"The Trees, Beyond" - Shakespeare (As You Like It)
Title: The Trees, Beyond
Author: chudley_cannon
Recipient: alixtii
Fandom: As You Like It (Shakespeare)
Pairing: Rosalind/Celia
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,440
Notes: Takes place within the play, sometime after Oliver has delivered the handkerchief to Ganymede, and sometime before the end. Yes. If that makes any sense.
I.
I am deceitful. I am broken around the edges and there is a tightening in my belly as I watch Rosalind slip out of herself, slip into Ganymede. She is white and solid, flat planes falling over curves; I slide the curtain shut.
It is not the first time I have watched her, nor the last; indeed, I could not say this is the first time I have watched her since settling into the cottage where our plans take place. This is why I admit my deceit. This is why I admit my disgrace, for I have not accompanied Rosalind out of loyalty or devotion; if I have, it is a much more sordid form of both!
It is foul desire that has led me here, far from my father’s court, and although the foulness of my intentions is perhaps forgivable (that my dear coz has every reason to entrust me), the acting upon them is not; yet, here I sit, beside the curtain, her form inches away and yet so inscribed upon my mind that I need not pull the curtain back to know where the light will fall on her skin, where she will flush and where she will arch and bend.
I sit beside the curtain in my deceit.
II.
The Forest of Ardenne, where the leaves stick thick and the sunlight and moonlight are scattered and selective, slipping down from the trees; I had initially thought myself blind to it. Had it been anyone but Rosalind-indeed, had anyone but Rosalind asked me to accompany them-it would be ugly, to be sure. A dead thatch of forest, as exiled as Rosalind and her father.
And to that, as exiled as I am, too.
I turn, then, from the window of the cottage. Rosalind, emerging from the bedroom says, “Oliver draws near!”
“Nay, he has left.”
Rosalind’s removal of Ganymede is flawless, an effortless stepping out of character; I can nearly see it discarded on the floor like a dead letter. How the thought of it should make me flinch! How funny that my devotion to Rosalind should spread to the otherness of Ganymede!
It is with this thought that Rosalind’s next words are nearly missed:
“No? What passion draws your eye toward the window, if not your heart’s desire?”
“My heart’s desire, coz?”
“Oliver.”
“Aye,” say I, but this is all I will say. To pinpoint one’s own heart’s desire is foolish and, I realize with a flush, misplaced and quite possibly the very reason I find myself in this very cottage, in this very forest, far from a life that is reasonable and easy and without passion.
I can look at her for a bit, just for a bit; looking too long is a privilege. I am not fit to, yet often I look until it drives me mad, like a condition, like a disease. To what gain I do not know, but still I look.
And now I turn back to the window and Rosalind is behind me, has set her chin upon my shoulder. She is tall; there is a bend in her knees, then, to draw her nearer to me. She whispers, “’Tis something else, then. I will find out.”
I smile. “Were it not better that you not know at all?”
I am too brash, Rosalind too quick-witted. Comments do not pass her by, they only stick in her thoughts moments before she returns them. “Wouldst thou have me kept in the dark?” she asks, a murmur against my ear. I mean to turn from the window but cannot, for I know the placement of her lips too well. “If it be the fault of mine, I pray you tell me what I have done.”
“You have done nothing,” I reply with great difficulty, “and I do not wish to keep you in the dark, as you say.”
“Wouldst thou have me at all, then?” I am unprepared for the urgency in her words and choose not to respond. This is perhaps enough for her. Her warmth leaves me after a delay and she has retreated; “I will leave you to your own,” she says. Her tone is hurt.
III.
My Rosalind has fallen ill with grace. She is without fever or cough, but she is ill all the same, for Orlando has not come for days. Ganymede lurks wraithlike in the corners, hulking over our movements and measures, and has given her pause at times; I still see within her the defiance and forceful actions that I love, but she is her own race, her own sex, her own person-it seems she, just as any, can fall ill from love and weak from its aggression. I cannot touch it, I am unsure if I am allowed-whether I call myself Celia or Aliena, I am not allowed.
