs parting just a little and Siegfried hears the shift in her breathing that tells him she is no longer fully asleep. He shifts again, not too much, enough so he can lean over and take a dusky pink nipple into his mouth and work his fingers into her slick folds.
She moans, arching her body into the twin assaults and he lets up his mouth just enough to whisper: "'Bella. 'Bella wake up."
"Hmm?" Her eyelids flicker, before finally cracking open, indicating she'd still been half asleep. "Siegfried," she murmurs drowsily, "what are you doing?"
"Greeting the day," he answers, leaning in to gently kiss her cheek while teasing the tip of one finger inside her. He is rewarded by a sharp gasp of breath from her followed by a satisfied sigh.
"Fine greeting," she smiles, stretching out fully and temporarily dislodging him from where he lies against her. Then Isabella turns her face towards his, cupping his cheek in one hand. "Now, how about a kiss good morning."
His mouth closes on hers without hesitation, sweet, chaste kisses melting into open mouths and twisting tongues. Isabella rolls immediately onto her side, so they are pressed breast to breast, one leg thrown over his and his arm wrapped around her waist to keep the full body contact.
It is a wonder to him that just the merest act of kissing can make him want her so, that the love he holds for her swells inside him till he feels fit to burst. He can barely remember what it is to be in such despair from guilt and self-loathing that he wants to crawl out of his skin. He tries occasionally to understand how it is his life has become this undeserved bliss, but understanding eludes him.
Isabella is atop him now and he grips her hips and stills her writhing just long enough to slide himself inside her. Her tongue plunders his mouth in return, before she pulls away, pushing herself upright to start riding him with a slowness that makes him groan.
He watches her, lost in her beauty; the sinuous flexing of her hips, the lines of her belly and the ample rounds of her breasts, held high as she stretches her arms up behind her head. Such casual grace.
Her head is thrown back, eyes closed and lips curved into smile of contentment that stays fixed when her eyes come back to his once more and he sees the love reflected there as clear as the daylight that paints them both.
"Siegfried," she whispers his name with aching tenderness, gently scraping the nails of both hands up his forearms before they come to rest over his, firmly pressing his palms and fingers against her skin.
Siegfried cannot hold himself back then, he rises up to join her, arms wrapping round to grip her by the shoulder and the rear, encouraging a faster, harder rhythm. He fits against her this way, head tucked under her chin, his mouth pressed against the top of the valley between her breasts. He flickers his tongue out to taste the salt of sweat beading in the fine hairs.
Isabella's hands are in his hair, fingers grazing his scalp and tangling the locks in her fists, pulling and tugging in a way that isn't quite painful but makes him shudder. He turns his head and presses his cheek against the heated skin of her chest, eyes closed, clutching at her body for all his life is worth...
"I love you," he whispers, over and over. "I love you."
_____________________________
The house is made of solid, grey stone and stood upon a foundation of the same: the roots of the mountains he can see when he looks out the west facing windows. The valley is deep and green, mostly forest opening out into meadow and then cultivated fields towards the manor.
It is a far cry from the house Siegfried remembers in London, a decrepit, almost rickety seeming structure of brick, wood and clay. Dark, low ceilinged rooms, rife with the ghosts of previous generations and of the bitterness, hurt and madness that had brought the previously wealthy family to it's knees.
He likes this place better; he can tell Isabella does too. It's as if she has divested herself of her previous life, like it were a foul-smelling, rotten old cloak. The air is cleaner and the water purer and he sees this in her too.
Siegfried recalls the panic he felt, standing outside the gates of Valentine Manor, staring at the new coat of arms, glistening with fresh paint above the gates and the construction work going on within.
Happily it took him less than a week to find where she had gone. Since many of the locals had been drafted in to help with the move they had been able to tell him of the house in the Welsh Marches, lying barely out of the shadow of the Black Mountains.
Another two weeks of travel had brought him to his destination, and he remembers how his heart had ached at coming across the seeming idle, warmed by a late spring sun. A woman, a maidservant by her dress, sat beneath a tree entertaining two very small children, almost babes.
She had looked up at him as he passed and he had bid her good day and asked if this was the place he might find the Countess Valentine.
For certain he would, she had told him, her voice made lyrical by a thick accent he could not identify but would later learn was Welsh.
His eyes had then fallen to the children, staring up in silent awe at the knight in shining armour upon his great, grey horse. By looks they were as different from each other as night and day. The elder was swarthy and dark, the younger pale and fair haired and there was something strange about the little face that looked up at him.
They were fine boys, he had said to the woman and watched for the proud smile that graced her features.
Aye, she had agreed in turn, sturdy, handsome boys they were. Her lad he was Rhodry, and the wee one, he was John, Lady Isabella's son.
And the reason for the boy's strangeness was made clear, for Siegfried saw in him, then, the shape of her face and the small, stubborn chin.
