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A ride through the night – desperate, hurried rush through winter forest, filled with misty shadows, birds and beasts silent, frightened. Horse's hoofs stomping frozen earth; snow falling from branches, noiselessly. Her body rigid with tiredness and strain, mind dulled by physical efforts her journey requires, concentrating only on holding the reigns, on keeping the track, on staying in the saddle. Mind so dull she almost manages to hold herself together, almost manages not to think… And then it comes.
His scream. A flash of his agonized face. His harsh bark: 'Run!'
And herself, running.
Leaving him behind.
A seizure of her heart, paralyzed with aching for him, oppressed with guilt.
A stop at the tavern by the road: to change horses, to give herself some rest. A hot drink; cup held in icy hands, fingers trembling. Cheerful noise of human voices, drunken exclamations, laughter, flickers of fire on walls covered with hunting trophies; normality. Her body, relaxing, her mind, stupefied by warmth and comfort. Mind so woolly she is careless enough to close her eyes, to sigh tiredly… And then it comes.
Him, kneeling on the snow. His eyes, pleading. His upturned face.
'Run!'
Herself, running.
Arrival to the royal castle, worried faces around her, eager questions. Inability to say anything properly, to explain anything for, every time she opens her mouth, it comes again.
His scream. His pain. His contorted body. His dead eyes.
'Run!'
Certain knowledge that there is nowhere to run – she is running from herself.
Arrival of that woman to tease and terrify everyone. A surge of hate in her heart – hate so fierce as she'd never thought herself capable of. A spark of rage, and shame at herself: this is what she wants, this witch – her hate, her rage, her humiliation; all these dark feelings, that's what she thrives on, that's the source of her power.
Her power is different – or used to be.
She has no power left in her, none at all.
Getting into the room the royal family provided her with; finding herself alone.
Slipping on the floor, without getting her cloak off, staring into space.
Sitting there for a long time, deadly tired, knowing that she would not be able to sleep tonight – she will not be able to sleep ever for, the second she'd close her eyes, it will come.
His scream. His fingers scratching the snow as he crawls at the feet of his tormentor. His last look at her. No reproach, no reproof: just pain and death.
'Run!'
Who are you fooling, little princess? It will not just come again and again: it will never leave.
Giving in to it: closing her eyes, making herself remember the scene – all of it, feeling the smothering weight of pain, hers and his, biting her clenched fist so as not to scream, sobbing dryly, and then, finally, finding herself able to cry – quietly, with hissing sobs, to cry for herself and for him, racked with guilt and sorrow. Hearing his voice, the one he used to have, saying 'This crying must stop', sternly – she used to calm herself with that, before. She cannot do it anymore for, sitting there on the stone floor in the strangers' castle she finally senses her loss – deep and real, senses it sharper then when he disappeared into the light in front of her eyes.
She did not cry then, for he was not lost then – not to her. She must have been in shock or in denial then, to be so calm, so sure he could be brought back. But now, when he is physically back, she feels she really, really lost him. That man, that man she loved, that man who abducted her and stole her heart, and gave her his heart to replace a void in her chest, that man is gone. There will be no easy laughter now, no dark moods, no quips, no snapping, no hesitant touch of fingers on her cheek; no fatherly smile, no face thrown back in abandonment of passion; no hope in his eyes, no reassuring grip of warm hand. Something is changed in him, forever. He died a man, and came back the Dark One. He died in the name of love – and dark magic brought him back. He died to save his son – and his son is gone now. He died free and full of inner strength – and now he is a slave to evil, defeated and trodden on.
He is so much darker now than she ever knew him. Darkness is not in being given to evil – darkness is in being open to despair. While you still hope, you can fight evil. She has never seen him completely bereft of hope. He is all open to darkness now – not just naked – skinned… alive.
And she did this, all of this, herself.
She killed his son.
She brought him back into the life of agony and horror.
She gave him over to darkness.
And there is no way, no way at all that she can help him – she cannot go near him, for it would only pain him more and give that woman a tool to torture him more. And she cannot reach his heart, not really, for he is a different man; and his heart is incased in ice of despair, and cannot be moved; and his heart is closed to her, for he doesn't want to give her futile hope, and he tries to protect her – too keep her away from him.