She sleeps now and I have crept ‘round the bed, have stolen into the air beside her. I have trailed my fingers across her cheek and now, and now-steady, steady-I am watching the quivering lips and holding my breath. To breathe now would be precarious; to eye my lovely Rosalind in all her flesh, in the form of her beneath the covers, without aid of candlelight or moon-still more precarious.
I hear shuffling yonder. It is Touchstone in the next room; precarious yet. I draw a breath in sudden haste and Rosalind awakes. I think to recoil, yet she has already drawn her fingers around my wrist and held me in place.
Her yawn nearly impedes her phrase: “’Tis you, Celia?” She moves to sit, pulling my hand with her.
“I’ faith, ‘tis I,” I answer breathlessly.
“I awoke from a dream,” she says and unhands me at last. This she does so that she can brush her fingers across her eyes and rid herself of sleep. I have grown comfortable with the darkness and can see her well, yet I sense she cannot see me as faithfully, and I take solace in that the flush of my cheeks and heaving breast are yet unnoticed.
“A dream, coz?”
“Aye, and one so clearly a dream I pray I should have waked sooner! Days we had waited for Orlando’s arrival, days at least, till we found him in the forest. And lo! for his eye had turned glassy and his blood had gathered beneath him. No amount of shaking could wake him, for we tried.”
I bite my lips. “Whence comes these dreams?”
Her expression says she does not know. It then softens from the hard tension of horror and she smiles lightly, lays her hand upon mine. “It is good, then, to awake to your face.”
Sometimes it is the satisfactory and not the sublime that ruffles my thoughts and turns my heart. I am drawn nearer to her and she puts her hands upon my face, brings me close to touch her lips upon mine. They quiver no more. I sigh in peace and allow her to stroke my hair, to settle my head upon her breast.
“Were I without you,” she says softly, “’twould be like death, like a dreamed death that was not a dream at all.”
IV.
I have become worse than mad with desire, I have become without thought. I have spoken inanely and frankly of Oliver-at her bidding, of course!-but have only replaced my thoughts of her with his name. In the crisp early morning as we lie in bed, Rosalind is forthright and speaks without stutter of what she desires to do with Orlando once they are married, if they are married, and even if not. I am helpless and reply that I would do all the same with Oliver (“For surely you love him, Celia!”) I feel no pride for the falsities I have lain here.
When I grow quiet, she turns near to me, her breath upon my ear. “Again you retreat. I shall get it out of you at last, for the deviltry of mistrust wounds me!”
I let myself look, just look at her. “I trust thee as I trust myself.”
There are no words on how little I trust myself in her presence, but she cannot know this, and smiles, satisfied. The smile has seduced me, will be there when I close my eyes, this lasting remnant of the satisfaction I wish always to give her.
“I do not mean to challenge your love for me,” she continues thoughtfully, “as you have oft challenged my love for you in the past. As you are dearer to me than any sister-nay, anyone, as only Orlando has rivaled my affection-I am often discontent with the quiet of your thoughts.” Her head falls upon my shoulder and her hand settles upon my hip; her words are a murmur into my skin. “’Tis nothing but idle unease; an ugly feeling, I admit.”
“If thou hath ugly thoughts, let them be ugly.” I do not mean to speak so fervently, but the heat betwixt our bodies has given sound to thoughtless words. “For you cannot be alone in having them.”
“I often wonder,” says Rosalind. She sounds faraway. “I often wonder how alone I am in many a thought, Celia.”
“Share them with me.”
“If thou wouldst share thine first!”
Perhaps I stiffen at the thought of it, for in a moment, she has lifted her head and met my eyes; her hand is firm and has drifted from hip to leg and coaxed from me a shudder.
