Every touch Isira gave to her was as though she was set aflame, soft and yielding — yielding, the greatest show of love for the otherwise immovable — breaths falling from her lips.
Reverence was, as with all things, an absolute. Reverence was, at its simplest, a sea ( were all feelings not just that, a sea; did she not see herself from every angle, in every way, as if related to the bitter but beautiful expanse of world and water? ) that engulfed. For all her life the world had believed nothing could put Captain Blythe Briarcliff — the commander, the rebel, the icarian — on her knees, not least at prayer; it was said she had embraced the pitiless life of those without faith, avoiding and embracing the gaping maw of the promise of oblivion, but such an assumption was wrong.
Yes, Blythe knew that oblivion rested beyond the horizon, knew its presence, the insatiable and great devourer. And yes, she feared it not, simply faced toward it with her chin tilted upwards in challenge: take me if you can, and if you dare to.
( Her new beliefs — that oblivion was there, that there was no shining God awaiting nor red-glowing Lucifer to drag you by your heels down to hell, and that even that oblivion could not handle her — were educated ones, perhaps, having stepped into that liminal space of the human soul between death and undeath: she had tilted back & forth over the edge of that void, an experience that provided the most brilliant of adrenaline-bursts, once the decision was made to expel her back into the realm of the living. )
However, the captain knew what it was to be on her knees. Never in surrender — she would sooner meet her death with pride than shed it — but in that same manner: of reverence, offering herself wholly and completely. The captain had faith, too, though it was oft-forgotten because it was not placed in the God of most men. The faith and reverence of Blythe Briarcliff was devoted to Princess Isira of Elesea, and for reasons — a brand of prayer the world in all its ignorance decried as sin ( how could love, the purest emotion; and in the case of the pirate, the sole purity left, be a sin ) — she had many times gotten, and would gladly still get, on her knees.
Love, in its truest form, was mutual worship: it was all about finding your altar. Some never found it, and some tried many before they found what was right, and some — whether by choice or by no fault of their own — lost theirs, and existed thereafter in constant hope until at last it was found again and the world slotted into place. Into euphoric, non-mimicable, perfection.
It was not a matter of whether there was enough time in the world or in the universe. Time was abstract, dictated only by the men who deigned to track it, and yet it was always there in the goings of the sun as it sets in the west and rises in the east. Not containable: a wider catchment area ( a country, as opposed to a city; a world, as opposed to a country ) could not help you, as time was not cumulative in such a manner. Regardless of how broadly you cast your net, the matter always boiled down to the same: it was not whether the world had enough time, but whether you did.
“Then, my love,” Blythe’s hand lightly caressed over her princess’ cheek, lips grazing together. In that gentleness, there was no lesser desperation, and an abundance more of meaning from one who was gentle so rarely. “If you believe that, it is clear to me that you have never seen yourself as I see you, as the world can have no greater treasure — not in an eternity of searching — to behold.”
No more running, the opinions of those who did not matter silenced, carved into history: they came from dust, and to dust it was known they would one day return if Blythe could not defy even that, but if the tales of their deeds and their lives — and their most ardent of love — were passed along like whispered legend, did they ever truly die?
Isira had never had an example of love, true love, as a child. She should have had that example in her parents, by all accounts, but her parents did not love each other. Merely tolerated one another. She heard whispers of what true love should look like, but whispers were nothing compared to the feeling when she truly did fall in love.
But when all she wanted was to declare her love to the world, she knew she had to hide it instead. So she hid it in a smile to a visiting lord or a dance with another courtier. All the while, wishing the man before her would instead be Blythe Briarcliff.
She was sure her heart had broken beyond repair when they had finally been caught, when her heart had to escape on a ship out of the kingdom or lose her head.
Her love could never die. It was all that kept her going for the years that she still had to sneak her way out of the palace ( out of her golden cage ) to be with her love. The thought of being free, of being in the open, unafraid of what could happen, was almost too much for her to believe.
Many would not believe that Blythe could be so gentle, but here in this moment ( as in many of their private moments ) gentle was all that existed for her pirate. “I shall have to take your word for it.” She was the one who had seen what the world had to offer, after all.
“I need you to rest - you beautiful, stupid pirate - so we can do all that we wish.”