He tries to save the only soul he loves by driving her away.
In that, he is not changed.
He still loves her, he still tries to keep her free of himself, uncontaminated by his closeness – he wants her to be happy; he wants her to be alive. She knows all this, because no way can he close his heart to her completely; she still feels his every breath, for with his every breath her chest heaves in pain. Yet, though she'd much rather be imprisoned by him, dragged through dirt with him, miserable with him, and dead by his side, she does not fight him, now.
For years and years she didn't listen to his wisdom and experience – opposed them with her youthful stubbornness, her blunt convictions. She knows now, only too well, how deadly her stubbornness proved to be.
She would listen to him, now. She'd do his bidding. She'd cast no clumsy spells on him.
She will not make all this harder for him.
She does not sleep that night – she simply cannot. In the morning, she busies herself with helping around the castle. She tries to be useful.
She doesn't talk to people much, and they don't try to speak to her. They sense certain remoteness about her, as if she is not really here with them. And they are right: she is there, with him. Not assaulting, not tugging at his heart with their ever-present bond; just present there, somewhere at the edges of his twisted mind, saying, silently: 'I love you'. Nothing more – no promises, no urging, no hopes, false or blind. Just this simple, unchangeable, everlasting truth.
'I love you'.
Sometimes she thinks he can hear her; and on such days her own pain is less sharp – she can almost relax; until it comes again, of course.
His scream. His agonized face. His fingers clutching the snow as he doubles in pain.
Days come and go, busy with nothing of importance; lonely nights come and go. She has become almost invisible to people around her – she is so absorbed in her inner dialogue with him.
Sometimes, when things become unbearable, she whispers to herself the words that he, dying said to her once: 'A hero, who helped your people… A beautiful woman, who loved an ugly man – really, really loved me. You see goodness in others, and when it is not there, you create it… So when you look in the mirror, and don't know who you are – that's who you are!..'
And she looks in the mirror, and she says, aloud: 'I don't really know who I am, not any more. I don't know if any of these things you told me are still true. I only know two things… You are alive, whatever the price. We breathe in the same world; and as long as you breathe, I breathe. And I love you. Whatever the price'.
And then comes a day she secretly dreaded – a day when the good people around her remember who she is, what her connection to him is, and want to use her as a tool to reach him. And she is forced to accept their need – she has to… She is 'a hero, who helped her people', after all. But everything in her screams against it.
He told her to stay away. And she'd have to disobey him.
As they get closer to his castle, this place where she first loved him, everything comes back – she recalls every stone, every crack in the wall; every speck of dust in this place she loves as much as she loves him. She remembers their talks, his quips, his spinning, his sad eyes – she remembers his lips on hers, and the way he drew away, protecting his magic – his only tool to find his son. How angry she was with him then; how well she understands him now.
How full of dread is her heart.
How full it is of silly hopes.
When they enter the dining room, the very room in which they first kissed, and she hears the rattle of his spinning wheel, her heart lurches towards him.
When she sees his shape, huddled in the cage, muttering to himself, her heart breaks.
Tentatively, she walks towards him and, as it happens with caged beasts suddenly approached, he shies away; alarmed – disturbed. She can barely see him in the shade, but she feels his trembling. It is impossible to tell if he recognized her – if he remembers her at all.
He must have suffered so.
She steps closer, and looks at him closely; his clawed hands fingering the wheel, his rumpled hair, obscuring his face; the golden gleam of his skin.
Her lizard-wizard. The man she fell in love with.
She earns for him so. She missed him so.
She loves him so.
There is nothing in the world she wants more then to rush into his cage and to crush him to her – to rain his face with kisses, to draw his lips to hers and kiss him deeply, chasing all darkness away – changing him into the man he still is, inside – into the man who is not gone, as she sees now – just imprisoned and ridden with pain.
She can save him, right now. She can kiss him with all the love in her heart and break his curse – here, in the same room where she first attempted it; it should end here, where it started.
And he would be free.
And he would be hers.
