stars apart

Summary: Arthur smiles with his eyes, and it is dangerous. OneShot/drabble- Orthez (Arthur). On beginnings.

Warning: OneShot, drabble-esque.

Set: Post Vol 5 Ch 02a (An update! An update! Yay! Thank you Royal Hearts!)

Disclaimer: Standards apply. Title from i carry your heart with me by ee cummings. Because honestly, I love this poem and could easily use it for fan fictions for at least six more fandoms (aside from the two I've already quoted it in). This newest chapter's plot (or, non-plot) aside – someone in the comment section of my manga reader of choice either made a terribly realistic guess or a huge, unforgivable spoiler, and I just can't get it out of my head. I tried hard to not let it influence this story. I fear it didn't work everywhere.

Dedication: For those who come just to see whether I've posted another story.

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
[e.e. cummings]

i.

It starts like this:

"It's Father and Arthur!" Marina says.

It is a beautiful day. The walls and forests and courtyards of the castle are painfully familiar to her and with every step, her bones and blood sing. Vibrate with the intensity of it, with the memory of weeks of longing. It is curious, like all wishful thinking of the past weeks and months has been condensed into one word: Home. Home. Home. It echoes from the castle walls, jubilates through the dining hall. Her room has not changed, having been kept clean and tidy just for her, waiting for her return. The furniture, the statues and the corridors – even the shadows are familiar, here in this place she has seen with the eyes of a child, a girl, and, finally, those of a woman. Child, daughter, elder sister: she has been all of it, and this place remembers. It doesn't resent her for it, doesn't judge. It accepts her. It welcomes her. This is the place she was born to, the place she grew up in. The place she left behind, willingly, too, but whatever might happen it will always be, first and foremost, her home.

And yet, there is a tiny stab of unrest nagging away at Orthez, a sensation that is alien and unwelcome. She shuts it away.

Her mother's rants are familiar and so are her warmth and her smile, and her father's arms and his voice and his steadfastness. And Marina's hand, so small and fragile and trusting, in hers. Her baby sister is not a baby anymore but Orthez sees the ghost of it in the young girl, sweet and blue-eyed and beautiful. Home. Oh, how she missed her, missed the bell-clear laugh and the blond hair that tickles her nose when she hugs her, the sweet scent of children's soap and apples. She missed the conversation with Mother, and the walks in the garden when her sister just chats about these things and those, the familiar whisper of the trees on the castle grounds, the sound of horses and her father's men and his baritone explaining something to them in the distance –

And then she realizes that is not a memory. It is real. Here she is, holding her little sister's hand, and her father and some other noblemen are regarding the lands before them, discussing with vivid fervor.

"Oh, it's Father and Arthur!" Marina says, and Orthez' head whips up and around so quickly she almost flushes in embarrassment.

When have the curves of his shoulders become so familiar to her?

She cannot say. She cannot think.

Her father greets Marina, his deep voice rumbling like thunder and yet tender in the face of his daughters, and she cannot help herself. Her eyes go to Arthur, immediately, take in his appearance. The curve of his head, the broadness of his shoulders. The dark cloak with the same coat of arms stitched onto it that is also embroidered into her sash. She has stitched them herself, a thousand tiny, precise needle-points, on and on and so many nights until her eyes hurt. His lean stature, his dark, sturdy boots. The piercing grey of his eyes that shifts with the weather, and with his moods. Arthur Lafrey, Earl of Felluah, turns at Marina's voice and Orthez can see him take her in, as well.

And then, he smiles.

It is not a grand gesture, cannot even be traced in his expression, really. It is just a flash in his eyes, recognition, maybe, maybe something else. Maybe something more. Maybe less, too, merely a softening around the corners of his eyes, merely the hint of something – something that makes her speechless. Something just for the two of them, and yet she is sure it must be out there and for the entire world to see. Arthur smiles at her – and Orthez cannot breathe.

This is it, she thinks, dizzily. This is where it starts.

But that is not the truth. It does not start then.

ii.

It starts the night before, in her bedroom.

With Arthur so close oh so close to her that she can feel his warmth. They have slept like this, before, in a dingy, dirty, cheap roadside inn in a nameless village on the border of Tessa and Felluah. That night, she had been itchy and dirty and sweaty all over, had wished for a bath and had known there was none, and tired enough to sleep dreamlessly through the night. This night, thought, she is clean and comfortable and more awake than she ever could have imagined, so very aware of a man not only in her bedroom but in her bed. (This was the bed she had laid in so many years before, thinking, thinking –) Strange how she had not really minded, on the road and in their shared cot. Now, in her childhood room, in her home, Arthur is a paradox that does not belong into her world.

Except that he does. He is her husband. It should be normal to share a bed with him, not the exception to the rule.

(And is she not being unreasonable? Because this is what she wanted, albeit only for the sake of her reputation. But now that he is there she wants him to leave again.

Except that she does not.)

Maybe it is the room of her childhood or the fact that she is clean and warm or the way his arms close around her, so naturally, so familiar, that make her push him away. Not with actions, but with words: Orthez always was a master at wielding the sharpest sword of all that is the spoken word. And, as usual, her attempt to hurt him verbally just comes back to her a thousand fold when he parries her attacks and twists them until they wither and die, useless. And then, he makes his own move, sharp and more painful than it should have been. It is not even his intention; she can see so in the way his face remains calm. Arthur is not cruel, never hurts intentionally. But sometimes the truth is more painful than a white lie. So she lays awake for hours, listening to his slow, steady breathing, and she thinks she can sense his warmth even through the barrier of nothingness and pillows she has erected between them.

