The Final Dance: Chapter 2, Moonlight
Title: The Final Dance
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13
Warning: For implied suicide
Summary: Reincarnation story. Four times their relationship ended in tragedy, never the same way but always the same. This time, will things be happier or will it simply be a different tragedy?
Author's Note: Again, while the characters are historical, there is absolutely no evidence for the relationship suggested here. Mary Boleyn was married first to William Carey (referred to here as William) and then to William Stafford (referred to here as Will) but there is no evidence that the two men so much as met, much less anything else.
Tudor rose with her hair in curls
Will make you turn and stare
Try to steal a kiss at the bridge
Under a violet moon...
Fortune-teller, what do you see?
Future in a card
Share your secrets
Tell them to me
Under a violet moon - Under a Violet Moon, Blackmore's Night
28 September 1543, Essex, England
Will Stafford stands with his stepchildren, Henry and Catherine Carey, and his own daughter, Anne Stafford, as his wife is laid in her grave. Mary Boleyn Carey Stafford, the last of the infamous Boleyn family, except for her three children and her sister Anne's daughter, the Lady Elizabeth Tudor. He doesn't cry, simply stands there, dark eyes level and his expression blank. Alone again, and he feels like this has happened before. Of course, it has.
It wasn't always just the two of them. Once, two had been three, when Mary was the bride of another William. William Carey, the man Will served as steward of his household. William had been in love with his gorgeous new bride, not even caring about her sullied reputation as the mistress of the King of France. His “English mare”, King Francis had called her. And then Mary's father had shoved her into the bed of Henry VIII, King of England.
Will could clearly remember William's fury when that had happened. “And I can't do a damn thing about it! They're taking her away from me, ripping us apart, and making her a whore!”
There had been nothing Will could do except lay a comforting hand on William's shoulder. They were friends, these days; Will was of better blood than William but thanks to the treason of his kinsman the Duke of Buckingham, his family line was disgraced. So he felt allowed to comfort his official master. That did not prepare him for what happened next.
William turned his head to meet Will's eyes, and it had suddenly occurred to Will that they'd never been this close before. He also saw what he'd been trying to ignore for years, how something in the other man's gray eyes drew him in, as though he'd seen them before somewhere. They froze in their respective positions, William half-turned and Will with his hand on the other man's shoulder.
Before either of them had really registered it, one or both of them were moving forward, their lips crashing together. And a strange name was on the tip of Will's tongue that night, the two of them tangled together in the bed, but he swallowed it back. Because he couldn't understand where it had come from.
It was a sin, and a crime. They knew that. But they couldn't stop. It was as though they'd been waiting to discover this need for each other. And even when Henry tossed Mary aside, replacing her with her younger sister, the dark and dangerous Anne, they didn't stop. Then came the day when Mary walked in on them. Will would always remember the look in her eyes, shock that faded into something else. And her eyes... Like William's, they drew him, familiar somehow.
She wasn't bothered, after the immediate shock. “I've seen wilder in France, you know,” she told them hours later, the three of them sprawled nude over the bed. Will remembered how William had looked up, seen that Mary was not disgusted but intrigued, and then asked her with a smirk if she wanted to join them.
But William died. In the summer of 1527, the Sweat returned to England, an enemy no one could defeat. Mary was sent away with Will to escort her, and William only just managed to return to his family home before he died. Will held Mary as she cried for him, and swallowed his own tears. “I'll be here for you, Mary,” he whispered in her ear. “When you're ready, I'll be here. I'll always be here.”
He finally married her in 1532. They were wed in secret, and managed to keep it a secret for some time, before Mary fell pregnant and they had to confess. Banished from court by Mary's vindictive sister, who was now the Queen of England, they lived in the country together, in a small farmhouse. Until, of course, Anne's place became far less certain, and she needed anyone who might support her to be there.
They returned to court late in 1535, finding it much changed, shadowed by all the things that had happened. All the suffering that the King had put the court and country through, just so he could marry Mary's sister. Anne had not lived up to her part of the bargain, though, had not produced a son. And the vultures were circling.
