Disclaimer:
Yay!
For the first time in my writing career (about two months…;) ), it's really necessary to write a Disclaimer…
I mean, everybody knows that the characters belong to JK, Melinda Metz, and others, but you guys don't know to whom the lyrics of the song that's used belong…
Or maybe you do… :)
Anyway, the song used is called "Children's Lullaby" by "Vertical Horizon". The song is nice, but it were the lyrics that touched me…
Oh, and since we're doing the disclaimer anyways, I'll just tell you, that, in case you recognize some of the sentences used in the part where Max talks to Christian, that you probably knew them from a fluff fic I wrote about a year ago, for English class. I didn't post it at Roswellfanatics, but I did post it at ff.net, so maybe you read it there, although I seriously doubt that. Besides that, I enhanced the part a little, so it's not that obvious… :)
And guys, thank you soooo incredibly much for your great reviews and sweet words! They encouraged me to write faster, type faster, and kinda inspired me. So, please, please, pretty please, keep them coming!
Enough of me babbling. Without further ado, here's the new part:
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A Rose Of Cinders
Chapter 3
Children's Lullaby
Little girl was down by the waterside,
The sun so hot and the roses so red where she lie,
As little boys sit and watch as she twirls all around,
Sunny smiles not a rain cloud could bring that girl
down,
But now....
What's behind those big brown eyes,
Do you dream at night, without your lullaby?
Little boy sits alone as he sings in the dark,
Wondering if his own dreams had pulled them apart,
He sings a song of tomorrow he never can see,
Mostly sings of a lost little girl's memory,
And now...
As his dreams go flashing by,
He begins to hear a lonely lullaby
Well now…
We used to sing,
And we used to cry,
Through everything,
In our children's lullaby
Little girl on the street with nobody around
Has her head in the air, dirty feet on the ground
She shuts her eyes and she wonders 'is this a
mistake?'
Now she's gone from the warmth of her little boy days.
And still...
She believes that she'll get by,
On her own without,
Her little boy's lullaby
Little boy prays to God to answer his song,
To hold her hand when everyone else's are gone,
Time goes by and the wounds slowly turn into scars,
So he makes his final wish on the midnight stars,
And he screams...
Little girl won't you hear my cry,
Won't you come back home,
To your lover's lullaby
Little girl down by the waterside
Goodbye, goodbye
Goodbye…
-----------------------------
The lyrics of the song slowly drifted towards Max,
kept lingering in the air, drenching him with their hidden meaning. He didn't
know where the song was being sung, or by whom, but the words were so true to
him that they could be derived from his soul.
The sun was slowly setting, its celestial journey
across the cloudless sky almost completed. The shadows it was casting were
getting longer and wider, and even though the sun was nearly down, the
temperature didn't decrease.
It promised to become a long, very long, sultry
summer night.
Max looked down from his balcony at the people
swarming around his second-in-command, Michael, who was currently trying to
stall Max's arrival in the Grand Hall.
He took a closer look.
Girls.
A lot of girls.
Thousands of them.
Well, hundreds maybe, he rationalized. Anyhow, there
were plenty of them. Enough to turn every man's dream – a ball with beautiful
girls that were begging him to marry them – into a nightmare.
He'd have to try and dance with every single one of
them, as promised in the Royal Letter.
And why?
He wouldn't find the right one.
Over the years he'd been introduced to decades of
young girls, most of them being princesses, and – he had to admit –
excruciatingly beautiful. Somehow, he couldn't imagine marrying any of those
girls. He knew why, though.
The girl at the carnival. Brown hair, big doe eyes.
Eyes that were able to swallow him, that allowed him to get lost in her
essence. She had been young at the time, and so had he. He doubted that she
would remember him – at least, not in the way he remembered her – and if she
did, it'd probably only be because of his Royal status as a Prince.
Not because of him.
He had no clue as to how she looked nowadays, but he
knew that he would recognize her immediately. He had dreamed of her, countless
times. In some of them, they were happily married, and were playing with their
children.
Other dreams were more… err… arousing, and to say that
they were inspiring would be an understatement…
Max cursed under his breath for the blush he knew was
adorning his face, being arisen just at the mere memory of those dreams.
He tried very hard to regain his composure by thinking of anything but Her.
It worked for twenty seconds, but somehow his thoughts
always managed to drift back to her.
Maybe she'd be among those girls, although Max knew
that he would have felt her in some sort of way, like he would have
recognized her presence. It was ridiculous, he was aware of that, for he
couldn't be able to distinguish any of the girls from this far away, but, at
the same time, he couldn't deny his heart's knowledge.
"Your Majesty?"
He swivelled around at the sound of Christian's voice
and walked into his room, where Christian was waiting for him. He breezily
acknowledged the servant's presence with a friendly nod.
Christian cleared his throat.
"We received an answer from Lady Ann and Lord James,
sir. They were very honored by your invitation and will surely attend tonight's
ball."
"Good, good," Max replied, "very good indeed. How
about the preparations?" he asked, walking over to his closet to retrieve his
blouse.
"Her Highness Isabel decided to do the planning
herself, Your Majesty."
Max smiled inwardly. If Izzy would take care of the
ball, it was bound to become a splendid party.
"Good," he answered. "Well, that's all, Christian.
You're dismissed, I'd like to change now." Max gestured at his blouse.
Christian nodded quickly. "Yes, sir."
"Oh, and Christian?" Max said, looking at the
retreating servant.
Christain revolved around his axis, almost tripling
over his own feet, but was just in time to prevent a huge embarrassment. "Yes,
sir?" he asked when he had recovered from the almost-fall.