And Bae would die, for his father would have no magic to sustain his life.
She cannot do this to him. Never.
She reaches to touch him with her glowed hand – she knows that if she touches his bare skin with her own, all her restrain would be lost; she doesn't trust herself.
Suddenly, his hand grips her trembling fingers, and he lifts his face, and meets her eyes.
His golden eyes, sad and pained and wise and completely human. Full of love.
'Light', he says, looking into her stricken eyes.
He is speaking about light magic, of course – he is answering her question about ways of defeating that woman who stole him from her. But she knows he is telling her something else.
He tells her what she means to him.
He tells her that he has forgiven her.
He tells her that he is not defeated. That hope is still alive somewhere in his tortured soul.
She can hope now, too. He has given her leave to hope.
She bites her lip, fighting back tears.
His eyes leave hers, his lids drop – he looks sideways, shutting her out, again, withdrawing into his own world. But it doesn't matter – not any more: she had seen the light he spoke of – seen it in his eyes.
It helped her so, this meeting with him that she dreaded so much. With one look he brought her back to life – he had given her a new memory of him to replace the visions of that horrid, horrid snow-covered clearing where she found him and lost him.
She goes away almost her normal self – if she is the same for him, perhaps she can be the same for herself, too.
She waits for the new curse with hope, with anticipation of change – change for the better.
And then the curse comes but, meddled with by that woman, it comes tainted. Everyone wakes up with their most painful memories intact.
And she wakes up to the memory of him dying – killing himself in front of her as she stood and watched, frozen. She wakes up to the memory of his pain, and her voiceless screaming. She wakes up to fall on the ground with a dry sob, over and over again – to feel his love still alive and calling to her, despite his absence.
She wakes up to mourn him without a grave.
A year had passed, and all that is still as fresh in her mind as if it happened a second ago.
A year had passed, and she knows, the dreamer and the practical parts of her alike, that her sense of connection to him is an illusion – her grief makes her imagine his call; her grief makes her imagine things.
A year had passed, and she did nothing to find him – that means it is impossible. A year had passed, and she saw no hope; that means there is no hope.
She wakes up with certain knowledge that he is gone, and she is alone.
She wakes up dead.
Yet still she carries on; knowing she owes it to him. Remembering his eyes, pleading with her to go on. So she has to go on, waking up in the morning, forcing herself to eat, opening his shop – she has to go on as he went on during the first curse, when he believed – he knew – her to be dead.
He did it for thirty years, and now, after just one year, she cannot imagine how he managed not to lose his mind. She feels hers slipping away – slowly, you can barely notice, but she knows things are wrong with her. For instance, when this pushy midwife came to the shop, asking impertinent questions, tearing her soul apart with light-hearted compassion… Well, all that was highly unpleasant, and it must have upset her very much, for she does not remember the woman leaving – she does not remember if she actually sold her anything.
She is so confused.
She walks up to one of the mirrors on the wall of the shop, and looks at her own sad face, and hears his voice: 'I know that you are confused about yourself, so I am going to tell you… So when you look in the mirror… That's who you are...'
She looks in the mirror, and can't get rid of the memory of her talk with the midwife.
'You must be Mrs Gold?'
'No, I am… not'.
'Oh, is Mr Gold around?'
'No. He is… He died'.
Damn that woman.
He died. He died. He died.
'I lost him. There's nothing more to tell, really'. His voice, from so many years ago, telling her of Bae. His sad face, his golden skin, hair falling across his brow, eyes cast down.
He died.
She lost him.
Nothing more to tell.
She closes her eyes, and looks into her heart, this sad place where he is forever alive, and whispers: 'Please come back and tell me who I am. Please come back, whatever the price. Please. Please, just be alive'.
His imaginary face lifts up to her, and his eyes smile, sadly.
'I love you', she adds.
He doesn't answer – he looks down again.
She opens her eyes, and wipes tears from her cheeks, and turns to face the next customer.
And her heart keeps saying, over and over again: 'Please, be alive'.
But her mind knows that what's done cannot be undone.
She heard him say it, cry it over her, and she now knows it to be true.
