Hearts Like Wildflowers

I hope you are blessed

with a heart like a wildflower.

Strong enough to rise again

after being trampled upon,

tough enough to weather

the worst of the summer storms,

and able to grow and flourish

even in the most broken places.

- Nikita Gill

"What do the flowers mean?"

His mother smiles, running her fingers over the chains of daisies and buttercups which decorate his knees. "They are soul-wounds, my love. When your soulmate is injured deep enough to tear skin, the flowers bloom on yours, a mirror of their cut."

"A soulmate?" The boy frowns. "But why?"

"It is a blessing from the Divine. Your souls are so closely bound that when one of you hurts, it shows on the other's skin."

He looks at her with wide, hazel-brown eyes — his father's eyes. "Who is my soulmate?"

"I don't know, sweetheart. But I am sure you will find them, one day."

"Is she… is she alright?"

"I am sure she is. These are just grazes from playing, like the ones you come home with."

His lips part in wonder. "My scrapes will show as flowers on her skin too?"

"They will."

He carries on tracing the white and yellow buds until a thought strikes him and he turns back to her. "Mamma… is my father your soulmate?"

His mother's smile falters, but she nods. "Yes."

She slips the sleeve of her dress down her shoulder revealing the yellow bursts of tansies. "He received this wound in battle. Cuts heal, but scars never fade. Not until your soulmate dies…"

"If he is your soulmate, why is he not here with us?"

"Oh, darling." His mother scoops him into her arms. "The world is not that simple. It should be, but it's not. Not everyone thinks soulmates are a blessing, not everyone is blessed. So they have to steal the happiness of others."

The frown deepens in her son's brow. He doesn't understand yet. But he will. All too soon, he will.

"John, I want you to promise me… if you love your soulmate, you will never let any power tear you apart."

John doesn't understand, he is too young, but he knows the sad shine to his mother's eyes makes his own heart ache. "I promise."

She hugs him close and John forgets his troubles, content in her arms. The flowers will be gone in two weeks' time but he will remember somewhere out in the world he has a soulmate and he is going to find them.

:-x-:

Hero hits the wooden bench and Don John suppresses a wince, watching the violence unfold with a disconnected sort-of disbelief. He wondered if Claudio's temper might have cooled in the hours since he left him stewing in Hero's "betrayal", but his wrath burns hotter than before, set to incinerate the unfortunate bride. Her knees slam into the bench and she goes flying, crashing into the ground, where she rolls, the gravel in the grass splitting her skin.

When she rises, Don John can see a gash in her left arm and her palms are bleeding. His own throb in sympathy.

Rotten. Wanton. Savage. Stale.

Claudio decries Hero in the foulest of terms before the shocked congregation, backed by Don Pedro, Prince of Aragon. Don John has been obliged to attend numerous hunts in his life and has witnessed rabbits, foxes, and deer all torn apart by the hounds. This is like that, and just like on those outings, he does not look on their poor, bleeding victim. Instead, he watches his half-brother and raging foe contort themselves into rabid beasts. These men, said to be better than him, now reduced to snarling animals.

It is an ugly scene and when at last Hero faints to escape it, he cannot blame her. Claudio lunges forward as if to maul his unconscious prey and Don John has to be the one to haul him back, lead him from the church. He waits until Claudio and Don Pedro are distracted — the former raving about his wrongs and the latter issuing orders for an abrupt departure — then excuses himself for a piss and escapes the villa.

His flight, once it is noticed (whenever Claudio and Don Pedro pull their heads far enough out of their own asses to look around), will be thought suspicious, but he can endure no more of their self-righteous prattle. Besides, his revenge isn't complete until they realise what fools he has made of them. He runs, feet light with triumph, imagining the looks on their faces when they realise their folly. A curl of satisfaction pulls at his mouth.

Then he looks at his hands.

He stumbles, heart vaulting between his ribs. Deep violets and rubies bloom across his palms. He stares at the hellebores and sees the blood on Hero's hands.

A coincidence.

He shoves up his sleeve and sees the same reds and purples speckling his left arm where Hero received her gash.

