Fic: Blue Lotus | X:WP | G & X | PG
Written for Challenge Seven, Prompt Three at even_angels_
****
Absent, she dreamed, intoxicated and pure, sprawled on a bed of white linen. Wine dribbled from her mouth as she chewed the saturated flowers. Her attendant caught the overflow, eased a wet cloth over her lips.
Considerate, she thought, but unnecessary. I don’t care how I look, so why should he? Because he has no choice. He is commanded to care for me.
She could not recall when the mute eunuch had arrived, or even who sent him to look after her. Perhaps her friend Octavian, who had since become Augustus, or maybe the Ptolemic loyalists who remembered her assistance to Cleopatra. In any case, he was here, in her house, aiding her recovery, delaying her death.
He was an excellent nurse; he always made sure her wounds were neatly sutured and bandaged, he forced her to eat and drink and wash, and he was a keen listener - an ideal caregiver to one who needed solitude, but should not be left alone.
When she was weary or lonesome, she spoke to him, told him stories of faraway lands, of slain villains and fallen gods, of children lost and found, of heroes so brave and bright their legends were written in stars, white ink indelibly burned into the firmament.
These tales made him wish she would talk forever, or at least more often. As it stood, she only grew chatty after returning from one of her “excursions” to town or desert or sea. She came back marked every time, with either the wounds of violence or the less frequent bruise and scratch of sex - he knew the difference.
In some instances, when she returned, she was somehow diminished. It was as if, in seeking something new, she felt she had betrayed something old and thereby lost part of herself. When she found herself in the grip of this melancholy, she would treat her own illness, balm her guilt with remembrance. It was only then that she would speak to him of her love, her woman. These tales were his favorites, for he loved romantic fictions.
In these fables, her woman was a force of nature. She slew armies, saved nations, soared among clouds, and danced through the underworld as if it were a field of cool spring wheat. And she loved; loved her family and mourned their absence, loved her true friends, few though they were, and loved - best of all - this sun-haired poet who would forever sing of their fated union.
All good stories have endings, but hers was cruel and sudden, and the lingering pain was that of a severed limb, ghosting over the teller’s nerves until tears and silence drowned her words. She could not speak her need and did not have to - he knew, and would attend to her comfort without prompting.
She would rise and stumble to her bed and wait for the relief of transport, the night ride backward into snowy mountains, where ashes were cast into a fountain, and the goodbye sunset merely sent them to bed. These beautiful lies, these mercifully altered passages of her life story, floated in a cup of wine-soaked blue flowers.
He stayed near as she drifted away, across sand and water, through sky and fire, to be with her love, if only for a night. Her dreams were vivid; sometimes, she would speak raw truth, opening her veins to bleed poisonous accusation, and sometimes, in silence, she touched her own body with her lover’s hands.
These fugues were fragile and brief, but in them she found sustenance to carry her through another day, another fight. This was her woman’s legacy - to endure your own pain in service of something higher, to live until your death means more than your life, to fight until the fight is unjust, and to love until the sun burns out… and perhaps beyond. Through the darkness, past the ending, out into the stars.
To honor her woman and to honor herself, she endured, she fought, she lived each day with the fiery pride of one who was once cherished by a legend… and at night, through the grace of the blue lotus, she loved, loved.
****
Absent, she dreamed, intoxicated and pure, sprawled on a bed of white linen. Wine dribbled from her mouth as she chewed the saturated flowers. Her attendant caught the overflow, eased a wet cloth over her lips.
Considerate, she thought, but unnecessary. I don’t care how I look, so why should he? Because he has no choice. He is commanded to care for me.
She could not recall when the mute eunuch had arrived, or even who sent him to look after her. Perhaps her friend Octavian, who had since become Augustus, or maybe the Ptolemic loyalists who remembered her assistance to Cleopatra. In any case, he was here, in her house, aiding her recovery, delaying her death.
He was an excellent nurse; he always made sure her wounds were neatly sutured and bandaged, he forced her to eat and drink and wash, and he was a keen listener - an ideal caregiver to one who needed solitude, but should not be left alone.
When she was weary or lonesome, she spoke to him, told him stories of faraway lands, of slain villains and fallen gods, of children lost and found, of heroes so brave and bright their legends were written in stars, white ink indelibly burned into the firmament.
These tales made him wish she would talk forever, or at least more often. As it stood, she only grew chatty after returning from one of her “excursions” to town or desert or sea. She came back marked every time, with either the wounds of violence or the less frequent bruise and scratch of sex - he knew the difference.
In some instances, when she returned, she was somehow diminished. It was as if, in seeking something new, she felt she had betrayed something old and thereby lost part of herself. When she found herself in the grip of this melancholy, she would treat her own illness, balm her guilt with remembrance. It was only then that she would speak to him of her love, her woman. These tales were his favorites, for he loved romantic fictions.
In these fables, her woman was a force of nature. She slew armies, saved nations, soared among clouds, and danced through the underworld as if it were a field of cool spring wheat. And she loved; loved her family and mourned their absence, loved her true friends, few though they were, and loved - best of all - this sun-haired poet who would forever sing of their fated union.
All good stories have endings, but hers was cruel and sudden, and the lingering pain was that of a severed limb, ghosting over the teller’s nerves until tears and silence drowned her words. She could not speak her need and did not have to - he knew, and would attend to her comfort without prompting.
She would rise and stumble to her bed and wait for the relief of transport, the night ride backward into snowy mountains, where ashes were cast into a fountain, and the goodbye sunset merely sent them to bed. These beautiful lies, these mercifully altered passages of her life story, floated in a cup of wine-soaked blue flowers.
He stayed near as she drifted away, across sand and water, through sky and fire, to be with her love, if only for a night. Her dreams were vivid; sometimes, she would speak raw truth, opening her veins to bleed poisonous accusation, and sometimes, in silence, she touched her own body with her lover’s hands.
These fugues were fragile and brief, but in them she found sustenance to carry her through another day, another fight. This was her woman’s legacy - to endure your own pain in service of something higher, to live until your death means more than your life, to fight until the fight is unjust, and to love until the sun burns out… and perhaps beyond. Through the darkness, past the ending, out into the stars.
To honor her woman and to honor herself, she endured, she fought, she lived each day with the fiery pride of one who was once cherished by a legend… and at night, through the grace of the blue lotus, she loved, loved.