“O my pretty coz,” she murmurs, her eyes wide. “Leave me with my words; they mean nothing.”
V.
The plan is in place. We are to meet the very next day for the wedding; I have been assured by my cousin that all is well, that she will marry Orlando, and I Oliver. “There is magic in this forest,” she says in a hushed whisper as we hurry back to the cottage, her eyes alight with mischief so well-placed upon her male disguise. “’Tis magic, not I! All will be set right.”
I cannot help but be sober. Once we are wed, we will be sisters, real sisters, and I wonder if the closeness will be more of a burden. True, the proximity is no different and the want no less-but sisters! And I, married!
Rosalind walks on air-nay, she dances on air, and the air is privileged for it. So long has she been touched with melancholy, it is almost too lovely to watch. In the cottage, she pulls me close, puts her cheek against mine. She hums and sings and laughs and I do the same.
“Rosalind,” I begin, wishing to allay a fear or two about marriage and knowing she is the best for it.
“O! but you have misspoke!” she cries. Her arm slips about my waist and she is flush against me. She prods me across the dusty floor of the cottage, urging me into a proper dance. “You have called me Rosalind; ‘tis not Rosalind, ‘tis Ganymede; marry, look at my attire and call upon me properly this time.”
She leads, I follow, the light-footed step across the floor. To see her up close, this happy, should bring me delight. It does, to some measure, yet still…
“You cannot be Ganymede forever,” I say.
“And will not,” she agrees, slowing our dance and touching my hair. “And tomorrow, you may not think me Rosalind, either, for I will only be married to Orlando.”
“It is not all you will be,” I hiss, perhaps too harshly. We stop altogether, her arm slips from my waist. Rosalind’s eyes have fallen dark. I have spoken too much and bow my head.
After a moment, she says, “I spoke in jest, dear cousin. I do not wish only to be the wife of Orlando; ‘tis a lonely title to bear.”
How sullen and lovely she is! How stubborn and beautiful, to fall from high to low, I had not realized. The exhilaration from before has settled around her. She frowns, but the light cannot leave her eyes.
By virtue of my own foolishness, I retreat and wish to be alone. Leave her with her thoughts, she has said in the past; I shall leave her with her thoughts of Orlando.
VI.
She does not leave me alone for very long. She is still disguised when she follows me to the bedroom, halting at the doorway to look at me.
“I have something to confess to thee,” she admits at long last.
“I pray you,” I say, surly as a child, “do not tell me.”
She smiles as she has previously, as she has always. “I cannot by thy deceiver. I confess that I have coveted you of late.”
I hope she will not come nearer, and still hope she will. I press against the bed, but do not sit. I do not speak.
“So perfectly have I coveted you that my Orlando hath oft rid himself from my mind, though not completely; just as you do not leave completely. Alas, ‘tis addling and ill-making, but I had hoped ‘twas not only me.”
The breath leaves me as she advances. I imagine this must be a dream and expect blood, much like the dreams of Rosalind-if false, this shall not end well.
“Rosalind,” I begin, but she has come close enough to touch me, to embrace me and press her fingers insistent against the small of my back.
“If you like,” she persists, “I am not Rosalind. If you like, dear Celia, I am Ganymede. Wilt thou have me, then? If I am not myself, wilt thou have me?”
Her fingers curl and grasp my garb at the waist. My lips are unsteady as they meet hers, warm and wet and sure; as surely as I have seized her wrist in my hand, as surely as we find the bed and fall upon it, as surely as her lips tracing my jaw to my ear; “My dear coz,” she sighs, “my dear Celia”; my shepherdess clothes tugged and removed and the soft breath against my neck.
I remove from her Ganymede; the disguise falls to the floor. I am acquainted with her lips again, with cool thighs that are not cool at all, are hot, as warm and quivering as the rest of her is solid and sure.
I am exanimate for a brief moment at the crest, and when I have come down, Rosalind has left me broken around the edges. I sleep and do not dream, for tomorrow we will both be married.
