let me hold it close and keep it here with me
let me hold it close and keep it here with me
renata/aro. pg. 1042.
And now that she's come of age, she suspects it won't be long before they burn her and get it over with.
this was originally written for interfection for canon_eclipsed. i don't think she ever received it though. hope you like, bb! :)
No one likes to come near her.
There's even a saying about her, going around town like the thoughts that are trapped inside her head, and it says: If you touch her, you'll be cursed.
Like she has the plague.
(When diseases go around, she is never affected, shut away in her own personal quarantine. She would take the sickness any day.)
This loneliness is all she can remember; when she looks back through her memories she can't determine a start or end. But she overhears things, cataloguing the whispers in her little mental library, pages worn from too much reading.
They said she was born to a mother dead for two hours, struggling inside a cold womb, fighting for her own godless life. Said that she carries a sickness for all mothers-to-be. But the pregnant women's fear spread to girls and boys and men, afraid of her affecting their fertility.
Her fate was sealed the moment she was born. And now that she's come of age, she suspects it won't be long before they burn her and get it over with.
---
(She watches little children from the sidelines, playing with sticks in the dirt and somehow making it look like so much fun. She aches to get up and join them, but she's cursed and no one wants to associate with the town outcast. Instead she waits and makes shapes out of clumps of grass until all of them look like blobs of nothing.)
---
"Don't," they hiss, but the black haired ancient only smiles and shakes his head. He doesn't understand just how dangerous she is, but if he doesn't listen, it's not their fault.
His strides seem so much longer in the strained silence.
She watches him approach with those wide eyes that seem to see everything. He comes closer than she expects, too close, bending his knees and sitting back on his haunches so that his face is no more than a few inches away.
"I almost didn't see you here," he says cheerily, at odds with the tense atmosphere, and she immediately feels a rush of warmth toward this man. Who else treats her like a human being?
"No one comes near me," she whispers in that faint way that's just above a sigh.
Eyebrows raise. "Ever?" He motions toward the shadows and another, younger man whom she hadn't noticed at first takes a step into the dim almost-night. "Eleazar, what say you?"
"I think she will not be special" comes in the form of a Spanish-accented proclamation, and the one called Eleazar melts away as easily as he appeared.
The old man shakes his head, still holding on to that smile like a scepter wielded in her direction. He must be a king.
"It will be devastating to him when he is wrong."
But I won't be special. It sounds as though this man is on her side, and she wonders why a stranger would care so much about her. Before these thoughts can complete circuits in her head, he offers a brittle arm. She's afraid that she might break it.
"May I take you away?"
She can feel the town's relief in her own bones when she touches the man's freezing palm. It's not a very hard decision to make; the caked-on darkness falls off in pieces from her heart as she takes the road away.
---
The transformation is almost worth it: their little stares mean nothing in the face of her red gaze, and sometimes she travels back to that place just to watch them from the shadows. She doesn't drink from any of them -- only sits and observes and silently marvels at how she could have been afraid.
Aro comes with her sometimes, in the darkness holding her hand to take in her memories. His eyes stay closed and he absorbs as she tries to think of anyone's presence that could be more comforting. (She draws a blank.)
Someone passes by her hiding place and shivers; they make signs across their face and hurry away. She grins. It's nice having power, for once.
---
"I think I should always keep you close from now on," he says to her, and she wants to smile hard. She stays subdued, nods ceremoniously. But she can't help the tightness at the corners of her mouth that give her happiness away.
"Our lives are in each other's hands now," Aro whispers quietly in complete seriousness (which is unusual. She doesn't think she's seen him without the telltale joy he carries with him like his cloak), and her glance looks up from beneath dark eyelashes.
I am important, she thinks to herself.
---
Their hating faces, staring straight at the one she wants to protect, and she doesn't want to think about how hard her job is going to be (They have powers stronger than the guard on her side, they have pretty wolves with pretty fangs that she's never seen before, and there's this flipping in her stomach that shouldn't be there. When was the last time she hunted? If anything goes wrong, it will be her fault) but she may be worrying a bit.
Her hand is on Aro's shoulder and he knows by the power of his gift, without needing to be told. (She doesn't think she would have been able to tell him anyway. Her throat is choked up with too much emotion.) He turns around, giving her a tiny smile. "It'll be fine," and in that jovial voice she can't doubt anything anymore.
Her answering smile is weak but it exists, and that's all anyone ever asked.
I will win, say the eyes of the other shield, but Renata won't be intimidated. She can't afford to be.
In the end, nothing happens. She holds on to Aro's cloak, fist too tight but it doesn't matter because she kept him safe. She puts her other hand against her mouth to keep from screaming.