No, his heart beats. NO, his head screams. NO. NO. NO.

But far beneath in the tangled roots of his soul, something whispers, Yes.

:-x-:

He wakes up in a prison cell, dishevelled and reeking of alcohol. The guard explains he was picked up for drunken tavern brawling. Some soldiers in the area identified him as the bastard prince they had been searching for and he was carted off, unconscious, to the Watch's jailhouse.

His knuckles are split, his lip too. His head aches and he learns he has a cut on his forehead where a bottle was smashed over him. Don John doesn't remember the fight. He was already five — six? — drinks in when he threw the first punch. But he remembers what the man had said right before his knuckles connected with his jaw.

("Stupid name, Hero. If they wanted to be Greek, should 'ave called her Charybdis."

"Eh, the whirlpool monster? Why so?"

"Because it's a giant hole that sucks down seamen! Ha! Ey, who are you—")

There is dried blood on his hands that is not his own. He compared Claudio and Don Pedro's behaviour earlier to rabid animals. Don John put them to shame.

"Someone wants to see you," a guard informs him.

Don John keeps his gaze on the wall across from him, the bricks spinning. He considers who it could be. Don Pedro? Has he and Claudio realised their error? Leonato? Has he learned the architect of his daughter's fall? Conrade? Come to arrange his release?

"You didn't make it far, did you?"

Don John restrains a groan at the voice, like a spike through his skull, and doesn't look at Benedick.

"What? Stop to toast your triumph, did you? Are you satisfied with the wickedness you have wrought? The needless pain you have inflicted?"

Don John doesn't answer him, keeps his fists clenched, the hellebores hidden.

Benedick strikes the cell bars. "Look at me!"

Don John has not heard the other's voice raised in anything but jest before. It is as cold and unforgiving as the iron manacles which chain his wrists. He shifts an eye in his direction; Benedick looks thunderous. Is it on Claudio's behalf that he exhibits such outrage?

"You dare look so aloof when you have killed an innocent maid!"

Don John starts but catches himself. This is an exaggeration, of course. Benedick means that he has destroyed her reputation and with it her life. His stomach squeezes and slides. The walls keep spinning.

"You did not have this much to say when Claudio threw her down before the eyes of all and proclaimed her rotten," his mouth curls around the word, teeth bearing in a snarl.

For one glorious second, Benedick is dumbstruck. Then, he recovers, gaze narrowing. "He was parroting the lies you told him, reacting to the deception you had woven over his and the Prince's eyes."

Don John presses down on one of his split knuckles, hard enough to restart the bleeding. "I did not propose a public slander. He came up with that spectacle all by himself — before I had even shown him proof."

Benedick scoffs, "Then you absolve yourself of any wrong-doing, do you?"

"No. But your indignation on the lady's behalf is as slow coming as your wit."

Benedick starts to argue but cuts himself short, scowling at Don John. "I should have known you would not be contrite. Have you no shame? Is your heart so black?"

Don John does not look at his hands.

Benedick's face hardens. "You are a villain. You have killed a sweet and innocent lady."

There is that word again. Goosebumps rise on Don John's flesh. "If my deception is known then so is her innocence. You may spare me the melodrama, her reputation will recover."

Benedick gives a harsh chuckle, then his expression catches and he peers at Don John with a scrutiny that has his insides squirming. "Have you not heard? Has no one told you?"

"What?" Don John spits, heart galloping.

"Lady Hero… is dead." It is as if Benedick has plunged a dagger between his ribs. Don John's blood is ice. "Upon the instance of her accusation, she fell and did not recover. You killed her."

Don John rolls off the bench and vomits over the floor.

:-x-:

He hears the funeral procession as it passes, singing their mournful hymn. Don John's stomach lurches but he has already emptied its contents over the floor. Now he huddles on the opposite side of the cell, as far from the smell as he can get. The guard has left and it is just him, alone with his thoughts and all their claws.

He stares at the flowers on his skin. It can't be her. When a soulmate dies, all soul-wounds wilt and vanish from the other's skin. His flowers are still here. But… do they fade straight-away or is it a slow process, like flesh rotting in a grave?

