a
Q U I E T
W O R L D
- Dim Aldebaran -
:i:
It wasn't fair; but then, it never had been.
Holly shivered. The night was broken crystal: sharp, cold air that cut into her lungs with each breath, and stars the fractured remnants of the crescent moon.
It wasn't fair to wait.
Was it the waiting that bothered her?—Holly rubbed her hands together for warmth. The wait—the wait was long, the wait was cold, the wait was silent: the wait was alone.
It wasn't fair to be here—here.
Her lips curled. Tintagel. While Igraine's husband died, Uther had snuck in like a dog to bed her, and Arthur was thus begotten—and here she was. The irony fit her like an iron maiden.
Had it ever been fair?
The beach stretched out before her like a lifetime. She couldn't remember—she couldn't see into the past anymore, couldn't look behind her. She was just drifting along like a beachcomber on a barren beach, trying to collect precious memories but finding nothing, really, nothing at all besides twisted wood and wearied stones.
It wasn't fair to be like this.
She leaned against the wall; her back protested weakly against the rough castle stones. It was all supposition in the end, she supposed, but the chamber he had chosen, half exposed to the sea from ruin and erosion, was so easy to see, so easy to discover, perhaps he wanted just that: to end it all, here and now, like they had meant to do all those times before.
Was anything fair?
She saw him, silhouetted against the now-rising moon, black hair blending with the night, starless shadow against shadow, and his skin, pale as the moon, though not pocked with such imperfections… There was a glint to his eyes, a glint like starfire but brighter, so much brighter…
One must expect the unfair.
There was so much between them—not that crumbling wall he stepped over, not those five steps to the embrace, not that thin boundary between a kiss and a word—no, something else, even as he pushed her down onto the cold flagstones, down into the tyranny of the tryst.
Things were always to be unfair.
Why wasn't the world crying out in anger against this sacrilege?—why didn't it rise up as one voice and tell them to stop?—who knows, they might even listen. Why wasn't there the clarion call of a better cause?—why wasn't there the falsetto of drama giving them the cue to close the curtains?—
The unfair was purely the artifice of love.
She could hear—she could hear the pulsing thunder of the hungry sea that near drowned them both…she could hear his panting breaths, still boyish after all these years, the only boyish thing about him anymore… she could hear herself moaning, giving in to it all, since somehow this was easier… she could hear the dull slap of skin on skin, cream and coffee spilt on the floor… and above it all, she could hear a chord resonating within them, a chord that sounded in every set of souls that ever stole a moment and a kiss, a chord everyone possessed but everyone abhorred…
A quiet world.
It was unfair; but then, it always had been.
:i:
AH and - gasp! - no one dies. CC much appreciated, as always.
This is for the 30angst prompt of 'secret passage'.
(and please, please don't ask: "Why Tintegal?" because I have no idea why it's Tintegal versus something nice and Irish.)