a moment from the Fort de Brégançon fic 💙
The sun has long abandoned the sky, only the soft light of dusk now, turning purple by degrees as night deepens, giving way to darkness. The terrace is lit by a handful of flickering candles, the flames gently swaying as the breeze rolls over the waves, bringing with it the scent of salt and lilacs. In the quiet, Volodymyr moves, away from the sun warmed stone at his back, out toward the sea. The fortress looms behind as the wind tugs lightly at him, drawing him forward; the edge of his shirt lifting - borrowed linen from Emmanuel - the stubborn curl of his hair, roughened by seasalt and spray. The last warmth of the day's sun still lingers, the heat pleasant now rather than oppressive.
He pauses at the edge of the terrace, exhaling softly. This place feels like a painting; to be observed but not trespassed upon. Staring out at the sea, watching the inky darkness, the movement of the waves swallowed up by the night, he misses the quiet footsteps behind him.
Emmanuel stands beside him, looking out at the darkness too, and neither of them speak for a little while.
Eventually;
“I wondered where you'd got to-”
Vova offers a small, half smile into the night, unsurprised about his unexpected companion.
“It's- nice here. Quiet..”
His gaze drifts, away from the sea, to the terrace. It is quiet, but in a different way to what he is used to.
Emmanuel nods, glancing briefly toward him. In the candlelight, Volodymyr's face is mostly shadow; for once, inscrutable. Emmanuel thinks of all the times he has been able to see him - the careful, quiet architecture of strength, stretched over exhaustion. He has watched it hold through meetings, through cameras, through impossible decisions and conversations. He has watched Volodymyr make himself into the person his country needed him to be, and wondered, more often than he admits, who had been left behind in the process.
But here, beside the sea, with only candles and darkness and the sound of waves below them, there is no audience. There is no-one who needs anything from either of them.
There is just Emmanuel, standing beside his friend in the darkness.
Later then as they sit together in the twilight, Vova asks, in a voice almost lost beneath the waves;
"Why did you ask me to come here?"
