'By the Firelight'
Dracone Manor – Riesse’s private chambers. Late evening. 'What Might Have Been' thoughts...
The hearth crackled with soft embers, golden light dancing across the rich tapestries and polished darkwood of the chamber. Outside, the wind whispered through the trees like a forgotten lullaby, but inside, all was warm and still.
Lady Amariesse Starsinger Dracone sat curled on a velvet chaise near the fire, her silk robe pooling at her feet in silvery folds. Her long hair, unbound, tumbled over her shoulder as she reached down to stroke the broad head of the mastiff resting beside her. The old hound—named Beau, his coat the color of storm clouds—exhaled a low, contented sigh. His eyes, clouded slightly with age, lifted to meet hers, and she smiled.
“You’re the last living piece of him I have, you know,” she murmured, fingers gently trailing over his ears. “You were so small when he brought you to me. A squirming, slobbering little thing with paws far too big for your body. He said you'd grow into them… and you did.”
Beau gave a soft thump of his tail, and Riesse chuckled faintly.
“He would have loved seeing you like this. All grand and noble. You were supposed to be our companion for the years we were meant to have.” She paused, the words catching for a moment in her throat, before she softened again. “We would have had a garden by now. Did you know that? A real one. Not just the manor’s roses—Heathcliff wanted tomatoes. Tomatoes, of all things.”
Beau grumbled, shifting closer so that his heavy head could rest on her slippered foot.
“He said he wanted to learn to cook.” Her voice dipped into laughter, a little spark of old joy lighting her eyes. “Can you imagine? My Heathcliff, apron-clad, making soup and burning toast. And he’d deny it. Swear up and down that it was perfectly charred on purpose.”
A long silence stretched between them, and she laid a hand against Beau’s shoulder, fingers curling slightly into his fur.
“We would’ve had children, too,” she whispered, barely more than a breath. “I was terrified of the idea. Not because I didn’t want it—gods, no—but because it would have made it real. Made us real in a way I thought I didn’t deserve.”
Her lips pressed together, and she blinked against the warmth behind her eyes. “We would have named one after my mother. And maybe the other after his. He would have sung lullabies terribly off-key, and I would’ve smiled anyway, because it would’ve been us.”
Beau shifted again and made a low, comforting sound.
“I know you understand me,” she said, brushing her fingers along his greying muzzle. “You always have. You were his gift. And somehow… in your eyes, I still see him.”
In the quiet hallway beyond the half-closed chamber door, Lister paused. He had come seeking her voice, drawn by some invisible thread, perhaps sensing the weight in the air. He did not enter. He would not interrupt. But he listened—head bowed, hand braced lightly against the wall—as the heart of Dracone Manor spoke in whispers to the past.
Riesse smiled faintly, gaze returning to the fire.
“If he were still here, I would have grown old beside him without fear. I would have laughed more. Worn less black.” She reached for a small cup on the side table and took a sip of cooled tea. “And I’d have told him every day, every single day, that he was my everything.”
She leaned down and pressed a kiss to Beau’s head, her voice quieter now, almost a lullaby.
“But since he’s not… I’ll tell you instead, old friend.
The fire crackled again, the warmth spilling outward. In the glow of it, the past and present curled into each other like smoke, and for a moment—just a moment—everything felt whole.
