"Please tell me you will be back before my birthday?"
"Of course, I will."
"Promise?"
She shudders and bites her lower lip, "I am not good at making promises, Louis."
"Then don't go… I want you here. Please stay back. With me."
Corinne lets out a deep breath, shaking her head. "I can't… I have to go. This is a very important mission for me, Louis. I'm the leader of my musketeer troop. They need me."
"But Corrine, what about me? I need you the most…" He pleaded as he held her hands.
"Louis…don't start, okay?" She chuckled, then kissed his cheek. "I have to go now. My musketeers are expecting me."
He let her hands go and pulled her into a bone-crushing hug. He whispered into her ear, "I'll miss you. Please don't forget about me."
His words caused the blonde to laugh, "When did I ever forget to remember you, Louis? Of course, I won't forget you. Stop acting like this is the end!" She spoke with difficulty for he had embraced her too tightly.
He immediately pulled away, to her relief. The distant rays of the sunset made his brown eyes glow like embers as he gazed on her icy blue ones. He expected them to be teary but they were reflecting the opposite emotions : cheerfulness and excitement.
"What if…this is the end?" He croaked. "The battle you are about to attend is much bigger than the small ones you've fought within parts of France. This one is taking you out of the French border. There will be lots of armies and weapons and- This could be the end!"
The musketeer stood still for a second before her eyes looked down at her hot pink boots. She had been using those boots for quite a while and they were starting to loose their glaze. Still, she never asked her fiancé, Louis, for new ones.
"You… you wouldn't want that, would you?" She twisted her fingers at the back.
"Wha-NO! Oh my God, no! I-I'd never… Corrine, I didn't mean to-" He stuttered crazily, close to freaking out. He cursed himself for looking down at the dark, pessimist side of his.
He hugged her once more for an act of redemption. "I am so… sorry. I-"
"It's okay." She whispered like she was trying to soothe a child. "It's okay…"
He hugged her tighter, stroking her hair.
"Now, Louis. I seriously need to go. I'm already quite late." She walked a few steps from him to mount her mare. The king followed.
She sighed one last time. What he said about this particular battle sounded quite dangerous indeed and even though she hated to admit it, she was awfully scared and nervous herself and wished she could stay with him, in Paris, letting her peers do the fighting for her.
Talk about being selfish and a total scaredy cat.
'If hundreds of other noble French musketeers risk their lives for this bloody battle, I'm not getting myself excluded!' A voice in her head yelled to an amount of loudness only she could hear.
"Corrine?"
Her eyes moved from the horizon to his sad ones. She could feel a part inside of her shattering when she catched his sadness in her own eyes.
Seeing the sight of her eyes getting teary made Louis lose the struggle to keep his own tears from rolling down his cheeks. He usually hated crying, but today he loved doing it, for it was the only he could let his emotions escape.
"Louis," She whimpered, holding his extended hand. "Promise me you'll move along and hunt for the happiness you found in me in someone else if I… you know."
He wiped some tears away with his sleeves. "Please stop saying such horrible things to me...You can't die. You're too good to die."
"Everyone has to die one day. I am telling you to do it right." She said wisely.
"My life isn't right without you."
"It will when you do the things I have told you to." She tilted her face towards his and their lips met in fervent kiss.
Corinne reluctantly pulled away after realizing the kiss lasted longer than she wanted it to be.
"I love you." He breathed.
"I know. I love you too." She nodded, but didn't smile.
"Please write me in your leisure."
"I will. Bye, Louis."
"Goodbye, darling. I will always love you…"
And with that she and her white mare galloped away into the direction of the sunset, forming a satisfying silhouette.
'Goodbye, darling. I will always love you.' It echoed in her ears and somehow made her heart wince. What she last heard him say sounded equally beautiful and… scary.
She had left on countless missions before and Louis always bid her with a smile on his face, waving and saying 'bye'.
Just 'bye'.
But this afternoon… he said, 'Goodbye'
Surely 'bye' and 'goodbye' couldn't be the same.
'Bye' only worked for a temporary short time.
But 'Goodbye' sounded like a 'bye' for good...Eternity even.
She hoped that wouldn't happen.
After the musketeer and her mare was out of sight, Louis strolled around his palace gardens and premises, letting himself get used to the upcoming loneliness.
He was missing her already.
He was worrying for her already.
Nonetheless, he knew he would somehow have to get used to it.
