Chapter Eleven: A Tangle of Ice And Demeanor

Erik

Erik glanced wearily at Elodie as she hummed with excitement beside him. He was growing increasingly worried about her little trip to Paris. Every part of him screamed out against it. He knew nothing but trouble would result. He would give anything to order her back to the village and into the cruel and uncaring hands that would watch her for the rest of her life. He would not go back on his promise. Still, Paris was filled with sadness. Filled with horrible memories he wished never to encounter again.

It was a place where one could easily lose themselves to the past and dream of impossible futures.

He knew Elodie was planning something. Her eyes twinkled a bit too much for his liking. He knew she did not want to return to the sanatarium. He knew that she had lived in Paris. She would try to escape from him, he was sure.

The carriage they rode in bounced down the road uneasily. He turned and glanced at Elodie. Her tiny hands clutched the edge of the seat tightly. Her knuckles were turning white. A smile was plastered on her face and he scowled.

"Erik, it will not be as bad as you think." She said absently as she stared out a window. "You've lived there. You know how grand a city it can be. Why not think of something pleasant about Paris instead of pondering over her."

Erik snorted with annoyance. "Grand, indeed."

"What is that supposed to mean?" She asked sharply.

"I have very few fond memories of that dreadful place. I know nothing pleasant about it. I live in seclusion and always have. Paris is nothing to me."

"That's a rather bleak way of looking at it." She said.

"Not all can masquerade such joyous times in the city as you can, Elodie."

She glared at him and bit her lip. He turned his head away from her and smiled secretly. She remained quiet for quite a long time.

---

Elodie

Paris was her only option at the moment and she was determined to not let Erik spoil her moods. It was difficult. He seemed so cynical about every tiny thing. She, herself, was often like this but she had never noticed how undesirable a characteristic it really was.

"What could you possibly want in Paris, anyhow?" He asked after an hour or so.

"Time." She answered quietly. "Just time." She turned her big eyes on him. "You must know what I mean. To want to be someplace just for the sake of being there for awhile. Just to waste time in a place that makes you feel alive." She paused to consider her words. "Do you know how to be alive?" She asked carefully.

He frowned at her. "Do you?" His reply smacked of frustration.

"Sometimes I don't think I do. I think I just adopt how other people act." She studied her nails. "My mother used to say that I was too alive. I killed that part of me. Or at least I've tried. Now I can't really tell." She trailed off, confused by her own speech.

"Do you ever wonder if you actually happen to be exactly the way everyone says you are?" She asked. She glanced at him, his face unreadable. "I feel so mental sometimes. I feel like I am what everyone thinks I am. It feels so wrong. I know it's not true but eventually I start feeling like they must know better than me. I can't see myself the way they do."

"You see yourself the way others see you." He said slowly. "Perhaps you should not trust their definition of your own being, Elodie."

She studied him with gentle eyes.

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"In your case, perhaps, you are exactly the way you see yourself. Perhaps you are far too grand for them to comprehend."

A smile broke out across her face and it felt strange and lively. She reached out and clasped his hand firmly in hers. "Thank you Erik." She said. He looked startled at first but relented to her touch. "Perhaps you are not what you think of yourself, either." She said.

He did not glance at her, only turned his head toward the window.

"The train ride should be quick." He said with no emotion. "You shall be in Paris soon."

---

Elodie was not used to this Erik. He seemed further withdrawn then she had ever encountered him. Once aboard the train and properly seated he did not respond to her attempts at conversation. He seemed to sulk in the corner of his seat, pressed into his own thoughts. What she could see of his face was tight with discomfort.

Perhaps bothering her more than it should have, she glared at him. He either did not notice or did not care. He did not have a thought in the world for her now.

Quite the opposite for her, she could think of nothing but the man before her. She tried to stare at the passing landscapes but she quickly grew tired of it. She tried to trace a pattern in her hand but started losing track of what it had been.

Your memory is failing, her mind laughed at her. She fought back, repressing the critical voice in her head. She set about trying to recall a sonnet she had memorized as a child. Her lips fumbled over the beginning and she started when Erik glanced up at her.

"What did you say?" He asked politely, as if he had misheard.

"Nothing." She said, shaking her head

"You did indeed say something." He pressed.

"No. I absolutely did not." She insisted, her face growing hot under his gaze.

"If I am not mistaken it sounded much like, Those hours, that with gentle work did frame." His intense gaze did not waver and she began to fidget uncomfortably. "Is it something you have learnt by heart?" He asked, trying to seem uninterested.

"Fine, yes, alright." She said, blowing out air. "It's a sonnet. Shakespeare's fifth."

"Well?" He waved a hand at her. "Continue."

"I-I can't remember more than that." She lied as she looked above Erik's head.

"I don't believe that." He said. "Continue."

"Why would you want to hear a sonnet recited?" She sighed. "It's surely not as interesting as the trouble you're going through. If you insist-"

"I do. Now continue." His demand sounded so final that she stole a peek at his face. Unmoved by emotion, as always.

"Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel;
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter, and confounds him there;
Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where:
Then were not summer's distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was:
But flowers distill'd, though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet."

Erik's eyes pierced her and held her fast. She could not look away. Some magic seemed to have fallen over him. He did not move. His breath was impossible to detect. He seemed frozen in time.

A worried look covered her face. She had not meant to cause any such response in him. It was a simple sonnet. Not much fuss and to-do over it, she had thought. Her protests had been for fear of reciting something from memory. She wondered if she should have feared something else.

"Your memory is excellent." He said quietly. "How is it so?"

"I have a knack for memorizing written word." She offered, her palms held face up to him in sacrifice.

"Indeed." He said, his head turned to stare back out the window. "Indeed."

---

A/N: The sonnet, as stated in the chapter is the work of William Shakespeare. I, in no way, claim this work as my own.

Sorry this chapter took so long. I got a bit caught up in something else. I hope you enjoyed!