Bile swirls in his throat, a hollow cramping in his intestines. However much he wants to deny it, he knows in his soul it is true. Perhaps he has known since he first saw Hero, though he did not realise it. Perhaps there was more driving his desire to end her wedding to Claudio than revenge against the celebrated soldier.

He presses his scabbed knuckles to his eyes. He wants to gouge them from their sockets.

No one would call Don John a romantic, but he has cradled the notion of his soulmate close to his heart since he discovered he had one. As he grew-up in Aragon's court, shunned and ridiculed, he held onto the idea of his soulmate; someone who would understand him, someone who would want him. When he was called bastard, wicked, soulless, he would remember the flowers and square his shoulders. His soulmate didn't get injured often (for which, he was relieved) but he cherished each fleeting bloom that appeared on his skin. He swore he would find her.

Now he has killed her.

He presses his hands over his mouth, lips kissing the dark petals, and screams.

Footsteps echo through the quiet hall. He drops his hands. He knows how he must appear, slouched on the floor, dishevelled and beaten, stinking of sick — but he won't show them any more weakness than that. They don't get to see his pain.

The prison is dark; the little light comes from a flickering sconce and the trickle of moonlight through the small window, high on the wall. He cannot see his visitor until they materialise before the bars of his cell, concealed within a black, hooded cloak so that they appear one with the shadows. They hover, silent, the dark rippling around them. Don John stares back at them and waits. Either this is Death, or someone come to taunt him, either way, he is not going to give them the satisfaction of a reaction.

"Show me your hands," the voice is not what he is expecting, soft and sweet and — and —

—as fine as a razor, it twists in his chest. "Show me your face."

The spectre hesitates, shifts, then, after a hundred rapid heartbeats, lifts pale hands — freckled purple and blue — to draw down their hood. They wear a veil of black lace underneath and this too is pulled back.

Don John stops breathing.

:-x-:

Hero stares down at the man who ruined her life and tries to reconcile this crumpled vagrant with the proud, disdainful prince from her wedding. His hair is unkempt, his clothes rumpled and stained, a tear in the sleeve of his coat. Her nose wrinkles at the whiff of vomit, but what arrests her attention are the cuts on his face. One through his lip, another under his right eye, the largest across his forehead. Her fingers twitch and she curls them into fists, resisting the urge to touch the same places on her own face where she knows there are matching flowers.

She had first noticed the blue and purple buds blooming across her knuckles, breaking her from the trance she had been in since Ursula guided her into her bedchamber and out of her wedding gown. An inspection in the mirror showed the same floral markings unfurling on her face. When the hyacinths sprouted across her brow, a tremor went through her heart. Her thoughts jumped to Claudio and away again like fingers from a hot kettle.

She had wondered before if Claudio were her soulmate but didn't dare let herself hope. Most married couples were not soulmates. Her parents had not been (their unmarked skin a fascination to her childhood self), and she knew her own marriage would be determined by other factors. Wealth, security, position, these are the solid truths that matter most, not some fickle markings on her skin — or so her father told her. The odds of meeting her soulmate were slim and, as Beatrice reminded her, no guarantee of happiness. But still, the flowers were a part of her and she couldn't ignore them.

Over the years, many flowers have bloomed across her skin. It seemed her soulmate was always getting into scrapes (and fights, she realised with a sinking heart). The fire lilies that flamed her cheeks and nose, the speckle of tansies over her knuckles, the crimson slashes of begonia across her palm, all told her that her soulmate's life was not as happy as her own. She worried for him, longed to reach out to the boy she could not see and wrap him in her arms.

The worst was the roses, the mangle of thorns which grew along her back weeping scarlet petals. They are the reason she never bathes with the other women and keeps her back turned from view. Ursula, Margaret, and Beatrice have seen them, of course, but she shields them as much as she can. She wept in her mother's lap when she noticed the first briars and realised what they were, dark and spindle-like, cutting across her spine. More have appeared over the years, turning the briars to a thicket, and each new rose is a thorn in her heart though she never lets anyone see her tears.

