A/N: Yep, I'm really hopping now. You really have a lot of free time on your hands when you get grounded indefinitely. Funny, I never saw it that way. I just wish I could post this as soon as I'm done writing. But I can say this, I have this whole chapter planned out and I'm sure by tomorrow I will have the next one all mapped out too. So never fear - Eternal boredom and perpetual grounding are here! But back to the fic! Love y'all!
Never before had a sunset seemed so beautiful to Sabriel's eyes. Not that she had seen a great deal of sunsets in her short lifetime. Ancelstierre was normally foggy or cloudy or rainy. There were good, sunny days of course, but the sunsets were never so bright and vibrant as this one was, here in Belisaere. The blue of the sky was streaked with brilliant reds and yellows, pinks and oranges and golds, and the thin, wispy white clouds threaded through the colors like the scars on the stomach of a many times mother. Fitting, or so it seemed, that the last sunset she might ever see would be the most stunning. So enthralled by it she was that she didn't hear the footsteps behind her until a pair of arms slipped around her waist.
"Striking, isn't it?" Touchstone said, his chin resting on the top of her head.
"Yes. Yes, it is." She put her hand on his arm, reassuring herself of his presence, because it wouldn't be there tomorrow. They stood in silence for a while, watching until the last of the pink faded from the indigo that the sky had now become.
"What are you thinking about?"
"My father," she whispered, so softly that it was barely audible. But he heard her.
"He'd be proud of you Sabriel. This is what he would have wanted you to do, to fulfill your role as Abhorsen, to, to..."he trailed off.
"To save the Kingdom?" she finished for him. "To sacrifice my life to protect a people that I don't even know?"
"They're your people. Yours and mine." He turned her around and tilted her chin upwards, towards his face. "I won't let you fail. I love you Sabriel, Abhorsen of the Old Kingdom, my Queen. Your people trust you; they have faith in you and your motives. You-you are beautiful and smart and talented and ingenious and I love you more than anything I have ever known. I refuse to lose you to Death, or Ancelstierre, or some other heart that can not love you half as much as mine does. You are my own, and I am yours, so don't you dare think about leaving me for the throes of Death."
She stood there, with his hands gripping her arms like a vice, shaking despite the warmth of the late spring night. 'You are my own' he had said. My own. Stunned, she blinked back the tears that had somehow formed behind her eyelids.
"I miss him," she sniffed, burying her face in her hands as his hold slackened. Sighing, he pulled her to his chest, wrapped his arms around her and smoothing her hair, mumbling soft nothings into her black locks as one would do with a baby. And in his embrace like that, Sabriel let the tears flow. Tears she had kept inside since they had arrived here and all of those experiences came rushing, flooding back. She sobbed into his tunic, letting the tears flow freely, letting his arms soothe her, his murmurings calming her fears and worries.
"I just, what if something goes wrong? What if they die, if I die, if the whole city dies because of some mistake I made? I can't live with that knowledge!"
"They won't die. If some do, they will have known that they died for the greater good of the kingdom. The blood will not be on your hands Sabriel. All of those people who volunteered to go with you, to act as bait to the Dead, they know exactly what they're doing. They know that sooner or later, they will die, but they must figure, hey, someone's trying to put the kingdom to rights, that seems like a worthy cause to die for, if I have to. You haven't bribed them into this, as much as it may seem like you have. You're not telling these people to go home and tell their loved ones how much they mean to them because tomorrow will dawn without them! You are Abhorsen; you bind the Dead, for Life is not their path to walk anymore.
"And for you, well. I'm not going to let you die. I don't care what you may want, or what you may think that you want, you are not going past that Ninth Gate. Not now, not while you still have a job to do, a responsibility to yourself, your people, your father, and to me. So get any notions of suicide out of your head, because if you don't, I will."
Despite her attempts to stay gloomy and self centered, she smiled.
"And just how do you intend to get those notions out of my head?"
"Like this," he whispered, sinking down to one knee before her. She knew what he was trying to do, and she loved that he was doing this, but she was shaking. Shaking from fear that this may be the only night they had left, from fear that if he asked her she wouldn't be able to say no, because she wanted to say yes, more than anything in the world. But not like this, not now. Fresh tears formed in her eyes, but she blinked them back. She pulled her hand from his and took a step back.
"No, Touchstone. Not here, not now, not like this. You're not going to guilt me into living by breaking my heart. If I come back, then, maybe then you can ask me to be your wife. But not here, not when my world is crashing down around my feet, and all I can see is destruction and pain and death. Things are different now; we can't live happily-ever-after anymore. There is no happy and there is no after. There is just now, and right now I can't give myself to you when I don't have a self to give. So no, I'm sorry, but no." Turning swiftly, she walked away from him, and she didn't look back.