When Anne was accused of adultery and witchcraft in May of 1536, Mary was desperate to help, even more so when her brother George was named as one of Anne's lovers. Even Will did not believe that - Anne, he felt, would do much to secure her position, but he did not think she would go that far. But he had to stop Mary from speaking out, pointing out harshly that all she would get for her pains would be to end up accused herself. “I know there are secrets, things that you never told me nor William, things you three Boleyns kept between yourselves. And you cannot risk them coming out now.”
“But they are my family, Will! Always, it has been the three of us! How can I turn my back on them now?”
“Because if you do not, you'll die beside them! Please, Mary, for our children, for me, please don't do this!”
In the end, she had said nothing, and he even believed she had forgiven him for making sure that she did not. They went to the executions, Mary saying that she had to, she had to be there. He didn't understand it, but he was there beside her, catching her when her knees gave out as the axe - or in Anne's case, the sword - fell.
He'd saved her from the executioner's blade, but he could not save her from the fever that had taken her away from him, taken her to William, leaving him alone. Will can't breathe through the pain, and he considers the fact that it doesn't really matter, if he commits one more sin. The priests would say he's been damned for a long time.
So he takes his horse out for one last ride, urging it to a jump that he knows is too much for its capabilities. They will think he was simply too reckless, grieving for his wife, that in the darkness he made a mistake. He is lost in grief for his wife, and for William, the scabbed-over wound of his death made fresh by the loss of Mary. But if all goes well, everyone will think he was a fool, and not realize that his death is a deliberate thing, because he cannot live alone. Henry and Catherine are adults, they will take care of their sister, his daughter. He can no longer be here, on this earth, not alone.
Flying through the air, the last thing he sees is not the stars in the sky or the woods gilded silver by moonlight, but a night at Hampton Court, standing on the sidelines and watching Mary dance with William, the two of them laughing and smiling. It's a memory, but at the last second it changes, and in his mind's eye they turn to him, each holding out a hand for him to take.
~ ~ ~
“Call time of dea - No, wait, we've got a pulse!”
Next part is here: fae-boleyn.livejournal.com/9471.html
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13
Warning: For implied suicide
Summary: Reincarnation story. Four times their relationship ended in tragedy, never the same way but always the same. This time, will things be happier or will it simply be a different tragedy?
Author's Note: Again, while the characters are historical, there is absolutely no evidence for the relationship suggested here. Mary Boleyn was married first to William Carey (referred to here as William) and then to William Stafford (referred to here as Will) but there is no evidence that the two men so much as met, much less anything else.
Tudor rose with her hair in curls
Will make you turn and stare
Try to steal a kiss at the bridge
Under a violet moon...
Fortune-teller, what do you see?
Future in a card
Share your secrets
Tell them to me
Under a violet moon - Under a Violet Moon, Blackmore's Night
28 September 1543, Essex, England
Will Stafford stands with his stepchildren, Henry and Catherine Carey, and his own daughter, Anne Stafford, as his wife is laid in her grave. Mary Boleyn Carey Stafford, the last of the infamous Boleyn family, except for her three children and her sister Anne's daughter, the Lady Elizabeth Tudor. He doesn't cry, simply stands there, dark eyes level and his expression blank. Alone again, and he feels like this has happened before. Of course, it has.
It wasn't always just the two of them. Once, two had been three, when Mary was the bride of another William. William Carey, the man Will served as steward of his household. William had been in love with his gorgeous new bride, not even caring about her sullied reputation as the mistress of the King of France. His “English mare”, King Francis had called her. And then Mary's father had shoved her into the bed of Henry VIII, King of England.
Will could clearly remember William's fury when that had happened. “And I can't do a damn thing about it! They're taking her away from me, ripping us apart, and making her a whore!”
There had been nothing Will could do except lay a comforting hand on William's shoulder. They were friends, these days; Will was of better blood than William but thanks to the treason of his kinsman the Duke of Buckingham, his family line was disgraced. So he felt allowed to comfort his official master. That did not prepare him for what happened next.
