shatter.

time will tell,

she thinks that’s happiness–tucked in the curved corner of his mouth, staining his lips, coloring his voice, making his eyes sparkle. she runs her thumb across the marred skin of his cheek and smiles fondly at him.

“my love,” she sighs contentedly, laying her head in the crook of his neck. then she kisses his neck, and licks along his scars, and nips the lobe of his ear. playful as a child splashing around in a puddle, happy as a girl watching a rainbow round the sky.

she finds her way back to his kiss, back to the sweet taste of his mouth and the sugar of his teeth. back to the chasteness of a sin. back to him–always back to him.

seolhyun is always so many things–pleasant and noble and royal and proper. educated and sleepless and beautiful. intelligent and talented and too many people at once.

with him, things are much simpler. with him, she is only happy. with him, she is only herself. with him, she cannot feel anything else but joy.

so this was love; so this was home. every kiss brought him both comfort and joy; ecstasy and ease. the warmth of her lips on his skin left deeper marks, more than his body could endure without wanting to retaliate. he was a warrior, through and through, and such sweet assaults were met with the resistance of his hands on her waist, of his chest rising and falling rapidly with every light laugh.

“marry me.”

he blurts it out, eyes closed when her mouth parts from his own. only when he looks at her does he realise he’s said the thoughts milling about in his head in rapid succession, words fighting one over the other to try and justify this slip, or at least excuse it, or rationalise it.

“or, at the very least, run away with me. be my wife, somewhere. someplace --,” he’s rambling, and too aware of it, his ears turn even redder in embarrassment. “here-- will you be my wife -- here -- in our home?”

time will tell,

she smiles–brighter than the sun and all the stars. and she kisses him so that he won’t go mad. (because if he goes mad he might not love her, and who will love her then?)

she kisses him over and over, his lips and face and neck. and for a moment she pauses. for a long moment, she looks at him. at his eyes, the bridge of his nose, his lips. the time burned into his gaze and the tears embedded in his skin.

she touches his scar, running her thumb gently along rough planes. then she places a kiss over it. once and twice. “my love…” she whispers, more as if she’s reminding herself than calling him.

“mikhail,” her eyes travel back to his. breath in her throat, time halting and universe stopping, she kisses him. the sound of it echoes in the room–their lips meeting and pressing and parting, seolhyun taking a breath of air again, and oxygen filling her lungs.

“i love you,” she tells him, and the sheets feel as much like thorn as they do roses. “you know it, don’t you? i love you very much. with all my life.”

this time he believes that she loves him -- for the moment, perhaps -- because now he can understand why. now she has reason to because he has given her one, made one, from the sweat on his back and the cuts hidden by the wrappings around his arms and his knuckles and his fingers. his shoulders ache in the memory of it.

yet he smiles because she loves him, and now he no longer flinches when she touches that sacred scar, leaning against her touch,

and now his name sounds like a hallowed word, like god, like religion. his fingers slowly unravel the dress behind her back, and the knots underneath it, tracing the pattern before he does. mikhail almost expects her to stop him.

“i know it.” he smiles at the lingering sensation of her lips upon his own, and he seeks it again before even daring to speak. “i love you as well. with every breath i take, my love.” he presses a kiss to her cheek, “with every moment,” and the other, “and every beat of my heart. i love you.”

time will tell,

feeling as if everything is still made of gold, forgetting that this is all wood and stone; that loving him is a sin not a virtue, that being with him will do her no good, she rolls over to settle on top of him.

“how lovely my lover is,” she smiles onto his skin, placing kisses across his face and neck. “how very loved he makes me feel.” and joy wells up in her veins and rushes through her, making her heart swell and her judgment blurry.

“how i love him,” she says, delighted and giggling into the crook of his neck as fingers blindly unclasp and unbutton piece by piece. “and…” seolhyun sits up for a moment if only to look at him, to search his eyes, to watch him–”how he loves me?”

he easily forgets that they do not have forever. she kisses him and he cannot but think that there is anything more to the world than her, that there is any hell or chaos outside this home and happiness. this is everything good, and he does not need to be particularly intelligent to know that good things must be well-kept, and well-held, and well-loved.

his arms wind around her waist because this is a better home than wood-and-stone. this is warm and safe. he lets her unravel him, as he’s done many times before, and to her he hopes ( always ) that his scars are beautiful, and not gone.

