Father's arms were warm.
When he came to visit me when I was small, he brought me gifts; stuffed bears, journals for my studies, bags of sweets…but it was the simple ecstasy of being held that I loved most. I would ignore my mother's concerned warning and race to greet him, longing to feel his arms wrap around me, lift me up to sit on his hip; despite my age, I was small. I savored this, how strong he seemed to me, to be able to pick me up and hold me steady. So strong, where I was weak and grew tired easily, and often woke up coughing and unable to breathe.
Father held me then, too. Mother nursed and tended to me every day, and I found immense comfort in her embrace, yes, but my passionate devotion to my father, and the rare novelty of his visits had me wanting no one but him when he was available. Besides, mother seemed to be even more scarce than usual once Father came to visit.
Father would stay diligently by my bedside when I fell sick, which was often. He held me, soothed me through my wheezing fits, his arms always so warm.
It was father's face I awoke to after surgery, blurred and faded through the haze of my medication. I felt no pain, only an intense vertigo, but father shushed me all the same and brushed through my hair as though I were suffering. I was young, scarcely 12, and terrified as soon as my senses returned enough for me to be so. To me, a visit to a physician involved a few taps and pokes, maybe an unpalatable syrup. Surgery as I later understood it did not exist, and was generally synonymous with amputations and raging infections. I knew I would be safe from that trauma, because father said so, but all the same, it didn't prepare me for weeks of lying in bed, unable to move from weakness and the frightening assortment of machines attached to my recovering body. I didn't yet know such things existed nowhere else in the world, but if I had, I'd have thought little of it. Just more evidence that my father was the most powerful man I could imagine.
...I wonder, now, how he felt, staying at my bedside for hours on end. I can't imagine I was a pretty sight, covered in bruised and mottled skin, often dank from sweat. Was it all part of the intricate net he'd been weaving for me and my brother since our births? To be attentive to his firstborn as he whimpered in pain when his wounds were cleaned, to not only plead and encourage him to eat, but to even feed him by hand?
I have to believe that was the case. The alternative is too painful.
How ironic; a few months ago, my opinions would have been reversed. But now, lying here, I can feel the blood dribble from the gunshot just above my collarbone, and my worldview is becoming strikingly clear.
I saw his face for only a brief moment before I fell over the balcony, and I can describe it only as disinterested. How egotistical could a man be, to be nonplussed not only by an attempt on his life, but by his son jumping before him to take the bullet in his stead? Did he watch me fall? I don't know. Nor do I want to think on it now. If I start to wonder, I know how easily my mind will slip back into its normal, comfortable pattern of thinking. Father. Loving father, who is so busy, the weight of the world on his shoulders. Father who hasn't the time for pesky children, ones who are old enough now to tend their own wounds, and don't need to be hand held and coddles through their pain.
Father would love me, if he could.
I shudder, try to breathe. The pain radiating from my chest is building, and I'm vaguely aware of Cassians hands undoing my tie, my buttons.
Yes, the mantra I've lived the last 15 years by. Excuses, reasons, and lies told to myself. So many reasons father can't provide the love I just knew he wanted to give me. Most of all, that I was unworthy. I was troublesome, a burden, and shamefully disobedient. I was caught in a perpetual loop of disturbed reasoning. Father didn't love me, so I rebelled and claimed I too, felt nothing…after such disgraceful behavior, no wonder father didn't love me. He would, if only I was better! But I was never good enough…he obviously didn't love me. What devotion did I owe to a man who didn't love me?
For years my mind circled on this flawed ring of logic, and it now fills me with embarrassment. Could I really have fooled myself into believing such a thing, even once? Let alone a thousand times after?
Perhaps instead of Death, I should have been marked the Fool…no! No, Death was a perfect match for me. Not for my bloodlust or the corpselike way I lived, but for how I balked at any hint of change. I didn't want my worldview to be challenged!
This is why I hated Cassian so much. There was no one who could call Cassian a moral citizen, not with the blood on his own hands, but something in my eyes made him inherently better than I. Perhaps on some level I was always able to see past his childlike expression, and see the man he actually was. An older man, wiser than I, with my childish dependencies and need to be taken care of. Cassian could survive on his own, whereas I would die were it not for father. Was I afraid to hear the opinions of one who I thought, deep down, would know better than I? If I felt as arrogant and pious as I acted, I surely wouldn't have been so defensive.
Cassian was right. But then…wasn't I as well? Here I was, now officially severed from father. He turned from me, as he saw me get shot. Even now, as I slowly bleed to death, he has nothing to do with me.
I truly can't survive without father.
Cassian is holding me in his lap now. Cassian…he came back for me. He said he would, but I didn't believe him. Men lie to me. Women lie to everyone, but men seem to find me only useful so long as I am quiet, obedient, and pretty. But here he is, my blood pouring onto his coat, and he doesn't seem to care.
I look up. His face is blurred. My glasses are nowhere to be found, but I won't be needing them much longer anyway.
His hand grips mine, and I wonder…is it him shaking, or me? Him, I decide. I am too relaxed to shake from nerves, and not yet weak enough to tremble from death throes. He's shaking as he clenches my hand in his, and I squint to bring his face into focus. Cassandras warm hazel eyes always looked striking against dark auburn hair, but with Cassian's thoughts behind them, they hold concern and not malice. Such a pleasant change…
Was father ever concerned for me, as I lay sick? Did he truly fret and wish me well, or was any anxiety he harbored merely the possibility of my death bringing an end to his plans?
No, no malice in Cassians eyes. I was too little, in that hospital bed, to read anything more than superficial masks of emotion on father's face, but I am sure his features looked nothing like Cassians do now. He looks at me with true concern, a genuine grief that I can't imagine father would have worn.
Cassian brushes through my hair and wraps me in a gentle love that Alexis never could. I am dying, I know, and he does as well. He tells me he wants to be here, in my last moments, and I feel comfort.
I close my eyes for a brief moment as another wave of pain washes over me, and I feel my heart racing, trying to keep my blood flowing. Cassian lays his cheek against the top of my head as he feels me stiffen. He can't scoop me up to hold me on his hip, but he can hold me all the same. Perhaps he could never have lavished me with gifts as Alexis had, but those trinkets mean nothing to me, and never did. What Cassian offers me now is far more valuable.
I let my body relax further into his embrace, feeling my minutes tick by.
Cassian pulls me closer.
Father's arms are so, so warm.