[fic] Wisteria: Chapter II
Title: Wisteria
Notes: See Chapter I.
Summary: Childhood is grand, but everyone has to grow up sometime.
Chapter II
He teaches her many things about the world. She finds that she never wants to cry in front of him (he is strong and brave and she bites back the shame of her own vulnerability) and so she tries her best. She asks him to teach her how to lift his sword and parry a blow, but his horror keeps her from asking again. Secretly, she watches him practice when the embers of their campfire have dwindled to flickers and tries to memorize his motions. The princess knows she is not considered the most intelligent, but she wants this because the flash of those sad, sad eyes still haunts her. For once, what she wants cannot be given and so begins her journey. He gives to her the key to her own heart and it soars in the night air, unsteady and unfamiliar, but exhilarating. Whenever she falls, the remnants of warmth his hand left feels burned into her back and it pushes her to stand up again.
She does this not for him or for her people - selfishly, she does this for herself, because the glass princess is starting to see that glass, no matter how beautiful, is fragile and cold. Not a single complaint slips past her lips when her dainty feet, tested only by hours of ballroom dancing, begin to blister. Wherever it is the knight goes to practice, she no longer knows, for she takes this time to dip her bare legs into the closest stream. The cool kiss of river water eases her pain and it is with a frozen fascination that she watches the thin rivulets of red bleed from her soles and ebb away into nothing. Would that all the troubles she could find be so simply absolved, thrown into the sea of human hearts to be carried away by simple joys.
In the days that follow, the princess walks the ground and bathes in the ocean; she touches life in a way she has never before. She sees the stars at night and finds there is always hope in their faraway light. All he can see is how she seems to grow more beautiful day by day and he finds more and more memories for him to tuck away in a treasure box. The knight slowly becomes her knight. He laughs at her silliness, and she knows she is silly, but if it can make him laugh like that, she thinks it is fine. He touches her hair or brushes a knuckle against her cheek before he remembers who he is and who she is. Forgetting hurts only as much as remembering does.
Faust tries to brand it into his every muscle - she is not merely a princess, but the one princess he can never touch.
The one princess that could never be bothered to see the difference.
Faust is Faust, the knight, the man - the boy who jokes and sulks and descends into lethal fury at a moment's notice for her. He is Faust, and that is all he needs to be. She thinks that he should know this, but every time she tries to say the words, the instrument that keeps time ticking flies to her throat and she can hear its throbbing urgency swallowing the syllables. Some other day she will tell him, she resolves to herself.
He is furious when he sees the cuts she has been hiding from him and she is unapologetic. It is a small thing, she thinks, because he is a knight and surely he has suffered worse. How can she show him her little hurts? But his large hands are rough and shaking when he lifts her heels from the water one night. She has never seen him tremble like this (how could she know she tears his mind to shreds and floods his reason with her tremulous cries), so she does what she does best. She smiles, promising him everything will be okay, and draws him into her arms. Faust is exhausted and tired and in his delirium forgets who either of them is in favor of sinking into the harbor of her lullabies. His shoulders are so broad that her hands do not touch, but he fits into her embrace as if he is a runaway storm and she the sky.
The princess realizes before the knight that she is in love.
The knight already knows that this will end in tears, whatever this is, but he cannot help stealing a kiss from her as she sleeps. She tastes of the strangest mix of sadness and delight he has ever encountered and by sheer tragedy he finds his heart aching for her. She tells him that he is the wind beneath her wings, the night canvas to her starlight, without which she could not shine.
He tells her it cannot be and watches the delicate joy in his hands crack apart bitterly.
"Why," she says so quietly that he almost misses it. It should sound like a question, but it does not. She repeats the question and he has no answer for her. They are simply not made for each other.
The princess thinks of the prince that is waiting for her, of the poor and homeless in her country that will finally smile when they marry. A glass princess for a glass prince - only she is not made of glass anymore. This is the first time she cries in front of him. Her tears fall like rain and she does not regret a single second spent outside her cage.