“he loves you,” mikhail reassures her, a smile on his lips, and in his eyes, “oh, how he loves you, darling. he loves you so much he might go mad if you don’t kiss him again!”

time will tell,

instead of an answer, she flits up the stairs like a wild butterfly, gown trailing behind her in a pretty little fury. seolhyun finds the bedroom. already, it feels like home. a woman in tears and smiling at the same time–it would be called crazy if it wasn’t called love–she runs her fingers along the material of the bedframe. then jumps on the mattress and stares at the pretty ceiling.

everything is pretty, she thinks. and she thinks that although this delight is extravagant, she would trade all her lavish secrets and expensive, shiny things for it.

seolhyun breathes quietly, hands resting on her stomach, fingers intertwined; dry tears on her cheeks. reality seems so far from fantasy from where she stands. and fantasy has never seemed so close.

he laughs at her delight. now he has made her happy. perhaps now she will believe that he loves her, that he will build a house from nothing, that he will build a home from the ruins of time and space and war. he will bring down the heavens from her if she asks it of him, and he thinks, then, that he might be able to, if she tells him.

his palm curves at the bed frame, leaning against it; frankly, he’s half thankful that it hasn’t fallen to the floor -- it only means that he’s done a good job at it all.

he remains quiet, and settles on the bed beside her, falling on his back, eyes drawn skywards, and waits for her to say something first.

time will tell,

she can’t help kissing him–sweetly, deeply, all in one breath. the gold of her skin and the rich threads of her dress fall away from her senses. all she can feel is him. his body, the universe, everything beating in sync.

it takes a bit of effort to tear herself away from her impulses long enough to wrap her arms around his and actually walk to the house. once there, once she can touch the wooden pillars and see the splinters up close, she keeps her breath from her lungs again.

so lost in the moment, she finds herself drifting towards every other room. seolhyun stares in awe, touching every surface and every thing; thinking she could do this forever. thinking she could stay here forever.

how everything must be a dream! how she holds onto him and moved about in a home she imagined, and in one he’d slaved over. the look on her face is worth every cut and bruise and pulled muscle. his free hand alights atop her knuckles and, without abandon, he looks at her in this that they might call home.

“it’s nothing compared to your palaces and castles,” he cautions, still, though he suspects that this might be enough. for a beginner, at least, it’s more than passable. he’s never built anything bigger than a makeshift tent made out of leaves and sticks. it’s a far cry from what he’s done to survive in hell. finally, he stops her in the bedroom, urging her with a palm against her cheek to look at him instead, asking with too much shyness to hide his reddened ears.

“do you like it?”

time will tell,

her eyes open to a pretty little view–a house nestled among trees, all obscure and new and modest. quaint and quiet. just like a secret. and she hadn’t expected anything, much less this; for all of a moment, she holds her breath. for all of a moment, her heart stops. the world stops.

she stares, jaw tightening and eyes watering as tears rush up to see what the commotion is all about. what is so wonderful that has animated the corpse of her being?

frozen still, her gaze travels every little detail she can see. she remembers the nights, the conversations, the dreams and the neverlands that they thought up together. how no one else knows anything about her but him. without anything else, the tears fall. and in another moment, she is crying, sniffling, almost a mess when she turns back around to look at him.

“you made this?” she asks, unable to even pause before she bursts into tears and buries her head in his chest.

the place is not nearly perfect. the doors creak a little when they open. the house isn’t especially warm in the winter without a fireplace of some sort, and the smoke would surely give away their location. ( he had to amend that. ) but there is no reason to hide one’s leaving, and the sheets on the bed are thick enough, and he thinks, briefly, how he doesn’t really mind huddling up against each other in the cold.

the tears on her face aren’t that of sadness. he’s not foolish enough to think it so -- and if it is, then the place must be torn down immediately. mikhail receives her in his arms and pulls her even closer, meaning to hide her tears from the world.