Author: chudley_cannon
Recipient: alixtii
Fandom: As You Like It (Shakespeare)
Pairing: Rosalind/Celia
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,440
Notes: Takes place within the play, sometime after Oliver has delivered the handkerchief to Ganymede, and sometime before the end. Yes. If that makes any sense.
I.
I am deceitful. I am broken around the edges and there is a tightening in my belly as I watch Rosalind slip out of herself, slip into Ganymede. She is white and solid, flat planes falling over curves; I slide the curtain shut.
It is not the first time I have watched her, nor the last; indeed, I could not say this is the first time I have watched her since settling into the cottage where our plans take place. This is why I admit my deceit. This is why I admit my disgrace, for I have not accompanied Rosalind out of loyalty or devotion; if I have, it is a much more sordid form of both!
It is foul desire that has led me here, far from my father’s court, and although the foulness of my intentions is perhaps forgivable (that my dear coz has every reason to entrust me), the acting upon them is not; yet, here I sit, beside the curtain, her form inches away and yet so inscribed upon my mind that I need not pull the curtain back to know where the light will fall on her skin, where she will flush and where she will arch and bend.
I sit beside the curtain in my deceit.
II.
The Forest of Ardenne, where the leaves stick thick and the sunlight and moonlight are scattered and selective, slipping down from the trees; I had initially thought myself blind to it. Had it been anyone but Rosalind-indeed, had anyone but Rosalind asked me to accompany them-it would be ugly, to be sure. A dead thatch of forest, as exiled as Rosalind and her father.
And to that, as exiled as I am, too.
I turn, then, from the window of the cottage. Rosalind, emerging from the bedroom says, “Oliver draws near!”
“Nay, he has left.”
Rosalind’s removal of Ganymede is flawless, an effortless stepping out of character; I can nearly see it discarded on the floor like a dead letter. How the thought of it should make me flinch! How funny that my devotion to Rosalind should spread to the otherness of Ganymede!
It is with this thought that Rosalind’s next words are nearly missed:
“No? What passion draws your eye toward the window, if not your heart’s desire?”
“My heart’s desire, coz?”
“Oliver.”
“Aye,” say I, but this is all I will say. To pinpoint one’s own heart’s desire is foolish and, I realize with a flush, misplaced and quite possibly the very reason I find myself in this very cottage, in this very forest, far from a life that is reasonable and easy and without passion.
I can look at her for a bit, just for a bit; looking too long is a privilege. I am not fit to, yet often I look until it drives me mad, like a condition, like a disease. To what gain I do not know, but still I look.
And now I turn back to the window and Rosalind is behind me, has set her chin upon my shoulder. She is tall; there is a bend in her knees, then, to draw her nearer to me. She whispers, “’Tis something else, then. I will find out.”
I smile. “Were it not better that you not know at all?”
I am too brash, Rosalind too quick-witted. Comments do not pass her by, they only stick in her thoughts moments before she returns them. “Wouldst thou have me kept in the dark?” she asks, a murmur against my ear. I mean to turn from the window but cannot, for I know the placement of her lips too well. “If it be the fault of mine, I pray you tell me what I have done.”
“You have done nothing,” I reply with great difficulty, “and I do not wish to keep you in the dark, as you say.”
“Wouldst thou have me at all, then?” I am unprepared for the urgency in her words and choose not to respond. This is perhaps enough for her. Her warmth leaves me after a delay and she has retreated; “I will leave you to your own,” she says. Her tone is hurt.
III.
My Rosalind has fallen ill with grace. She is without fever or cough, but she is ill all the same, for Orlando has not come for days. Ganymede lurks wraithlike in the corners, hulking over our movements and measures, and has given her pause at times; I still see within her the defiance and forceful actions that I love, but she is her own race, her own sex, her own person-it seems she, just as any, can fall ill from love and weak from its aggression. I cannot touch it, I am unsure if I am allowed-whether I call myself Celia or Aliena, I am not allowed.