After her mother left her that first time, tucked into bed, her damp cheek resting on her pillow and her hiccupped breaths slowing, she had lifted her pale forearm to her mouth and bitten down hard, until her teeth broke skin and she tasted blood. She has no idea what pattern this formed on her soulmate's skin (if he even noticed), but she repeated this ritual when the worst wounds appeared, the only comfort she could offer him. It is the one act of self-harm she has indulged in and she is careful to hide the marks.

As the years passed, the soul-wounds became the sort of injuries expected of a soldier, from training and in-combat. It made her breath hitch when she saw the welts of blue borage, the nick of belladonna, the slash of a red poppy winding over her ribs, so near to being fatal. Getting dressed and undressed became an ordeal. She never knew what new blossoms there would be. Or worse, no flowers at all.

When the messenger announced Don Pedro's approach with his soldiers, hope glowed in her chest that her soulmate might be amongst them, even as she tried to suppress it. Such fantasies were the foolish stuff of girlhood, but she wished she could know him, at least so she could assure herself he was well and safe. She didn't harbour any whimsical ideas about falling in love and getting married — her father would choose her husband for her and she is sure she would be very content — but could she at least know what he looked like, the colour of his eyes?

Brown, she realises as she stares at the man whose injuries match her own markings.

When she heard that Don John had been captured, she had badgered her uncle into escorting her to the prison, so she might confront the man who ruined her life. It had taken much persuasion and a little guilting to get her dear uncle to agree. Her father couldn't know of it or he would forbid her. She was meant to remain cloistered within the house, to give life to the rumours of her death, but instead she donned a cloak and veil, disguising herself as another mourner. Then, while the others attended her funeral procession, she and her uncle snuck out.

She is not sure what compelled her to be so bold and reckless. She wanted answers and who better to get them from than the villain himself? She will never have another opportunity; tomorrow she will be married to Claudio and under his careful watch, but tonight Hero is dead. She is free to do whatever she will.

There was only one guard on duty, the other Watch on patrol or amongst the mourners. Her uncle distracted him while she slipped through to the prison. She hadn't recognised Don John when she first came across him, but something instinctual made her pause and approach. Now, as she takes in the cuts on his face, she forgets all she planned to say and instead asks to see his hands.

"Show me your face," he demands, sounding like a man breathing through a broken rib and she wonders at the extent of his injuries.

She considers refusing him. For a long moment, she considers leaving him there. She can feel she is standing on the precipice of something tremendous. If she stays, she is not sure she will leave the same Hero. But she is hardly the same woman who woke up this morning, nervous to be a bride. She came for a reason, for the truth. She knows if she flees now, she will regret it. She draws back her hood and veil.

"Show me your hands," she asks again, her voice far steadier than she feels.

Don John stares at her like — well — like he has seen a ghost. But he holds out his hands, rising upon his knees, palms spread as if in supplication. Through the dim light she sees the hellebores, which bloom across his hands. She lifts her own, slipping it through the bars. They have been bandaged but it is not hard to see, the damage mirrors his marks.

He hisses like the scratches were his own.

She retracts her fingers, curling them around the metal bar. "Did you know?"

His eyes flicker to hers. They should be cold, she thinks, but they are the warm wood of a fire, embers sparkling within. "No. I did not… even consider it."

She wonders if she should feel smarted at this, but she hadn't looked long at the Prince's dour brother. (At least… not once she was betrothed to Claudio).

He gazes at her with such an intense focus she struggles to hold it. "You are not dead."

"I'm not." Her mouth gives a twitch, her heartbeat flutters like an anxious songbird. "But it is the best thing I can be right now."

She glances away, the truth of this statement weighs inside her.

"Benedick said — he said you were dead. I heard — the funeral—"

"It is a ruse." She cocks her head at him. "You must understand, being well-versed in deception."

Don John frowns and pushes to his feet. She starts as he stands, dropping her hand from the bar, but doesn't let herself retreat. Now it is him looking down on her. "You hope it will gain you sympathy."

She looks at the floor, a voice in her head protesting the show of weakness. "I don't hope for anything…" She takes a breath and lifts her chin, meeting his stare. "I know I will find none here."