“yes. plenty of bruises and cuts to show for it.” he smiles, and cups her cheeks with his much-rougher palms, covered, partly, with the wrapping around them. “will you promise to kiss them better? perhaps then i might be inclined to give you the key to our home.”

time will tell,

so she nods and closes her eyes, leaving her body to the forest and the winds. handing over herself to the same man who’d once threatened to take her life. all stupidity and honesty, and maybe love really does leave people blind. she thinks of asking, she’s tempted to peek. but instead she keeps her eyes shut and squeezes his hand tighter. she loves him, she thinks, so much so that if he led her to a cliff and she opened her eyes to him telling her to jump–she would.

he leads her forward, and slowly. not over a single stone to make her stumble, or any stray branch to alight on her skin. nothing but his hand in hers and the sun, cool through the leaves, and warmer when they arrive at a clearing.

the house is far from fancy. the walls are brick and mortar, and everything else wood. everything is simple, and unpainted, and unadorned, except for the furniture inside: at first glance mundane, but every fabric made of silk and cotton; the food, well-stocked, just in case.

he called it a personal project. he hadn’t been lying.

only when they’re at full view of the house does he stop, and lets go of her hand to stand behind her, palms curving at her shoulders, and squeezing a little in excitement. “alright...open them.”

time will tell,

her temper rises and falls like ocean waves until the time the calm can come (perhaps being with him actually can push her off the edge of sanity). she is violent, unpredictable waters until they are far away from everything she can destroy.

until she can touch his skin and bones, until she can see him again, until her heart can remember how to beat again. love, love love–how splendid and wonderful and bright it makes the world, she thinks as he speaks, and takes off his mask, and gives her her most favorite smile that she simply cannot resist kissing.

overexcited gestures of affection, she throws her arms around his neck and kisses him fervently; giggling against his lips, smiling against his teeth, forgetting, for a moment, all wrongdoings done and due penance. for all of a moment, she is not a selfish, spoiled, vengeful little princess with too little to gain–for all of a moment, she is a young girl in love with too much to lose.

“i promise,” she answers belatedly once she regains some of her composure, smiling up at him, looking up at him with all the love in the world, the very ends of her fingers tingling with the excitement and bliss of being with him.

he is a lover but he is hers. or perhaps it’s the other way around. boundaries are always blurred when she’s involved. he supposes that she must be used to having her way, and to having whatever else she wants to have. he might just be interesting because she cannot have him; he knows how selfish she can be, for it mirrors his own. who else can know her better than her demons?

-- and it’s one of them, ugly and below her in all respects, that she chooses to kiss, and to love in return.

he kisses her with a smile of his own, and cannot help but draw her closer as he could in dreams and in words carefully written on paper. she’s still as spoiled as ever, and mikhail, despite everything, feeds into her wants and desires, so long as it’s him that’s the centre of it. equally as selfish, he kisses her with all the excitement of a young lover, eager to have her even happier.

“alright, alright,” he laughs, kissing her quickly again, and again, and again, laughing at the utter bliss of it. “you must close your eyes now. we’re close to the place.”

time will tell,

summer progresses agonizingly slow, and there is nothing exciting to see on the dirt paths that lead to duur. seolhyun falls asleep in her rich silks and cottons, and awakes just a few miles away from the gates.

another visit, another ploy at diplomacy, another round of games. one of her ladies fixes her hair and reapplies berries onto her lips, and a man offers his hand to help her off the carriage.

she puts on her prettiest smile, as radiant as the sun in surya’s colors. summer herself, the sky and all the stars. she curtsies, and people kiss her hand, and pleasantries are given with only the most careful grace and practiced ease.