She sleeps now and I have crept ‘round the bed, have stolen into the air beside her. I have trailed my fingers across her cheek and now, and now-steady, steady-I am watching the quivering lips and holding my breath. To breathe now would be precarious; to eye my lovely Rosalind in all her flesh, in the form of her beneath the covers, without aid of candlelight or moon-still more precarious.
I hear shuffling yonder. It is Touchstone in the next room; precarious yet. I draw a breath in sudden haste and Rosalind awakes. I think to recoil, yet she has already drawn her fingers around my wrist and held me in place.
Her yawn nearly impedes her phrase: “’Tis you, Celia?” She moves to sit, pulling my hand with her.
“I’ faith, ‘tis I,” I answer breathlessly.
“I awoke from a dream,” she says and unhands me at last. This she does so that she can brush her fingers across her eyes and rid herself of sleep. I have grown comfortable with the darkness and can see her well, yet I sense she cannot see me as faithfully, and I take solace in that the flush of my cheeks and heaving breast are yet unnoticed.
“A dream, coz?”
“Aye, and one so clearly a dream I pray I should have waked sooner! Days we had waited for Orlando’s arrival, days at least, till we found him in the forest. And lo! for his eye had turned glassy and his blood had gathered beneath him. No amount of shaking could wake him, for we tried.”
I bite my lips. “Whence comes these dreams?”
Her expression says she does not know. It then softens from the hard tension of horror and she smiles lightly, lays her hand upon mine. “It is good, then, to awake to your face.”
Sometimes it is the satisfactory and not the sublime that ruffles my thoughts and turns my heart. I am drawn nearer to her and she puts her hands upon my face, brings me close to touch her lips upon mine. They quiver no more. I sigh in peace and allow her to stroke my hair, to settle my head upon her breast.
“Were I without you,” she says softly, “’twould be like death, like a dreamed death that was not a dream at all.”
IV.
I have become worse than mad with desire, I have become without thought. I have spoken inanely and frankly of Oliver-at her bidding, of course!-but have only replaced my thoughts of her with his name. In the crisp early morning as we lie in bed, Rosalind is forthright and speaks without stutter of what she desires to do with Orlando once they are married, if they are married, and even if not. I am helpless and reply that I would do all the same with Oliver (“For surely you love him, Celia!”) I feel no pride for the falsities I have lain here.
When I grow quiet, she turns near to me, her breath upon my ear. “Again you retreat. I shall get it out of you at last, for the deviltry of mistrust wounds me!”
I let myself look, just look at her. “I trust thee as I trust myself.”
There are no words on how little I trust myself in her presence, but she cannot know this, and smiles, satisfied. The smile has seduced me, will be there when I close my eyes, this lasting remnant of the satisfaction I wish always to give her.
“I do not mean to challenge your love for me,” she continues thoughtfully, “as you have oft challenged my love for you in the past. As you are dearer to me than any sister-nay, anyone, as only Orlando has rivaled my affection-I am often discontent with the quiet of your thoughts.” Her head falls upon my shoulder and her hand settles upon my hip; her words are a murmur into my skin. “’Tis nothing but idle unease; an ugly feeling, I admit.”
“If thou hath ugly thoughts, let them be ugly.” I do not mean to speak so fervently, but the heat betwixt our bodies has given sound to thoughtless words. “For you cannot be alone in having them.”
“I often wonder,” says Rosalind. She sounds faraway. “I often wonder how alone I am in many a thought, Celia.”
“Share them with me.”
“If thou wouldst share thine first!”
Perhaps I stiffen at the thought of it, for in a moment, she has lifted her head and met my eyes; her hand is firm and has drifted from hip to leg and coaxed from me a shudder.
“O my pretty coz,” she murmurs, her eyes wide. “Leave me with my words; they mean nothing.”