After a lonely and boring dinner (though it was Italian cuisine) , he sagged down on his bed, looking at the large gold and crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
It looked so dangerous from this perspective. He had a thing with chandeliers from past experience. There's no such word as chandelier-phobic, though.
His eyes constantly stared at the alight object. He didn't know if he was feeling afraid of it suddenly falling on his face. He had been under the light of chandeliers all his life, even after his cousin tried to kill him, but he had never felt this scared about it.
"What if the rope suddenly snaps due to the heavy mass of the chandelier causing its particles to break down the attraction and the pull of gravitational force acts too strong and rapidly and…" He muttered to himself before realizing,
"You'd be dead in bed, genius…"
Letting out a frustrated sigh, he got up from his bed and walked to the dresser in a small intention to look at his face.
He reached for the hairbrush on the table and as soon as he noticed platinum blonde strands hanging from it, a halo formed in his heart.
Corrine's hair.
Corrine's hair brush.
"Christ! How can I pick up the hairbrush when my comb is…right... there."
He exhaled sharply. Her absence equalled his mind's absence.
Absence. Ugly word.
Days and nights had never went so long and forlorn for the young king. He missed his girl in all the seconds of the twenty-four hours of the day.
He missed her in all his meals including the time where he had to walk alone to the kitchen for his midnight snack. Corinne and he always walked together through the empty corridors of the castle but nowadays he was alone, and the slightest sound of the sudden wood creaking underneath his feet made his heart palpitate.
He missed her surprising him from behind when she returned from successful missions; how he would sweep her off the floor and hug her, kiss her, listen to her stories which she liked to call 'adventures' and all the amazing things they would end up doing on those nights while Paris was sleeping.
He missed her in his throne room where she would come to meet him during a break in her musketeering job, a bright smile on her lips as she would kiss him on the cheek and always offer a hand in his kingly duties.
And countless other events…
Weeks seemed like a months.
Months seemed like years.
He could end up writing a tome about all the events he missed and still misses her in.
But most of all he missed her smile, her sparkling eyes, her body, her voice, her warmth and vulnerability,
Her.
She is the only thing that matters in his life. He didn't have a family nor were his relatives quite the type whom he felt for. All his riches-inherited riches were not the least valuable to him. It only valued to other men who wanted to be in his royal position and some certain greedy kings. He was far from being that.
Corinne was her lover and best friend. She was a person he could always trust, talk to when he was stressed out or upset, tell each other their most personal secrets. She was his soulmate, his sunshine and his…everything.
Her absence felt like a part of him was gone.
He told her to write to him but no letter from her ever reached his desk.
This was when he started to get worried. Months passed and still no return or information from the battle. No one was there to consolidate him.
Nightmares crept to him in his precious sleep for he simply couldn't find sleep from his anxiety invading his brain.
And the sleeps never lasted long enough.
"Corinne, please be alright. Please come home. I love you. I miss you. Take care." He talked to the moon.
He wished she was probably looking at the same moon while he spoke.
At last, the day came when a humble messenger of his informed him about the return of the musketeers.
Louis lifted his head up from the desk, raking his hair off his eyes and snatching the scroll from the messenger's hand.
"What's this?" He narrowed his eyebrows at the scroll.
"The list of all the musketeers we have…lost, sire."
Louis felt his throat dry and his heart lose its beat. He swallowed hard, putting his maximum effort to avoid that fear.
The same fear his nightmares brought to him. The same fear he felt when he heard of how the battle was going to be, the fear when she told her to 'move on and be happy'.
He had never ever been this scared in his life.
A drench of sweat glistened the side of his forehead as he felt his heartbeat getting so loud and slow he could hear it himself.
His hands were shaking with fear as he unrolled the scroll and was immediately astonished of its length. His lips dried and his eyes refused to look down at the names mentioned under the 'C' section. Yet, he knew he had to.
For it was the only thing that mattered to him now.
He slowly whispered what he read, "Caden Blanc. Age 24. Born in..." He rolled his eyes, he wasn't going to read the whole description of each and every musketeer until he found his answer.
He started to read the names instead, "Camille Bonnaire, Cavey Borde, Carlo Chevrolet, Chandler de Sauveterre, Christy Lavigne, Claudio Leclaire, Cor-" He stopped, gulping hard. Reading the first three letters of that certain name sent a shiver down his spine. He was afraid to proceed and read the remaining two names mentioned on the scroll.
Come on, just read it more you wait, the more you'll suffer...
I can't do this.
He sighed, rolling the scroll back into a cylinder and leaning his back against his chair. He observed at his messenger quietly waiting to be ordered.