"Brilliant," Aro says, and she imagines he's talking to her.
*
renata/aro. pg. 1042.
And now that she's come of age, she suspects it won't be long before they burn her and get it over with.
this was originally written for interfection for canon_eclipsed. i don't think she ever received it though. hope you like, bb! :)
No one likes to come near her.
There's even a saying about her, going around town like the thoughts that are trapped inside her head, and it says: If you touch her, you'll be cursed.
Like she has the plague.
(When diseases go around, she is never affected, shut away in her own personal quarantine. She would take the sickness any day.)
This loneliness is all she can remember; when she looks back through her memories she can't determine a start or end. But she overhears things, cataloguing the whispers in her little mental library, pages worn from too much reading.
They said she was born to a mother dead for two hours, struggling inside a cold womb, fighting for her own godless life. Said that she carries a sickness for all mothers-to-be. But the pregnant women's fear spread to girls and boys and men, afraid of her affecting their fertility.
Her fate was sealed the moment she was born. And now that she's come of age, she suspects it won't be long before they burn her and get it over with.
---
(She watches little children from the sidelines, playing with sticks in the dirt and somehow making it look like so much fun. She aches to get up and join them, but she's cursed and no one wants to associate with the town outcast. Instead she waits and makes shapes out of clumps of grass until all of them look like blobs of nothing.)
---
"Don't," they hiss, but the black haired ancient only smiles and shakes his head. He doesn't understand just how dangerous she is, but if he doesn't listen, it's not their fault.
His strides seem so much longer in the strained silence.
She watches him approach with those wide eyes that seem to see everything. He comes closer than she expects, too close, bending his knees and sitting back on his haunches so that his face is no more than a few inches away.
"I almost didn't see you here," he says cheerily, at odds with the tense atmosphere, and she immediately feels a rush of warmth toward this man. Who else treats her like a human being?
"No one comes near me," she whispers in that faint way that's just above a sigh.
Eyebrows raise. "Ever?" He motions toward the shadows and another, younger man whom she hadn't noticed at first takes a step into the dim almost-night. "Eleazar, what say you?"
"I think she will not be special" comes in the form of a Spanish-accented proclamation, and the one called Eleazar melts away as easily as he appeared.
The old man shakes his head, still holding on to that smile like a scepter wielded in her direction. He must be a king.
"It will be devastating to him when he is wrong."
But I won't be special. It sounds as though this man is on her side, and she wonders why a stranger would care so much about her. Before these thoughts can complete circuits in her head, he offers a brittle arm. She's afraid that she might break it.
"May I take you away?"
She can feel the town's relief in her own bones when she touches the man's freezing palm. It's not a very hard decision to make; the caked-on darkness falls off in pieces from her heart as she takes the road away.
---
The transformation is almost worth it: their little stares mean nothing in the face of her red gaze, and sometimes she travels back to that place just to watch them from the shadows. She doesn't drink from any of them -- only sits and observes and silently marvels at how she could have been afraid.
Aro comes with her sometimes, in the darkness holding her hand to take in her memories. His eyes stay closed and he absorbs as she tries to think of anyone's presence that could be more comforting. (She draws a blank.)
Someone passes by her hiding place and shivers; they make signs across their face and hurry away. She grins. It's nice having power, for once.
---
"I think I should always keep you close from now on," he says to her, and she wants to smile hard. She stays subdued, nods ceremoniously. But she can't help the tightness at the corners of her mouth that give her happiness away.
"Our lives are in each other's hands now," Aro whispers quietly in complete seriousness (which is unusual. She doesn't think she's seen him without the telltale joy he carries with him like his cloak), and her glance looks up from beneath dark eyelashes.
I am important, she thinks to herself.
---
Their hating faces, staring straight at the one she wants to protect, and she doesn't want to think about how hard her job is going to be (They have powers stronger than the guard on her side, they have pretty wolves with pretty fangs that she's never seen before, and there's this flipping in her stomach that shouldn't be there. When was the last time she hunted? If anything goes wrong, it will be her fault) but she may be worrying a bit.
Her hand is on Aro's shoulder and he knows by the power of his gift, without needing to be told. (She doesn't think she would have been able to tell him anyway. Her throat is choked up with too much emotion.) He turns around, giving her a tiny smile. "It'll be fine," and in that jovial voice she can't doubt anything anymore.
Her answering smile is weak but it exists, and that's all anyone ever asked.
I will win, say the eyes of the other shield, but Renata won't be intimidated. She can't afford to be.
In the end, nothing happens. She holds on to Aro's cloak, fist too tight but it doesn't matter because she kept him safe. She puts her other hand against her mouth to keep from screaming.
"Brilliant," Aro says, and she imagines he's talking to her.
*