(only those that know where to look can see where she hides her secrets–in the corners of her lips, in the gleam of her eyes, in the gentleness of her voice when she greets him,

“my prince. how long has it been?”)

time could not pass quickly enough. its passage is marked with every change of wrappings around his arms, and upon his fingers. he could not write to her soon enough, and received her replies after a great deal of impatience. but if there’s anything that cero learned it's that lies can often keep people safe, and this is not a skill that the court needed to teach him.

he continues the farce, as is expected of him. receives a high noble without a smile, and half of his face hidden behind a mask. he doesn’t offer his hand to her, afraid that he'll do more than just shake her own; and if he does, it’s nonetheless too brusque a gesture. too pedestrian.

so he waits until time allows; a few hours is nothing compared to months.

the sun allows him to pull her away with some excuse. hunting, or something like that -- and in the absence of others and with a bag of supplies on horseback, he stops right before their special place, and leads her by the hand, and stops again. “i have a gift for you,” he tells her, finally, too excited to conceal it: mask off, and a bright smile for her alone to enjoy. “but you must promise to close your eyes before we can continue.”

remain, always

love,

i miss you dearly, too. i am sorry to hear of your struggles, and wish i could be there to help. on the other hand, i am proud of your progress and that you have improved immensely. my lovely, hardworking king. one day you will write me poems, won’t you?

it is true that the court is a battlefield unlike any you have been to before. but i believe it is not something you cannot conquer. i can offer so little to you now besides this letter and this saddens me to no end. it will be a while before we see each other again. do you know i pray to wake up beside you every night when i go to sleep?

you know i am not very fond of writing letters to you, not because i do not miss you or love you, but because it makes mourning your absence more difficult. despite this, i look forward to your next letter and even more to the next time i can see you again. would you like more books to read?

i miss you, mikhail. i miss you so much. i love you and i will always be waiting for you. i beg you not to forget this.

only yours, SH

#remain always #r;#rgseolhyun

dearest,

i have received your letter after a great deal of impatience. how can i continue if i am to burn so brightly and so passionately for you in the midst of these ignorant masses? they frustrate me. things are not as they seem and you must understand that the truth, in its purest, no matter how devastating, is of the utmost importance to me. i can take no more. i am afraid that they watch me even as i sleep, with holes in the walls. i’m afraid they’re driving me mad! soldiers such as myself should not be so frightful of things that aren’t there. i pray for the same things, my highest love, for it means that i would be able to rest with you, and only then i suppose all will be well.

you return me to sanity. of course i will attempt to write you poems, but i must remind you that none of them can be any good. i am no poet. more books are always welcome. the ones that the scholars keep here are dreary. they have not been touched by you -- have they? have you seen the library in this palace? if not, i shall show you. if you have, then you must absolutely tell me where i may read your favourites.

it might bring you a great deal of comfort to know that i may visit in a few months. i know how excruciating it must be, darling. nothing could be compared to the pleasure of you and your love, and now nothing can equal my misery without it.

i love you.

always, - M

remain, always

Dearest,

-- everything is different now. they expect more of me, now, and ask what my plans are when the king dies. i did not think this far ahead. you know that i am never one for the games in court. these are not just cards with coins on the table for the taking. i prefer the games played between men wanting nothing but money. they are simple folk, and much more direct. to tell the truth, as i always have with you, the eyes around me do not aid in my sleep. she-who-must-not-be-named does not help. she asks of my dreams, and i cannot bear to tell her that i barely have any. the few i have are of you.

i am always uneasy without you, my darling, my love. those who have lost their arms and legs in war call it a phantom sensation. every parting feels like a cutting. is there a word for this? i apologise again for my writing skills. i am getting better, though, aren’t i?

your book helped me greatly. i read it when i can, though i can tell you all the words and all the poems with my eyes closed. your words, however, will always be my favourite. write back soon; or, rather, visit, if it suits you. would it be fitting for a man such as myself to ask this of you? i do not know anything in this world, which so resembles yours. if i can understand it, then perhaps we will be closer to the freedom we both desire.

i cannot wait to be entirely yours even under god. this is not a sin. love cannot be sin. and, for all that’s worth: i love you. never forget it.

