Father.
{ Fandom: The Musketeers
Characters: Aramis, Queen Anne, New character
Pairing: a little bit of Annamis
Words: 1155 }
Everything was quiet that night, in the royals apartments.
Aramis, as he was already used to doing it for quite some time, with agile and silent movements such as the ones of a cat staring at its prey, sneaked in the room of the little Maria*, princess of France.
The child's governess, as usual, after a long day she had fallen asleep on the chair next to the crib, letting everyone be able to kidnap the newborn baby.
The musketeer leant toward the baby girl and smiled at her, while caressing her fluffy and pink little nose with one of his gloved fingers.
"Who's back? It's me, your guardian angel!"
Maria, in response, smiled in turn and clapped her hands a couple of times, proving that yes, she knew him, he was her friend! Then Aramis gently picked her up and placed her on his shoulder, face to face, delighted in her sweet fragrance and in the softness of her chubby cheek against the rough fabric of his greatcoat.
He started strolling, in order to keep that calmness, and meanwhile he started caressing her sparse fair hair on her little head. Finally he stopped in front of the only window in the room, the one overlooking the courtyard, and he stared at the big full moon lighting up the black sky that night.
"You know, Maria, I'm not the kind of guy who often comes back to the women I meet… a little because I choose not to come back, a little because it's impossible to come back. But you… you are the exception."
He turned his head to look at her, and he noticed that the baby's eyes were staring at him, as if she was really understanding what she was telling her. He gave her a tender smile and caressed her hair once again.
"You have always been the exception, since you were brought into this world."
Then he glanced back, sharpening his hearing: some unclear noises in the distance which seemed increasingly closer. He had to leave, immediately, he couldn't put his own and his daughter's life in danger. He moved her from his shoulder and held her up in the air, letting her dangle her feet.
"Shall we sing the lullaby and go to sleep now, yeah?"
After that he placed her head against his chest, where she could hear his heartbeat, the musketeer in a low and even raspy voice started singing a refrain he retained in his memory since a long time ago, for who knows what reason. Perhaps just to sing it to his children one day, who knows.
"Tu es si fort et si fragile
Viens dans mes bras je te ferais une île
Ce lien qui nous lie
Ne cassera pas
Ne pleure pas je suis là!
Car tu vis dans mon cœur
Oui tu vis dans mon cœur
Dès maintenant, jusqu'à la nuit des temps
Tu vis dans mon cœur
Qu'importe le discours
Tu vivras dans mon cœur, toujours!"
Then he put the baby back in her bed and carefully tucked her into bed, while Maria was giving a yawn and waving her tiny fists in the air.
He softly caressed one of her cheeks and whispered: "Do you understand, Maria? You'll always be in my heart and I'll protect you every time you are in danger, I give you my word! Goodnight, princess."
And as mysteryously as he arrived, shadow in the night, he was gone without a trace.
.
.
.
"Mother, I am gripped by a question."
A 16-year-old Maria shyly crossed the doorstep of the Queen's room, while she was focused on listening one of her ladies-in-waiting. Then she kept her gaze on her daughter and made a sign to keep quiet to the other woman, letting the girl be able to come in and explain herself.
"Tell me, daughter." Anne encouraged, sitting at the foot of the bed and pointing the seat next to her to be occupied. Maria did as her mother proposed and settled in, while the woman wrapped her thin shoulders with one arm.
"I had a strange dream last night. I was a child and I was in my bed, and then a man came into my room and picked me up to cradle me, while whispering lovely things. And I felt… good, as if everything was in its right place. I was almost sorry when I woke up. What do you think?"
"Oh, it's normal, my love. Your father died when you were barely five, probably the lack of a father figure upset you, somehow."
"Mhm. Yet I'm convinced that the man of my dream wasn't my father."
"And what makes you say that?"
"Maybe I've been influenced since I started my 'pistols and swords' training with the musketeers— "
"You what, Maria?"
"Yes, Mother, I knew you would react like that, and for this reason it has been a secret—however, I was saying, maybe this influenced me, yet the man of my dream looked a lot like Aramis. And the funny thing is, when we're just the two of us training together, I… I felt the same feelings of my dream, I don't know how to explain that…"
Dead silence fell in the Queen's room, no one dared to breathe. Anne stared back at her daughter's deep and sharp gaze, very similar to Aramis' one, then she blinked a couple of times, smoothed the long skirt of the gown and got up heading for the large window, from which some rays of spring sunshine were seeping in. Finally she spoke.
"Don't be a fool, Maria, come on. You let yourself be influenced. You perceive the lack of a strong male figure in your life and so you make up for it with that musketeer, therefore now it seems to you that you're living an idyllic life father-daugher. But this is not and absolutely will never be possible, I can assure you.
Don't be fooled, daughter."
She paused for a moment, just to turn her face and see her.
"I learned it the hard way."
Backlit, a single tear was cutting through her cheek, tiny sign of humanity almost clashing against the usual grace and regality attitude of the Queen.
"Mother—" the girl only whispered, before going to her, hugging her on the spur of the moment and then hiding her face on her chest.
With that single tear shed who knows after how long, her mother had been able to reveal to her a lot more than what Maria herself had asked.
*She was named after Maria de' Medici, mother of Louis XIII and therefore "grandmother" of the baby girl.