William turned his head to meet Will's eyes, and it had suddenly occurred to Will that they'd never been this close before. He also saw what he'd been trying to ignore for years, how something in the other man's gray eyes drew him in, as though he'd seen them before somewhere. They froze in their respective positions, William half-turned and Will with his hand on the other man's shoulder.
Before either of them had really registered it, one or both of them were moving forward, their lips crashing together. And a strange name was on the tip of Will's tongue that night, the two of them tangled together in the bed, but he swallowed it back. Because he couldn't understand where it had come from.
It was a sin, and a crime. They knew that. But they couldn't stop. It was as though they'd been waiting to discover this need for each other. And even when Henry tossed Mary aside, replacing her with her younger sister, the dark and dangerous Anne, they didn't stop. Then came the day when Mary walked in on them. Will would always remember the look in her eyes, shock that faded into something else. And her eyes... Like William's, they drew him, familiar somehow.
She wasn't bothered, after the immediate shock. “I've seen wilder in France, you know,” she told them hours later, the three of them sprawled nude over the bed. Will remembered how William had looked up, seen that Mary was not disgusted but intrigued, and then asked her with a smirk if she wanted to join them.
But William died. In the summer of 1527, the Sweat returned to England, an enemy no one could defeat. Mary was sent away with Will to escort her, and William only just managed to return to his family home before he died. Will held Mary as she cried for him, and swallowed his own tears. “I'll be here for you, Mary,” he whispered in her ear. “When you're ready, I'll be here. I'll always be here.”
He finally married her in 1532. They were wed in secret, and managed to keep it a secret for some time, before Mary fell pregnant and they had to confess. Banished from court by Mary's vindictive sister, who was now the Queen of England, they lived in the country together, in a small farmhouse. Until, of course, Anne's place became far less certain, and she needed anyone who might support her to be there.
They returned to court late in 1535, finding it much changed, shadowed by all the things that had happened. All the suffering that the King had put the court and country through, just so he could marry Mary's sister. Anne had not lived up to her part of the bargain, though, had not produced a son. And the vultures were circling.
When Anne was accused of adultery and witchcraft in May of 1536, Mary was desperate to help, even more so when her brother George was named as one of Anne's lovers. Even Will did not believe that - Anne, he felt, would do much to secure her position, but he did not think she would go that far. But he had to stop Mary from speaking out, pointing out harshly that all she would get for her pains would be to end up accused herself. “I know there are secrets, things that you never told me nor William, things you three Boleyns kept between yourselves. And you cannot risk them coming out now.”
“But they are my family, Will! Always, it has been the three of us! How can I turn my back on them now?”
“Because if you do not, you'll die beside them! Please, Mary, for our children, for me, please don't do this!”
In the end, she had said nothing, and he even believed she had forgiven him for making sure that she did not. They went to the executions, Mary saying that she had to, she had to be there. He didn't understand it, but he was there beside her, catching her when her knees gave out as the axe - or in Anne's case, the sword - fell.
He'd saved her from the executioner's blade, but he could not save her from the fever that had taken her away from him, taken her to William, leaving him alone. Will can't breathe through the pain, and he considers the fact that it doesn't really matter, if he commits one more sin. The priests would say he's been damned for a long time.
So he takes his horse out for one last ride, urging it to a jump that he knows is too much for its capabilities. They will think he was simply too reckless, grieving for his wife, that in the darkness he made a mistake. He is lost in grief for his wife, and for William, the scabbed-over wound of his death made fresh by the loss of Mary. But if all goes well, everyone will think he was a fool, and not realize that his death is a deliberate thing, because he cannot live alone. Henry and Catherine are adults, they will take care of their sister, his daughter. He can no longer be here, on this earth, not alone.
Flying through the air, the last thing he sees is not the stars in the sky or the woods gilded silver by moonlight, but a night at Hampton Court, standing on the sidelines and watching Mary dance with William, the two of them laughing and smiling. It's a memory, but at the last second it changes, and in his mind's eye they turn to him, each holding out a hand for him to take.
~ ~ ~
“Call time of dea - No, wait, we've got a pulse!”
Next part is here: fae-boleyn.livejournal.com/9471.html