He winces, surprising her, but it is shut behind an impassive mask before she can be sure she saw it. "Then what have you come for? To gloat?"

She huffs. "Would an apology be asking too much?" He stills. She shakes her head. "I came for answers."

"Answers…" He licks his lips.

"What did I do to offend you?"

He tenses, gaze lowering to the floor. There is a long pause, the silence stretching between them. Then his eyes flick to hers from beneath his matted fringe. "You did nothing."

"Nothing?" She gasps, shifting towards the bars. "No, I must have done something to earn your scorn. You will give me the truth. You owe me that."

"It is the truth. Sorry to injure your pride, but it had nothing to do with you. It was Claudio that I sought to cross. You were simply the best means against him."

She reels back, feeling as if she has stepped through rotten wood and now she is falling. "You are saying… You convinced my betrothed that I had betrayed him and—and encouraged him to—to slander me before the eyes of all — and it had nothing to do with me?"

He watches her and she is not sure if she would prefer him to bow his head in shame or if that would be a greater indignation. Regardless, her blood spits and simmers. Anger is not an emotion Hero is accustomed to but there is a trembling through her frame. She has been called many vile names today, mishandled and abused, but this might be the most offensive of all.

"Why?"

His brow knits. "I said…"

"No." Hero is not sure she has ever cut someone off in her life but now she is thrumming with a relentless energy, hands clenching and unclenching. "Why did you want to punish Claudio?"

He stares at her, then, like a dam crashing open, "It was my strategy that won Claudio his glory. It was my plan that overthrew the enemy. Don Pedro disagreed with me, refused to listen. He had other ideas — ideas fed to him by his all-knowing advisors — that would have seen the loss of more lives. I spoke out against them but was ignored, reprimanded. I went ahead anyway, against orders, and we won, with little losses. Yet it was Claudio — whose only contribution was a mass slaughter — who my brother decided to bestow honour on. The victory was mine,but I had to watch as they all sung the praises of that vicious butcher."

He is near snarling at the end of his speech, teeth bared. Hero regards him, her hands no longer shaking. "You thought Claudio stole your honour, so you stole his bride's."

Don John's face loses some of its wildness and it makes her pulse skip how quick the wolf becomes a man. "Let him have a taste of what it is for another to take what is yours."

Her mouth purses, face tightening. "You speak as if I were a thing, as if it were not my life you stole. Did you spare any thought at all to the pain you would cause me? My family? My father is old, the shock may have killed him. It is believed to have killed me."

If she expects him to shrink in shame she is mistaken. He steps towards the bars, gaze unwavering. "What were you to me? I knew it was wrong, I knew it would hurt you. Claudio could have handled matters in private but I knew his and Don Pedro's pride would never allow it, that they would choose a public shaming. I still agreed to the plan. I used you, the same way they all did. I am a villain, Hero, and you — you were nothing to me."

Hero trembles, tears sting at the corners of her eyes but she won't let him see her cry. She doesn't know what she expected to hear — what she wanted to hear. When they realised they were soulmates she thought he might throw himself on his knees and plead for her forgiveness, but instead he calls her nothing.

It is well that words cannot cut, otherwise there would be a bouquet blooming over his heart.

"You…" Something vile is forming on her tongue. She wants to hurt him, as he has hurt her. "You…"

"Say it."

She looks at him, face frozen over, the light vanished from his eyes leaving only darkness.

"You…" her mouth curves around something sharp and she remembers the thorns, the roses. "You smell awful."

He stares at her, disbelief morphing his features. For a moment the curtain swings back, revealing a glimpse of the man beneath. The corner of his mouth pulls into his cheek before he suppresses it; her heart flips in her chest.

"What, are you five?"

"You are the one telling tales." She leans forward, her cloak brushing the bars.

"Hm." His face ripples, the curtain falling back into place, eyes glittering in the dark. "You can do worse than that."

A thread catches in her chest. "I don't… want to do worse."

"Yes, you do." He prowls to the bars like a caged panther. "You have been perfect all this time, the obedient daughter, the proper maiden. Your cousin unleashes her tongue upon whoever she dislikes while you are silent, patient, pleasing. You have done everything you were told to do and still you are castigated, vilified; your honour insulted, your word not believed. Aren't you furious? Doesn't it blaze through your soul like the fires of Rome? Don't you want retribution?"