Loving you always, - M

#remain always #r;#rgseolhyun

en gaulle

instead of the blanket, she curls her arm around his and holds his hand, swinging slightly as if the childishness of it all will make anything better. “i hope someday we won’t have to,” she says softly, boldly, wistfully, eyes to the ground.

there is nothing quite like the warmth of his palm pressed against her skin, nothing quite like the sound of his breathing and the melody of his voice. in all her years of gold and silver and diamond she has never known anything more precious and priceless than his company, than his life.

every step is another mile closer to the palace, every step is another one she doesn’t want to take. seolhyun squeezes his hand, some bleak reminder that he belongs to her.

closer, closer, closer. her feet refuse the ground so much that she stops walking. a pause in time, the same sadness in the same brown eyes. no words needed to beg–she lifts her chin and kisses him.

a kiss. another flower planted in their garden because every single one keeps dying. a kiss. soft and gentle and sweet, and tasting of nothing but love. a kiss that she never wants to part from, an ocean that she wants to drown in.

soldiers do not make dreams come true. people like him are murderous pawns with every intent to win a war that’s not truly theirs to fight. any man who thinks so is a fool. wars are waged by people who can afford it. but, for her, he thinks, he might wage a war on this, too. to tear down the walls that keep them, and to reach across, and hold her hand, exactly like this, without dread to hold them back.

perhaps the war has already been waged; this, just another battle to lose.

they’re at the edge of the forest when she kisses him, still under the cover of the trees, and he kisses her back because it’s the only way he’ll win anything. if his other hand had been free, he would’ve held her face, and kissed her further. ( how can such a small thing cause such a huge discomfort? )

“we will have that someday,” he promises, and this one he shall keep. he kisses her hand. “i love you. and we will be happy.”

then, he leads her forward, out of the woods and into the fire.

en gaulle

its painful to pick herself up from the ashes and tear her body away from the ruins, but she has to. they have to keep moving–forward, forward, forward. no space for looking back, no wiggle room for regrets. seolhyuns nods, neck aching from her body’s automatic response as she tightens the ropes of her garments and begins to pack away their happiness.

it’s almost comical, she thinks, how a lifetime’s worth of joy can be packed away so tightly in one tiny wicker basket.

she keeps the flower stem between her fingers and pulls on her shoes, every second heavier, every moment more bitter. they will soon return to a place she would like to think they both despise, back to the company of people she would like to think they both loathe. (because if she does not think this way then it means she is drinking her own poison alone, and one body can only stand so much bile before it falls to the ground. all dried black and earth dense with blood.

a tragedy–as all things seem to be.)

but she cannot think such ugly thoughts in the presence of his warmth for long. one glimpse at his face and she finds a smile breaking across her face. suddenly this is the packing away of a pretty yesterday in anticipation of a more beautiful tomorrow, not the burial of love and the unearthing of ruin.

“of course, i will wait,” she answers sweetly, speaking too late for the words to seem natural but speaking anyway. “my heart knows nothing else,” she laughs, picking the blanket off the ground and folding it neatly, holding it against herself, looking at him for a moment.

for a moment it feels as if she’s staring at the face of a man laying in a coffin, for the moment she thinks it wiser to walk away.

after this he must watch her be in the arms of someone else. a prince cannot know the value of a beggar’s treasure. cero will always be a nobody. he always has been, and all he can give her is, indeed, the heart of a nobody. a nothing, compared to her gold and silk and the title that comes attached to her name, and the man with power behind it. cero has no such thing; only cheese and meat and drink packed in a basket, and a blanket to keep grass from their skin, and flowers weaved with stories.

his fingers linger at her sides before dropping, and this chasm opens between them again, empty, and endless. he cannot hope to cross it again if she does not extend her hand to him. so, quietly, with all the somberness of a man mourning the day, he takes the basket from her hands, and almost doesn’t hear a thing she says.

-- but her voice has always broken through the thick, suffocating quiet, and her laugh even more so.

what had been the brightness of adventure in his eyes dims significantly at day’s close, and he extends an arm towards her, silently asking for the blanket back. it won’t do to have a person of her status carry such a thing. this way, things will be as they are again.

he smiles at her in return, because there is nothing else he can say. yes, i know that you will; no, i do not know if it’ll be the same, next time. he keeps his mouth shut before he admits any of it.