So, so close.

And, at the same time, far away. It starts that night, with a husband and a wife in the wife's childhood bed and the distance of an eternity between them.

iii.

Or maybe it starts at the Royal Court.

Maybe it starts among the courtiers, the servants and the guards. The Royal Court is full so full of people and there is not a second of respite from them. There are events and circles and dinners and balls and the Earl of Felluah and his Lady are invited to each single one of them. Arthur only ever touches her to take her arm and accompany her; she can see they make a splendid couple but still, it irks her. Igraine is present everywhere; in rumors, in stories and in Arthur's eyes, and Orthez feels like she cannot compete with the quiet presence of a woman she cannot dislike even if she tries. Maybe she should be hateful, spiteful and angry. But there is something to Igraine that she just cannot place, and Arthur's eyes tell the other part of the story.

Orthez just cannot read it completely.

And maybe it is the coldness of the palace and the warmth of Arthur's hand on her arm, or maybe the sunrays on the vivid darkness of his hair, the way the color of his eyes shifts with his moods or the glance he gives her when he finds her in the small niche with the large window, the cool night air dancing around her like a caress. Orthez thinks oh God I want to go home and Arthur asks what she wishes for. When she tells him he nods his consent without questioning her – simple as that. He sits down on the window seat opposite of hers and leans back, closing his eyes. And there it is, again, the memory that she has no part in, the things that separate them and which she can never overcome. He is too far away for her to touch him, in every sense of the word. And for a second, for a fleeting moment that lasts a heartbeat, she desperately wishes –

Maybe it started at the Royal Court: with a memory, and a wish, and a question. Or not. Who knows?

iv.

It might even have started a lot, lot earlier. It might have started when they first met.

Arthur's a good man.

A voice in her head, always the same. The same smirk, the same teasing edge. The same flash of familiar blond. The Earl of Felluah, they say, grew up with the Church after his parents died. They say he is a good man, patient, just, and what they do not say she can see for herself. He does not even look at all the many finely dressed ladies at the court. Orthez can see the shadow of someone standing right next to him, it would be curious if it was not heartbreaking. We are the same, she thinks, but she says something else. Arthur Lafrey is tall and good-looking, and Felluah is on good terms with Count Pano. He is young, a bit older than her, he is wealthy, he is the sole heir of the county, and Felluah is said to be a beautiful place.

But oh, it is so far away from her home.

At the wedding ceremony, Arthur only touches her when the priest joins their hands to show they are now linked by marriage. Her future husband focuses on a point behind her head when he speaks the vows and Orthez thinks, detachedly, that this is what she expected. What else other than a mutual pact is being sworn here? In a way, she is just a pawn in a game of chess. But Arthur is a pawn, as well, or maybe even a knight. Orthez is not the queen: Orthez is a hostage of her own mind.

The man she is marrying, she chose him herself.

He is cold and detached that night, turning his back on her even in sleep, and he tears her blanket away the next morning to splatter his own blood onto the rumpled and yet pristine sheets. He tells her in no uncertain words that he has no plan on making the marriage official, and she agrees. But when she introduces herself, using his name – her name now, too – he takes her hand.

It is warm, and his grip is strong and yet gentle. The distance feels less than before and yet, still insurmountable. But that is fine with her. It is just the way she wants it to be.

Wanted it to be.

The memory feels ancient, like the person that remembers it is stars apart from the woman she is now. The woman who did not mind when her husband moved away from her without even looking at her: as if even the ghost of a look could bridge the abyss between them. And, at that time, she was fine with it. But Orthez does not want this anymore. She does not want the abyss, the absence, the ache of the memories that do not belong to her. The distance between her and Arthur is too far, too unbridgeable, and too painful. It is a living thing that trashes and struggles and screams, soundlessly, and it is killing her.

v.

When did it start?

When did it start that she wanted to be closer to Arthur? And when did she start to be afraid of him and of being close to him, at the same time, and how, and where? And does it matter? She is married to a good man, a kind man, someone she can trust to protect her by sharing a bed with her and nothing more if she is not willing to. She can trust him to be there when it is required, she can be sure he will protect both her honor and her life. He has proven it. Orthez told Arthur, repeatedly, that she would be loyal to him. Without ever answering her unspoken question he has answered; in actions, not in words, and the realization that he has not forgotten makes her head spin and the blood rush in her ears. She never expected to fall in love with him and yet something has happened, something small, something encompassing the world. It is not quite love, or, it if is, she cannot say how it came into existence and how and on what it is thriving on. It is also not pure loyalty, because there is something in his smile when he looks at her, something that was not there before. Similarly, there is a sensation in her chest that makes it hard to breathe when he is near.

It cannot be love. It does not make sense.

Maybe it will go away as soon as they are back in Felluah. Maybe, this distance that is no distance at all will disappear, or a closeness that is distance in essence will return. Maybe she is just confused. Maybe Arthur is behaving no different than before. Maybe he is, and it is due to these familiar rooms. Due to her bedroom, so full of a younger Orthez, a person she never again will be. So full of memories and so empty without Arthur, even though he is just there, right beside her.

Maybe, back at Arthur's house, it will just the way it was before and he will not be so terribly, terribly far away.

(She just does not know whether she wants it to be that way. She does not know what Arthur will think if she sleeps in Marina's rooms today. She does not know what will happen, and what she wishes for. It is an unsettling feeling. She always knew what she wanted in the past. Now, she is not even sure about who she is anymore.)

Suddenly, Orthez misses the halls and the corridors, the furniture and the courtyards of Felluah with an intensity that makes her want to cry.

She just wants to go home.