Siegfried had been unable to do much else but stare, fighting through the shock of learning that she had a child, to calculate the span of time since their paths had last crossed and the apparent age of the boy.
Now pardon her asking, the maid had inquired, for she knew it a bold question to ask, but the likeness was too apparent. Would he be the boy's father?
Siegfried never answered, for looking now at the blue/green eyes that gazed up at him from beneath straw-blond hair, he saw that they were his own and he knew that he was.
"Papa!" the small cry from behind him calls him back to the present. "Papa, I have spoken with Mother and she says we shall all go riding today!"
Siegfried turns to see his boy, the tiny toddler now a sturdy child of five. He has more life in him than Siegfried can honestly fathom and he takes so much joy in everything it is almost enough to make him weep. This child is a marvel and a miracle to him all at once and Siegfried holds him every chance he gets.
John is boosted to his shoulder and they leave the solar, heading down the stairs to the main hall. He finds Isabella there, already waiting, dressed in breeches and long coat.
"Are you ready?" She asks, kissing his cheek and ruffling John's hair.
"Yes!" John answers enthusiastically for both of them.
He loves horses, a trait, Isabella tells Siegfried, that he has inherited from her. Had John had it his way, he would spend all his days riding, bare back and bare footed with Rhodry and the other boys of the manor village.
Siegfried would be perfectly content for him to do that, too, but Isabella, however, reminds him of his station and tells John that he cannot do that all the time.
"Today I will ride Aderyn-bach," John announces as they walk to the corral, where the horses are already saddled and waiting.
Isabella sighs, "John, love, you told me half an hour ago you wanted to ride Snowy."
"Yes, but look," and John points to the field gates, where a dark grey pony stands, ears cocked forward and watching the proceedings with interest. "She is waiting for me at the gate, she wants to come with me."
"They all want to go with you, John," and Isabella sounds exasperated, "but you can't ride them all at once. Besides, what about poor Snowy?"
John goes quiet, squirming a little in Siegfried's arms. Eventually he says, "Yes, Mother, you are right, that wouldn't be nice to Snowy."
"I'm glad you realise that," Isabella says firmly, "now go mount up."
Siegfried swings the boy down and he runs the rest of the way to the mountain pony, whose pale grey coat is speckled in white and thus earned John's name for her.
Before long they are off, cantering up the valley towards the mountains. They come to a halt early afternoon, part way up the valley side, giving a magnificent view of blue skies, green land and shadowy grey peaks. Siegfried and Isabella set out the picnic and Siegfried has to make John sit down long enough to eat a meal with stern words.
Soon enough he is off again, divesting his mount of saddle and bridle to go charging bareback over the uneven ground on the sure-footed pony.
"Sometimes," Isabella murmurs from where she lies beside Siegfried, watching her child run carefree, "I wish I had his childhood."
"Do you regret it?" He asks her, curiously, for despite their years together, she doesn't speak much of her early life.
Isabella thinks a while before answering. "No," she says. "I don't think I could have asked for a better family. I was loved and wanted, even though I wasn't born to them. I could not have been more fortunate. But..." and she goes quiet again and it is another while before she continues. "But, I sometimes think, that if my mother – my birth mother – had come to a place like this and raised me here, perhaps I would never have left. Perhaps I would have ended my days a peasant in the mountains without a whisper of evil swords and cursed blood, riding ponies bareback and bringing in the harvest..."
Isabella presses her forehead against his chest, and he can just see the sheepish smile curving her lips. "I know," she whispers, "it's a foolish thought."
"I don't think it's foolish," Siegfried tells her. "I sometimes wonder how things would have been had I been born to a simpler life. It could have been, had my father not returned. My mother was unmarried when she bore me."
Isabella looks up again, a true grin on her features. "Like your son then?"
Siegfried chuckles at that, then sobers a little. "We have done right by him, though, haven't we. Keeping him away from the world?"
Isabella gazes back at him solemnly. "I think so. He is happy here, now, what more is there that he needs? Perhaps when he is older, he will need other things, till then..." she trails off, then shrugs.
"Are you happy here?" Siegfried asks her.
She smiles down at him then, a full, wide beaming smile. "Yes!" Her hand comes up to caress his cheek, her thumb rubbing over his lips. "Of course I'm happy here," she tells him quietly, "with you, with John. The two of you have been my salvation."
And before Siegfried can even respond to that small revelation, her mouth is on his in a kiss that is gentle and sweet, yet no less passionate for that.
Perhaps this is his redemption, Siegfried thinks, as he wraps his arms about the woman he loves, while hearing vaguely in the background his young son pronouncing 'yuck' as he catches his parents kissing.
There are two lives directly in his hands now, and he is responsible for the happiness, safety and security of both. If he can save Isabella from her demons, if he can give his son, and whatever more children they might have, the best in life that he can provide? Then perhaps, when in the fullness of time he stands before St Peter and the Gates of Heaven, the grace of god will fall upon him.