He rested his chin on his fists in a very calm manner, avoiding the panicking heartbeats inside. "How do I know if this scroll is entirely true? What if there's any mistakes with the counting?"
"Monsieur Treville wrote the script himself, your highness. He has been doing this job for more than twenty years. Surely you can't doubt that old man of doing such a thing, can you?"
Louis bit his lip, "Course, not."
"Is there something wrong, your highness?"
"No...just leave, thank you."
He nodded and walked away.
As soon as he was out of the door, Louis clasped on the scroll so tightly his knuckles turned white. He wished this piece of parchment never arrived to him.
I have to read this... I have to. He said to himself.
With a little bit of courage flowing in his veins, he opened the scroll a little so it only showed the names under the 'C'.
Alright, I am going to do this. It's now or never.
He partly squinted at the name where he had last stopped,
Before he even read the full name, the scroll dropped from his hands on the floor with a tiny thud.
He felt like he was spinning off to darkness and that he might disappear completely and forever.
…
"Louis, wake up!"
"Wha-?" He partly opened his eyes, obtaining a blurred image of his surroundings.
"Thank God, you are awake." The voice spoke again.
He blinked a few times, attempting to regain his vision to see where he was, who the person was in front of him, holding his hands.
A pair of blue eyes staring at him with relief and adoration, fair hair framing a beautiful face along with the familiar voice echoing inside him.
What? How can it be...? Corrine?
"C-Corinne? Is that you?" He stuttered, straightening.
"Hello, Louis. I've missed you." She smiled.
"N-no, I...how can this happen, aren't you? Am I...but-"
"Louis, what are you talking about?" She squinted at his bewildered face with perplexity.
The king sighed, dreamily gazing at the pair of eyes in front of him. "Am I in heaven now?"
Rolling her eyes, the blonde reached for the glass of water kept on the nightstand beside the king's bed.
And threw.
"CORINNE!" Louis yelled, now completely back to reality with his soaked hair dripping across his shoulders. He wiped the cold water off his face with his sleeves but they were kind of wet too.
"Welcome back, Louis." Corinne chuckled.
"Wait..." He pointed to her face, his finger shaking and his eyes widening. "You...you're not…dead?"
Corinne shuddered and backed away, "What do you mean?"
"No, I'm sorry, I-"
"Louis, I came back. As you made me promise. I'll never leave you," She hugged him, ignoring the wet situation he was in. "I missed you. Didn't you miss me?"
"Of course, I did. Everyday. Those days you weren't here with me were the worst ones I've ever lived. I wish I don't have to live them, again."
Corinne chuckled, "You won't. Your France will be safe for a very, very long time."
"You mean you-"
"We won." She smiled, "Though a lot of lives were lost. It scares me to go on a battlefield ever again." She bit her lip, twisting the fabric of her shirt.
"At least you are alive." He set a hand on her shoulder. "I can't imagine what would've-" He was cut off with her pulling him into a long-awaited kiss.
Louis' eyes widened at her activity. He was still trying to remember the last thing he did before he woke up to Corinne, whom he read as 'fallen' in the scroll.
Nonetheless, her lips were quickly dragging his mind to the realization of how much he had missed kissing her. He didn't waste another second before kissing her back, wrapping his arms around her very tightly so that their chests pressed together and they could feel their heartbeats.
It was the worth the wait.
After kissing to their minds' content, Louis pulled away and asked, "Corinne, can you please tell someone to bring the list of all the musketeers who died in the battle?"
"Sure." She got up to fetch the scroll herself.
After a while, she returned, seeing her fiancé coming out of the dressing frame with new clothes on.
"Here you go." She handed him the scroll he wanted and sat at the side of the bed.
"Thank you." He took it with a small smile, opening it immediately unlike his first time.
Now, where was I... He searched for the last name he read in the scroll. He found it instantly.
Corin D'Aramitz.
"Of course," He chuckled of the coincidence that musketeer and his fiancée had in common.
"What's so funny about reading names of the brave musketeers who have given their life in the battle?" The blonde looked at him disapprovingly.
Louis cringed, "I'm so sorry, Corinne but I think I now know the reason of why I acted weird earlier this evening."
Corinne faced him, slightly amused. "What is it?"
"I was so scared while reading this scroll for the first time that I actually misread 'Corin D'Aramitz' as...you." He gulped, "And then I think I fainted because I thought you left me...forever."
"Oh, Louis. That can never happen." The musketeer embraced him.
"I am too good to die, remember?"
…
END