Hero shivers, but she feels it, the flames he speaks of licking through her veins. When was it she last lost her temper? Some spat with Beatrice? Nothing of consequence. She never pushes back, never complains. She was her father's perfect daughter, Claudio's sweet betrothed, and it wasn't enough. She hadn't been enough. All of her efforts to be good and they still called her rotten.

"I caused this. I paid my man to plant your waiting woman at your window and make love to her. I brought Don Pedro and your Claudio to witness. I told them you were disloyal, convinced them of your wickedness. Claudio brought you to the altar and defamed you over my lies." His breath comes hot through the bars. "No one else is here, you can voice your true thoughts, call me all the wretched names I deserve. Go for the low hanging fruit. Curse me. You want to."

Hero considers it, all the insults she could spit, the poisonous names. The thorns on her back press into her skin. Her fists release, her nails no longer bite her palms. She exhales.

"No."

He blinks. "No?"

"No. Cruelty will give me no satisfaction. I will not be a part of this cycle of harm." She steps back from the prison, away from him. "I have my answers, I must leave now. I have been gone too long."

He pushes himself against the bars. "Hero…"

She sees him then, the lost boy who decorated her in flowers — who still does — a look of despair wrenching his features as she starts to leave. He doesn't seem to realise his guard has dropped, shattered on the stone floor. Her heart aches for him and, before she can think better, she has returned, hand reaching through the bars to cup his face.

"Don John." His name shudders between them, the first time she has spoken it aloud, the first time she has touched him. He stills. "I wish…" she sighs, "I hope life brings you kindness… and when it comes you let it into your heart." Her thumb travels across to the cut on his lip that marks her own. "I do not lament that I bear your scars, but I hope you heal… as I will."

She retracts her hand. He catches her wrist. "Hero… what happens now? What happens to you? Will you… you will not be dead forever?"

She is gentle as she unlatches his fingers, holding them a second longer before she lets go. "Claudio comes to my home tomorrow. We will be married as we should have been today."

She is not prepared for Don John to throw himself at the prison bars. "NO! YOU CAN'T!"

Hero stiffens, ire flaring inside her. "I will." She lifts her chin, back straight. "Your plot is unravelled, Don John. I hope you will apply yourself to nobler deeds in the future."

"HERO," he growls her name, freezing her in place, goosebumps prickling her skin. "DO NOT MARRY HIM."

Her heart hammers like the hare's feet as it flies the fox. She should flee too, but something stirs inside her, opening its fanged jaws, talons flexing. Her voice comes out in a hiss, like the snakes of Medusa. "You have no right to make demands of me."

He grips the bars as if he could bend them. "I am your soulmate—!"

"You dare—!"

"Do not marry Claudio."

"—After everything you have done—!"

"DO NOT MARRY HIM AND FORCE ME TO LIVE WITH THE SCARS HE GIVES YOU!"

Hero falls silent. The prison quakes with the sudden stillness.

Don John sags against the bars. "Please, Hero… I don't ask this out of some selfish claim… nor to press my own suit… but Claudio… I do not have to tell you the violence he is capable of. For your own sake, and my sanity, do not marry him. If you do so and he hurts you, I will kill him. I. Will. Kill. Him."

Hero breathes in. Her soul-wounds writhe, climbing across her skin, wrapping her in their leafy tendrils, coiling around her heart, her lungs. The sensation is warm and frightening.

"Don John…" it comes out a whisper.

How long has she been here? Her heart beats like the tick of a clock, yet time seems suspended as night huddles in around them. Her uncle will come to fetch her soon. He must be wondering what is keeping her.

"It is arranged, Claudio comes to marry me tomorrow."

"No." He pushes against the bars, but he doesn't reach out. "Refuse him."

"I cannot."

"Yes, you can."

"I cannot! If Claudio does not marry me, it will appear to all as if his slander — your slander — is true."

