4.
Ceux Qui Ne Meurent Jamais
a story of legends, ladies, and those who never die
"No use dwelling on the past."
Those who knew Nathalie would never describe her as someone who cried, but one can only do so much after learning of their impending doom.
She tried to hold back the tears, but they came and came, and she couldn’t stop them. Her face was wet with snot and tears running down her face and collecting on her chin, not that she cared. How vulnerable she felt, to be ugly crying in front of someone she’d just met, yet she couldn’t find it in her to actually care.
She wasn’t sure when she’d ended up in Lady Lucie’s strong yet kind embrace, nor how they’d ended up on the floor. The library was silent, save for her sobs and Lady Lucie’s quiet whispers that she could neither hear nor comprehend. Then, a voice, clear and sharp, sliced across the room.
“Oh grow up, will you?” Lady Brigid’s voice echoed throughout the room.
Nathalie looked up from where her face was buried in Lady Lucie’s shoulder. Her eyes were puffy and her vision was blurry, but she could tell Lady Brigid was standing with her arms crossed, her whole body conveying the annoyance in her tone.
“This isn’t the children’s manor. You can’t cry every time something doesn’t go your way,” she said harshly.
“Have heart, Lady Brigid,” Lady Lucie snapped. “You think you’d fare any better if you learned you were going to die?”
“I do,” Lady Brigid said, an air of arrogance in her voice. “Most proper ladies could. It’s honorable, noble, for a lady to die. She’d simply accept her fate, as one should.”
“If you’re a dozen cycles old! She’s still a child!” Lady Lucie exclaimed. “It’s not right for a youth to die, especially such a horrid fate!”
Lady Brigid groaned. “Wonderful, now I have to hear your flimsy defences. I told you, did I not, that I would rather our manor be removed from the map. That all memory be erased of this place so no one will ever come and I don’t ever have to leave. But no,” she mocked, “your morals told you not to. ‘It’s not right! We’ll get in trouble!’ Oh, to hell with your blathering! Stop it, now!”
Her voice was practically a roar at this point, but neither of the ladies on the balcony said anything in response. Nathalie noticed that Lady Lucie had risen to her knees and pushed Nathalie behind her, putting distance between the young lady and their elder, who was tapping her foot impatiently.
Nathalie didn’t dare move, not even to wipe the tears and snot off her face. All she did was bury her face in Lady Lucie’s shoulder, unsure if she was more terrified of the legendary cavalier de l’ombre or the fuming Lady Brigid.
“It’s okay,” Lady Lucie whispered to Nathalie, holding her tightly. “Ignore her. I’m on your side. It’s okay, Nathalie.” She could barely nod as she heard Lady Brigid climbing the stairs up to the balcony.
“Give me that book.”
Neither lady on the floor moved.
“Give it to me!” Lady Brigid yelled. “Lady Lucie, you give the book to me right now!”
Nathalie could feel Lady Lucie tremble as she handed over the book. That was why she was all the more shocked when Lady Lucie said quietly, “Léonie didn’t like it when you lost your temper, either.”
Lady Brigid hesitated. “It doesn’t much matter now, does it?” she said quietly, a different woman than the one who had been such an imposing figure moments before. She then turned and climbed down the spiral staircase. A moment later, Nathalie heard the massive doors of the library swing open and thud close as Lady Brigid left.
The large manor had never felt so quiet, even when Nathalie had been alone in its drafty rooms and dark corridors. She pulled her face off Lady Lucie’s shoulder and saw silent tears streaming down her face. Slowly, she reached up and wiped them away.
“Lady Lucie?”
“Just Lucie, please.”
“Lucie? What did Lady Brigid mean by that?”
“Mean by what?”
Lucie’s voice was soft and hesitant, her gaze averted, as if by avoiding eye contact she could avoid a conversation. Nathalie didn’t feel right pressing the issue, but she was too curious to ignore the hundreds of questions burning inside her head. She switched to a different question, hoping if she asked all of them, Lucie might eventually answer one of them.
“Who is Léonie?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I want to know.”
“I don’t want to tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because it still hurts too much.”
Nathalie was unsure of what to say. The silence of the massive library seemed to be closing in on the two ladies as they sat there, Lucie avoiding eye contact. After what felt like an eternity, Lucie cleared her throat with a small cough and spoke again.
“Léonie and I grew up together. It was just the two of us in our class, and so we became best friends. We were separated during our first cycle, but we kept in touch. We wrote letters to each other nearly every day. Then for our second cycles, we both came here. It was wonderful.”
She paused, a slight smile on her face, clearly reminiscing. She cleared her throat again and continued.
“They came for her, and we didn’t know why. It took two years before they finally took her immortality, and she got very sick. And then…”
Lucie began crying again. Nathalie could figure out how the story ended. “I’m so sorry.”
She sniffled and rubbed her nose. “They took Léonie away. She’s not buried here. I haven’t visited her since the funeral. I still write to her sometimes, but of course she doesn’t read them.”
Nathalie squeezed her hand. “And it’s just been you and Lady Brigid here since then?”
She nodded. “Brigid won’t admit it, but she loved Léonie too. She wasn’t so strict about the title back then. We used to have a dozen chickens, and two goats, and there were cats that roamed around. We gardened together, not just produce but flowers that we’d sell at the market, or make into crowns. Léonie was always so full of joy, and when she left, it’s like the joy left too.
“Everything about her was wonderful. We didn’t use to hide away so much, or eat by ourselves, or have so much of the house closed off. Léonie was the best of us.”
Lucie had turned to look at Nathalie. “I had hoped you could be…not a replacement, of course, because no one could replace her, and I would never ask anyone to try and live up to a dead person’s legacy, but I was hoping you would bring some of that joy back to the manor.”
She cleared her throat and stood up. “No use dwelling on the past. I should go finish the dishes.” With that, she picked the book up off the floor, put it back on the shelf, and all but ran out of the library, wiping her face as she went.
Nathalie sat in stunned silence. She remembered hearing about the passing of a lady when she was young, and Lady Sylviane leaving the manor for a few days and leaving them in the care of the older girls, but she hadn’t heard of it since. It was strange that it hadn’t been more talked about, really, considering death among the ladies so infrequent.
But hadn’t she read all of the legends, read about the history of the order, learned about all of the ladies who had passed? There weren’t many, but she couldn’t recall a Léonie among the names of the dead.
Had Léonie been erased from the history books, or just never added? How had her name gone unsaid, her story untold?
Nathalie felt uneasy, her breakfast churning in her stomach. There were too many questions, too many unknowns. The whole thing made no sense to her.
How had she not known about Léonie?
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