Notes: See Chapter I.
Summary: Childhood is grand, but everyone has to grow up sometime.
Chapter II
He teaches her many things about the world. She finds that she never wants to cry in front of him (he is strong and brave and she bites back the shame of her own vulnerability) and so she tries her best. She asks him to teach her how to lift his sword and parry a blow, but his horror keeps her from asking again. Secretly, she watches him practice when the embers of their campfire have dwindled to flickers and tries to memorize his motions. The princess knows she is not considered the most intelligent, but she wants this because the flash of those sad, sad eyes still haunts her. For once, what she wants cannot be given and so begins her journey. He gives to her the key to her own heart and it soars in the night air, unsteady and unfamiliar, but exhilarating. Whenever she falls, the remnants of warmth his hand left feels burned into her back and it pushes her to stand up again.
She does this not for him or for her people - selfishly, she does this for herself, because the glass princess is starting to see that glass, no matter how beautiful, is fragile and cold. Not a single complaint slips past her lips when her dainty feet, tested only by hours of ballroom dancing, begin to blister. Wherever it is the knight goes to practice, she no longer knows, for she takes this time to dip her bare legs into the closest stream. The cool kiss of river water eases her pain and it is with a frozen fascination that she watches the thin rivulets of red bleed from her soles and ebb away into nothing. Would that all the troubles she could find be so simply absolved, thrown into the sea of human hearts to be carried away by simple joys.
In the days that follow, the princess walks the ground and bathes in the ocean; she touches life in a way she has never before. She sees the stars at night and finds there is always hope in their faraway light. All he can see is how she seems to grow more beautiful day by day and he finds more and more memories for him to tuck away in a treasure box. The knight slowly becomes her knight. He laughs at her silliness, and she knows she is silly, but if it can make him laugh like that, she thinks it is fine. He touches her hair or brushes a knuckle against her cheek before he remembers who he is and who she is. Forgetting hurts only as much as remembering does.
Faust tries to brand it into his every muscle - she is not merely a princess, but the one princess he can never touch.
The one princess that could never be bothered to see the difference.
Faust is Faust, the knight, the man - the boy who jokes and sulks and descends into lethal fury at a moment's notice for her. He is Faust, and that is all he needs to be. She thinks that he should know this, but every time she tries to say the words, the instrument that keeps time ticking flies to her throat and she can hear its throbbing urgency swallowing the syllables. Some other day she will tell him, she resolves to herself.
He is furious when he sees the cuts she has been hiding from him and she is unapologetic. It is a small thing, she thinks, because he is a knight and surely he has suffered worse. How can she show him her little hurts? But his large hands are rough and shaking when he lifts her heels from the water one night. She has never seen him tremble like this (how could she know she tears his mind to shreds and floods his reason with her tremulous cries), so she does what she does best. She smiles, promising him everything will be okay, and draws him into her arms. Faust is exhausted and tired and in his delirium forgets who either of them is in favor of sinking into the harbor of her lullabies. His shoulders are so broad that her hands do not touch, but he fits into her embrace as if he is a runaway storm and she the sky.
The princess realizes before the knight that she is in love.
The knight already knows that this will end in tears, whatever this is, but he cannot help stealing a kiss from her as she sleeps. She tastes of the strangest mix of sadness and delight he has ever encountered and by sheer tragedy he finds his heart aching for her. She tells him that he is the wind beneath her wings, the night canvas to her starlight, without which she could not shine.
He tells her it cannot be and watches the delicate joy in his hands crack apart bitterly.
"Why," she says so quietly that he almost misses it. It should sound like a question, but it does not. She repeats the question and he has no answer for her. They are simply not made for each other.
The princess thinks of the prince that is waiting for her, of the poor and homeless in her country that will finally smile when they marry. A glass princess for a glass prince - only she is not made of glass anymore. This is the first time she cries in front of him. Her tears fall like rain and she does not regret a single second spent outside her cage.
you will never be mine, his heart says to hers.
i will remember you always, hers whispers in reply.