The shadows fracture on his face; there is a wild gleam in his gaze, like a fox willing to gnaw his own leg off to escape the snare. Still, he doesn't reach for her.

"You have a choice."

Something weeps inside her. "I do not. I never did."

She spins on her heel, determined to leave this time. But as she is going, she hears him whisper, "Please, Hero…"

She stalls a second, then pushes on. She does not look back.

:-x-:

Hero draws the veil and cloak back around her. When she arrives at the front of the prison, she sees the constable is still distracted, chatting her uncle's ear off. She nods to her uncle and slips behind the constable. As she escapes into the night she hears her uncle stammer his excuses and then he joins her outside.

He touches her shoulder. "Are you well?"

She nods and in the darkness, with her face hidden, he cannot tell it is a lie. Her pulse races and she shivers, pulling the cloak tighter around her.

"Did you get the answers you sought?"

"Yes." She clutches her fingers to her chest. "Let's return home."

They walk back to the villa, keeping out of sight, though there are few around to notice them. They do not draw attention to themselves by conversing, though she feels her uncle's curious gaze return to her again and again.

Ursula is waiting for them and lets them into the house. She spirits Hero upstairs and hurries around her, preparing her for bed. Hero doesn't look at herself as her frock is removed and she pulls on her nightdress. She grabs a blanket and swathes it around her so she doesn't have to see the flowers on her skin.

Beatrice enters in her sleep clothes. She will be Hero's bed-fellow for tonight. She is uncharacteristically quiet, but the hour is late and the day has been long. None of them have the energy for idle conversation.

Hero settles into bed, Beatrice beside her, and Ursula kisses her brow. "Think of today as a bad dream, lady. Tomorrow will be a happier occasion."

She leaves, the candles blown out. In the dark, the cousins burrow under the covers, rolling towards each other, as they did when they were girls.

"Hero…" Beatrice's hand brushes her arm.

"Beatrice…" she sobs and the full force of the day's sorrows come flooding forwards. "It's him — Don John — he — he is my soulmate."

Beatrice's shock sounds in the silence. Then she bundles her into her arms, stroking her hair, and Hero cries into her shoulder, gasping the most pathetic sounds. She cries for herself, for her innocence lost, for her broken trust, for her heart betrayed and stamped upon, for her good name tarnished, and her soft hopes crushed. She cries for Don John, her soulmate, locked in a cell with no one to hold him, and wishes… and wishes… and wishes… in vain.

:-x-:

Hero's breath quavers through her lips, causing the white veil to flutter. She can barely see through the thick lace, obscuring her face from anyone looking at her. She had been too nervous to eat this morning and now her stomach whines and clenches around a swirling nausea. She clutches the bouquet of white lilies in her hands so tight she feels sap seeping from their stems into the gloves her father insisted she wear, hiding the gashes in her palms. Her face has been powdered and her lips painted, hiding the traces of her soulmate.

She tries to ease her pounding heart but the more air she inhales, the less she can breathe. Wrong. Wrong. If she had jitters approaching her wedding yester-morning, now it is as if her insides were being razed by a swarm of flesh-eating lotus. Claudio will come, expecting to swear himself to Antonio's fictitious daughter, and he will be given her in disguise. Then she will become his wife and he her husband. Then — Then —

She cannot envision her life with him. She knows so little of him. She thought she had known all she needed to about his gallant nature, until he threw her down and screamed in her face. Her heart shudders, stomach swooping at the memory. Her skin feels cold and sweaty. The roses dig their thorns into her back. She doesn't want to be here. She wants to run. Her feet are rooted in place.

Beatrice touches her elbow. "Breathe, sweet."

Hero tries.

"I am here for you," Beatrice murmurs, "I am on your side, whatever you decide."

Hero wishes she could play dead a little longer. This is too soon, too fast.

Claudio and Don Pedro's arrival is announced.

Her uncle takes her elbow, his great hands gentle as if she were a paper-maid he is afraid to crush. "Are you ready, niece?"

No. No. No.

She says nothing and her uncle leads her forwards.

"Which is the lady I must seize upon?"