“walk by me, then,” he invites instead, walking in the direction of damnation. there are faces attached to things that aren’t people lurking behind walls meant to protect leaders. he hates it all. politics always leaves the taste of poison on his tongue. “we do not have to say goodbye yet.”

en gaulle

she sniffles, tears taking no notice of her refusal to fall victim to the clutches of longing and despair; falling down her red cheeks and landing on his hands, on the petals, on the cloth they sit upon, as if baptizing this holy ground.

she stares at the flower in her hand for the longest time as if silence is the only answer they can ever give each other.

“when will i see you again?” she says, forgetting to wipe the mess of her tears away, scratching his knuckles affectionately instead; inhaling deeply and sighing softly, not wanting to forget the very scent of his skin.

he wonders if she’ll throw it away. the flower will die, of course, though she can always keep its carcass tight between the pages of a book, hidden like her words and his own on paper. a secret, a curse, a sin. all three, and all of them damning, eating away at the soul until there’s nothing left but bones.

“soon, i hope.” he doesn’t tell her that he doesn’t know, and that it aches not knowing. even now he cannot decide this for himself yet. later, he thinks, if she can wait for it. “you will wait for me?”

en gaulle

there comes the bile of fantasy, poisoning the taste of her mouth and the surface of her skin and any chance she ever had at a good life. yet she squeezes his hand and smiles bitterly. “i’ll learn to churn butter and to skin a chicken and to bake bread so i may comfort my husband from a long day’s work with some supper.” she closes her eyes, rests her head on his shoulder, chuckling as tears prick the back of her eyelids.

“so we may break our fast together every morning. sit on the same table and pray on the same altar. and sleep in the same bed and look at the same sky.”

she squeezes his hand tighter. “walk in the same garden. we’ll plant fire lilies …

… they’ll be beautiful,” she says, thinking not of flowers but of two heads of black hair. a small boy and a small girl running around the front of their house, laughing and shouting as they prance and run.

her tears land on the sleeve of his shirt but she doesn’t apologize for the mess, merely keeps her eyes closed in case everything changes when she opens them.

“i’ll be a nobody,” she says, laughing, biting her lip in silence. “and i will be happy.”

it breaks him that she sounds that she cannot believe it; that she dares not to, with all her heart, to believe that it is possible, and they can simply run away. cero does not blame her. if she had promised him such things he would have laughed and asked what other fantasies they cannot make into reality.

but he closes his eyes too, and dreams about what might be a joke to everyone else. cero can think of nothing other than their house: wooden, mostly, because he hates the look of stone, though perhaps a bit of brick at the walls and the fireplace. then, in the winter, they will be warm, he thinks; warm, forever, on a mattress that’s neither too soft nor too hard, on a simple frame he’s crafted himself.

“yes,” he agrees, holding her much tighter. he hears the tears in her voice before he feels it on his sleeve, falling heavy, “yes. all these things. we will have a small house, us nobodies, and i will build it myself if i must.”

his lips press against her shoulder, and he squeezes her hand: both a promise, and a goodbye. “you will have a garden. you will not have any gold. you will have me. and i will have you. here, seolhyun,” he lets go of her hand to pick up the remains of a flower chain fashioned as a crown ( he does not remember if it is his own or hers ), and places the fire lily upon her palm.

“you’ll keep it, as i’ll keep my word. will you wait,” can you? “until i can take you away from all this?”

en gaulle

the fire fades into the sky, leaving only ruined charcoal in its wake. seolhyun pulls her clothes back on and ties ribbons around her ribs as if that will help keep her in place.

try as she does, she can never keep anything where it should be.

her hands, her eyes, her heart–all in his possession, all stolen from the royal treasury. her blood and her body, things she never owned, taken from the grasp of gold and tied into a dirty little sack for him to keep in his pocket.

and it’s almost funny, almost poetic, because she leans back on him and watches the sky grow dark, and thinks that she has never before read of a story where thieves and adulterers gathered in bright open fields; where criminals and liars bathed in the sun and drank wine and held hands in merriment as if they were far from the eyes of law.

she feels as far from everything as she can be, and she holds his hand as tight as she can too. “i don’t want to go back,” she confesses, tilting her chin to look back at him, all melancholy and danger. she loves him, she thinks. she loves him, she does. so she touches his cheek and kisses him with the salty taste of her sadness flavoring her tongue. “i only wish to be with you.”