"Loose the whole your-majesty-stuff, would you?" Max
semi-ordered him, a friendly undertone present in his voice. He had known
Christian for over 3 years now, and Christian still wasn't able to call him by
his first name.
When Christian answered with a solemn "Yes, sir," Max
let out an exasperated sigh.
"The sir-crap, too, Christian," he said. "You can call
me Max."
"Okay, sir," Christian responded, but quickly
corrected himself when he saw Max arching his eyebrow.
"I mean Max, sir," he said, curtsied and quickly
walked away.
Max smiled weakly, and walked over to his window,
bracing himself on the windowsill. He could see the farmers working on the
countryside and had a bird's eye view of the world.
It was all going to be his.
His kingdom.
He thought of the question he'd been asking himself
the whole month. Did he really want to do this, get married to one of those
girls, being bound for the rest of his life? He'd been taught from childhood
that the kingdom demanded sacrifices and that it was a gift to be asked to give
an offering.
He sacrificed a lot.
He gave up nearly everything, but could he give up
love? Because that was what he would do, by getting married. He did not like
any of those girls, and he didn't know how he ever could. The Council wanted
him to marry, though, and he couldn't go against the will of the Council. He
was supposed to do his proposal this week, at the ball or in the after hours of
it, so that the survival of the Unity would be guaranteed. Maybe they were
women who he had to learn to love.
Or perhaps, he thought, perhaps he was doomed to live
a life without love…
He shook his head, trying to get rid of those
depressing thoughts.
'Think happy thoughts,' he told himself.
And, as usual, his mind raked up the image of his dream
girl, at least, the way she looked in his dreams. He was yearning for a name,
for a way to call her his.
Pretty soon he was lost in his daily fantasies and
reveries about her, and he was startled when Michael called him, pulling him
back to the harsh reality.
"… waiting for you, Maxwell," were the only words he
managed to constitute out of Michael's sentence.
His eyes fluttered open and he looked right into the
eyes of his best friend and second-in-command.
"I'll be right down," Max said with a curt nod, and he
was about to get lost in his dream world again when Michael resisted.
"Maxwell!" he cried out, only partially faking
despair.
"You can't be serious! Those girls are literally
pulling the clothes off of my body, clinging onto me, begging me, beseeching me
to get at least one dance with the Prince! You can't stall any
longer!" he stressed.
"Michael…" Max warned, his voice filled with an
authority, determined and persuasive, a way of speaking that he didn't use very
often. "I said that I would be right down," he firmly stated.
Michael reluctantly nodded. "Of course, sire,"
he mockingly said, a bitter undertone audible in his voice.
Max averted his gaze and looked at Michael, and when
he saw the hurt in his friend's eyes, he felt guilty.
"I'm sorry," he hastily apologized, "it's just that… I
don't want to do this…"
Michael raised an eyebrow.
"Maxwell, please… Those girls want you… They love
you!" he loudly tried to reason, not even bothering to keep his voice down in
front of a member of the Royal House.
"They don't even know me, Michael," Max flatly
replied. "All they care for is the prospect of a life at the palace, a life as
a Queen, a life of wealth. They only want me," he said while forming
quotation marks with his hands, "because of what I am, not because of who
I am…" he trailed off and turned to look out of his window again.
The sun had finished its long hike, only to start it
all over again tomorrow.
It was, astronomically seen, totally incorrect, Max
knew that, but it was an excellent metaphor for how he felt at the moment. He
lived one day, ended it, and the next morning, he had to start all over
again.
His life held no meaning for him.
His dreams did.
His dreams were beautiful, marvelous, filled with Her. They made
him feel, they made him alive.
She made him feel… As well in the spiritual sense of the word as in the
more physical meaning of it…
He felt his ears starting to glow again, a blush
covering his cheeks. He thanked his lucky stars for the fact that twilight had
settled down on them.
When he turned to look at Michael again, he found him
staring at his face, his expression – as usual – unreadable. Michael smiled
weakly at him and nodded a silent, unknown agreement. "I'll tell them you're on
your way," he softly said, care and pity both present in his voice.
"Thank you, Michael," Max timidly uttered his
gratefulness towards his friend.
Michael disappeared, leaving Max alone with his
thoughts. He swiftly walked over to his balcony and threw one last glance at
the sky. Closing his eyes, he mentally prepared himself for what was to come.
The inquisitive chirping of a bird shook him out of
his trance.
It was a little sparrow that could fairly easily fit
into Max's hand. Its brown, shiny feathers glistened in the pale light of the
moon, and when it moved its tiny intelligent head, one could see a little red
spot just below its gray throat. Max took a closer look, and for a moment, he could have sworn
that he saw Her in the pitch-black eyes of the little bird. The sparrow
nodded at him, yes, Max was sure, nodded at him, and a second later it
spread its wings and flew away, disappearing into a dark night.
Max watched until the bird was out of his range of
vision and then leaned back, tracing the adornments on the railing of the
balcony. He turned his eyes up, ready to face the lonesome moon, its usual
companions, the stars and planets, lost in the inky sway of the night.
He inhaled the warm air deeply, but wasn't able to
find any calmness in it, the humidity making the air thicker and clammy. After
one last look at the moon and a quick prayer to its Goddess, he left the
balcony and bristled through his room, not ready at all to face his nightmare,
but aware that he couldn't remain in his room any longer, merely for Michael's
sake as for his own.
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What did you think? Please review! :)
I've already written part 4 (Josephin already beta-read it, she's the bestest beta-reader in the whole wide world!!! :)) and if I get enough reviews, I might post it tomorrow or on Wednesday… *hint, hint* ;)
Lots of love,
Katie
