And Yet They Shine

Chapter 19: Morose

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In the world below the world above, a sullen god stared at the crystal before him. When Alice had pressed it into his hand, he'd almost thrown it in anger. Frustration. He'd come close, so close, to tasting heaven. Holding Isabella in his arms, he had known peace, contentment, for the first time in his ageless existence.

Without her, he was bereft. He sat on his throne, morose and somber, listening to the shades prattle about this and that until finally, while one shade was in the middle of his plea, Edward rose, dropped his crown on the red velvet seat of his throne, and wandered away.

He took the gardens first, but their ever-shining night called her to his mind. Holding her beneath a golden apple tree, tasting the perfect honey of her mouth, her breath breathing life into him, for the first time. His fingers tingled at the memory of her skin, warm and soft, and like nothing he had ever felt before. Textiles, silk and velvet, could not compare.

Late that evening, he found himself, as he always did, in her chambers. He laid his head upon her pillow that he might breathe in her scent, remember for a moment what it felt like, to have her as his own. From time to time, he would read her books, or touch his fingertips to her possessions. He had taken such care to find the things that she'd loved, culling the images from her mind and setting his servants to fulfill the needs she didn't even know she had. Now that she was gone, there was no one to love the objects she'd left behind. Edward felt a strange kinship with her discarded belongings.

Lying on Isabella's bed, Edward turned the crystal over and over in his hands. It glimmered here and there, milky swirls in the pale blue light emitted by the crystal. With a sigh that bordered on a sob, he gave in and stared into the heart of the crystal. He didn't know what vision it would bring. He had hope, but it was a small thing in the face of his fears, and he clung to it so tightly he feared it would break.

As the images began to clear, Edward gasped and sat upright. It was Isabella, though not as he'd ever seen her before. She was broken, this girl, crying silent tears as she poked her tongue against the vial, taking the silvery drop into her downturned mouth.

She closed her eyes – so full of despair! – and tipped her head and the vial back at once.

The image overwhelmed him.

He wanted her happiness, her yearned for it. Was it so wrong of him to hope that she would find it with him? He would have given her anything, everything. Every single thing she'd ever wanted would be set before her. If she had only let him.

Instead, he saw her despair, her tears, as she drank down her memories of him. As she tried to forget him.

Was it that awful, being with him? He knew himself to be moody and given to meloncholy, that was no secret to anyone. But had he been so horrible that she wanted to drive him from her mind? That she could allow him no perch, not even amidst her memories?

The proof of it lay before him and he understood. With her, he had felt light and hopeful. He had felt good things, kind things, for what seemed like the first time in his life. Without her, he'd returned to the empty life he'd known before: he drifted and did his duty, and found joy in nothing at all.

He hope that he had clung to failed and he felt the crystal splinter and then turn to dust in his hand.

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Edward stayed in her rooms, though it was almost unbearable to do so. More unbearable was watching the world move forward. Time was ever marching and Edward couldn't stand it. Could not stand to see the humans, their disregard for sunlight, moonlight, their unseeing, arrogant assumption that one season would follow the next and the callousness of the buds as the bloomed on the branch. He could not bear to hear the pleas of the shades, who wanted only one more day, just one more, with the objects of their affection. Didn't they understand how much they'd already had?

The man before him had spent thirty-five years surrounded by the love of a woman who'd made him feel nineteen again, every single day of his life. Didn't he understand the embarassment of riches that he'd already experienced? And he dared ask the dark god for more?

And the woman before him, who'd had only three years with her love, before illness swept her from his arms. It was so much more than Edward would ever have. He could find no sympathy for the wretches before him.

The walls trembled as Edward's anger rose, reaching a fever pitch that no one could quell. His servants plead with him until he shut them out and turned them away, wanting nothing but to live in the memory of her.

Yet even that was not enough. For each time that he recalled her smile, he remembered too, the tears in her eyes. She hadn't loved him, hadn't wanted him. She wanted not even his memory. Although he understood his duty, it failed to bring him purpose.

Only she could do that for him.

As Jasper pulled the sun toward the water, ending another human day, Edward understood only one thing. He did not wish to exist in a world that did not hold her smile. While it would pain him, so much, to watch her smile for another man, it would be better to see her smile, than not to see her at all.

And so he left his post, donning the dark suit and tie that he always wore when he walked the earth, and searched out Isabella. He began where he'd begun at first, on the sandy beach where he had first seen her face.

When he arrived, there was a small girl in the distance, and Edward's heart stumbled for a moment, thinking it might be her.

It was not. Instead, Alice of the Fates came toward him. Her large, dark eyes were pleading with him and he knew what she'd say before the words left her mouth.

"You have to go back, Edward. The world needs you."

The dark god shook his head, not wishing to waste even a moment in his need to see his girl again.

"You don't understand. They will be lost without you."

Lost? Did she have any idea how he felt? To have been held in the hands of heaven, only to be expelled?

"They cannot let go without you. It is your duty!" The small girl shrieked at him, even while her heart panged for his loss.

Edward shrugged and began to climb the thousand steps that he hoped would lead him home.

Home.

That is what she was to him. It didn't matter that he wasn't that for her. Nothing mattered, really, but seeing her face again.

"Edward!"

The small girl caught up to him. She was ageless, appearing to be a wizened crone one moment and a childish waif the next. He watched the breeze sift through her dark hair. He raised his eyebrows and she pressed a slip of paper into his palm.

The writing was small and feminine, black in on white paper:

Three seeds swallowed

Three drops undrunk

Predict the course that follows

From what remains undone

When Edward looked up, she was gone.

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I think this will be done within the next two weeks. Thank you to everyone who's reading.