V.
The plan is in place. We are to meet the very next day for the wedding; I have been assured by my cousin that all is well, that she will marry Orlando, and I Oliver. “There is magic in this forest,” she says in a hushed whisper as we hurry back to the cottage, her eyes alight with mischief so well-placed upon her male disguise. “’Tis magic, not I! All will be set right.”
I cannot help but be sober. Once we are wed, we will be sisters, real sisters, and I wonder if the closeness will be more of a burden. True, the proximity is no different and the want no less-but sisters! And I, married!
Rosalind walks on air-nay, she dances on air, and the air is privileged for it. So long has she been touched with melancholy, it is almost too lovely to watch. In the cottage, she pulls me close, puts her cheek against mine. She hums and sings and laughs and I do the same.
“Rosalind,” I begin, wishing to allay a fear or two about marriage and knowing she is the best for it.
“O! but you have misspoke!” she cries. Her arm slips about my waist and she is flush against me. She prods me across the dusty floor of the cottage, urging me into a proper dance. “You have called me Rosalind; ‘tis not Rosalind, ‘tis Ganymede; marry, look at my attire and call upon me properly this time.”
She leads, I follow, the light-footed step across the floor. To see her up close, this happy, should bring me delight. It does, to some measure, yet still…
“You cannot be Ganymede forever,” I say.
“And will not,” she agrees, slowing our dance and touching my hair. “And tomorrow, you may not think me Rosalind, either, for I will only be married to Orlando.”
“It is not all you will be,” I hiss, perhaps too harshly. We stop altogether, her arm slips from my waist. Rosalind’s eyes have fallen dark. I have spoken too much and bow my head.
After a moment, she says, “I spoke in jest, dear cousin. I do not wish only to be the wife of Orlando; ‘tis a lonely title to bear.”
How sullen and lovely she is! How stubborn and beautiful, to fall from high to low, I had not realized. The exhilaration from before has settled around her. She frowns, but the light cannot leave her eyes.
By virtue of my own foolishness, I retreat and wish to be alone. Leave her with her thoughts, she has said in the past; I shall leave her with her thoughts of Orlando.
VI.
She does not leave me alone for very long. She is still disguised when she follows me to the bedroom, halting at the doorway to look at me.
“I have something to confess to thee,” she admits at long last.
“I pray you,” I say, surly as a child, “do not tell me.”
She smiles as she has previously, as she has always. “I cannot by thy deceiver. I confess that I have coveted you of late.”
I hope she will not come nearer, and still hope she will. I press against the bed, but do not sit. I do not speak.
“So perfectly have I coveted you that my Orlando hath oft rid himself from my mind, though not completely; just as you do not leave completely. Alas, ‘tis addling and ill-making, but I had hoped ‘twas not only me.”
The breath leaves me as she advances. I imagine this must be a dream and expect blood, much like the dreams of Rosalind-if false, this shall not end well.
“Rosalind,” I begin, but she has come close enough to touch me, to embrace me and press her fingers insistent against the small of my back.
“If you like,” she persists, “I am not Rosalind. If you like, dear Celia, I am Ganymede. Wilt thou have me, then? If I am not myself, wilt thou have me?”
Her fingers curl and grasp my garb at the waist. My lips are unsteady as they meet hers, warm and wet and sure; as surely as I have seized her wrist in my hand, as surely as we find the bed and fall upon it, as surely as her lips tracing my jaw to my ear; “My dear coz,” she sighs, “my dear Celia”; my shepherdess clothes tugged and removed and the soft breath against my neck.
I remove from her Ganymede; the disguise falls to the floor. I am acquainted with her lips again, with cool thighs that are not cool at all, are hot, as warm and quivering as the rest of her is solid and sure.
I am exanimate for a brief moment at the crest, and when I have come down, Rosalind has left me broken around the edges. I sleep and do not dream, for tomorrow we will both be married.