Claudio's voice sends a bolt through her spine, hairs rising, heart hammering. Yet his voice has none of yesterday's fire; the blaze which threatened to scorch the skin from her bones. Instead his tone is like wet wood that refuses to light, resigned and defeated.

Her uncle guides her to him. "The same is she, and I do give you her."

Vines snake around her wrists, ensnaring her like a set of manacles as she is pushed forwards. Her uncle takes the lilies from her, leaving her with nothing to cling onto.

(Help.)

"Why, then she's mine," Claudio says with solemnity. "Sweet, let me see your face."

She jerks, his fingers grazing her veil.

"No," her father interrupts, "That you shall not, till you take her hand before this friar and swear to marry her."

"Give me your hand. Before this holy friar, I am your husband, if you like of me."

Hero's body trembles with tension as she stares at his distorted image. With the veil around her, the world is narrowed to Claudio. Her heart flutters with a sudden claustrophobia.

(No.)

She pulls off the veil, unable to stand it any longer. Light floods in, blinding her for a second, and then her focus settles on Claudio, who is staring at her slack-jawed. Something wet strikes her forehead and is forgotten.

She gulps down a breath, repeating the words she has rehearsed, "And when I lived, I was your other wife. And when you loved, you were my other husband."

"Another Hero!" Claudio cries and he looks at her with all the sweet amazement that first made her heart dance.

And now? She feels nothing, but a cold breeze billowing through her, as if she were truly a ghost. A cold drop of cold falls on her shoulder.

"One Hero died defiled, but I do live, and surely as I live…" She looks up and her eyes land on Don John, standing on the side-lines, shackled and guarded. Her breath catches, "I am a maid."

Another droplet lands on her sleeve, she doesn't feel it. A roaring fills her ears like the crash of sea waves against Messina's coast. Don John's gaze is fixed on her. His appearance has not improved since she spoke with him, looking every bit like he spent the night in a prison cell and didn't get a wink of sleep. Still, he holds himself in that proud, disdainful manner. His face might have been chiselled from stone, but his eyes hold the same wild, desperate gleam from last night that pierces her soul.

Raindrops wink in the air around them.

"She died, my lord, but whilst her slander lived," she hears her father declare, as if from afar.

The Friar makes a speech, but she only catches the last part. His voice turns rushed as the summer rain comes in earnest. "To the chapel let us presently."

No.

Hero stands immobile as those gathered run for shelter, the cold shower sinking through her clothes into her skin, her heartbeat louder than the patter of rain.

No.

Claudio's hand closes around her wrist and she remembers how he twisted her arm and threw her to the ground.

NO.

She snatches her hand from his grasp, losing her glove in the process. "No."

"Hero—?" He reaches for her and she flinches back, raising her hand to ward him off.

As she does so, she sees the brittle bands of yellow rue that have budded around her wrist. She stares at them and then looks to Don John, who is resisting his guards as they pull him by the chains around his wrists to cover. She winces at the metal cutting into his skin, but he shows no pain, just determination as he fights to keep her in sight.

"HERO!" Her father calls.

She doesn't stir. The wind whips at her clothes, the rain beating down upon her, but she remains transfixed, gaze locked on Don John.

She hears the hiss of breath through teeth and her instincts blare a warning before a familiar iron grasp seizes her arm, jerking her round.

Claudio stares at her, his face shocked and soaked. "Your brow — his — You are — "

His gaze ricochets between her and Don John. She feels the water trickling over her forehead, washing off the powder to reveal the hyacinth gash. She sucks in her bottom lip, licking away the paint, as her heart squeezes. She sees the realisation form in his eyes as Claudio does what he does best and jumps to conclusions.

Flower Meanings:

Daisy – childhood, innocence

Buttercup – happiness, childishness

Tansy – I declare war on you

Hellebore – scandal, slander, hope

Hyacinth – sorrow, please forgive me, constancy; see also the myth of Hyacinthus & Apollo

Lily (Orange) – hate

Begonia – beware, warning

Rose (Red) – love

Borage – courage

Belladonna – silence, death

Poppy – sacrifice, remembrance, eternal sleep

Lily (White) – purity, virginity

Rue – regret, sorrow, repentance