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| Village Cowards | |
| By jaybug | ||||||||
| 11 November 2006 | ||||||||
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Enjoy. “I never thought you would tell him.” Her eyes staring blankly at the floor, the woman spoke almost absently as though still stunned by the news she had just been given. The man before her leapt to his knees in one prompt motion and exclaimed, the words bursting from his mouth: “Oh, but I have!” A hint of panic etched its way through his voice and the woman looked into the man’s piercing gaze. “Why?” She asked simply. Her voice was calm, yet a deep and unshakable sadness was rising from the bottom of her heart to make the tears in her eyes swell and glitter on her lashes. “Because I’m tired, can’t you see?” He asked pleadingly, “I’m tired of hiding.” “Now you have to hide!” She roared suddenly, standing edgily from the chair she had been sitting at; fury in her steps, “They’ll come for you after what you told them.” “The Royal Guards? Why would they? I spoke to the King, not to them.” The man said, rising from the ground, unnaturally poise. The woman’s back faced him, the dark curls of her hair curling just beneath her chin as she stared out the cabin’s window into the thicket of autumn leaves, her shoulders beginning to tremble in rhythm with her quiet sobs. “Elena.” The man murmured her name intending it to be a gentle word, but his throat felt tight and when he spoke his voice was rough, and abrasive. Elena turned away from the window and the calming tranquility of the forest just outside it, facing the man she found herself weeping for. “What will you do?” She inquired softly; clearing her throat of the tears she had shed and knew she could shed no more. “I am not leaving, though the King will most probably appoint another man to my task- ” “You are a fool, Alek.” Elena snapped abruptly, “If you stay, not only will you be discharged from his services, but you will be killed.” The man named Alek, royal courier to his King, was swiftly silent, keeping his gaze at distances from the woman’s own. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, as though not completely trusting his voice, he said: “I am sorry, Elena, if I’ve endangered you by what I have done.” Elena’s brows drew in and she feared she would begin to cry once again. Lifting a hand to her mouth, as to make her lips stop quivering, she murmured the question that had been tugging at her mind: “What did he say, when you told him?” “I left before he could reply.” The answer came quickly and instigated fear in both their hearts as they pondered at what he had done. Alek paused momentarily and, after a deep breath taken, spoke gently to the woman; visibly struggling to conceal her emotions: “We can still be together.” “We cannot.” Elena said bluntly, her eyes having suddenly gone frigid as the winter wind when it passed, “The King will have our heads, both.” Alek lowered his head, his eyes searching the ground almost frantically as though he had lost something and wanted to find it once again. The man opened his mouth as if he were to speak and then closed it, speechless and quite completely broken, apparently, flustered. Elena walked back to the chair and sat upon it, clasping her hands tightly in her lap; desperately trying to stop them from shaking. Her lips pinched firmly shut, Elena stared at Alek and flinched slightly just as he unexpectedly threw his head back to return the look as though he had felt her eyes upon him. A tear had slid down his face, leaving a trail of wetness to paint his skin. At other times, she would have brushed it away, but those times had gone and would never return. “I should go.” She spoke the words, barely a whisper. “I love you.” Alek hastily replied before she could stand and knelt before her just as he had done before, seizing her hands in his, “Please.” Feigning indifference, Elena slid her hands free of his and suppressing a shiver at the thought that she might never have them touch her again. Raising her brows in an air of apathy, she surprised herself by saying: “We must be strong, in times such as these.” Tenderness suddenly flooded her gaze as she looked upon the only man she had truly loved and murmured to him: “I do not blame you for what has happened.” Alek swiftly rose from the floor and, however desperate as he was in that very moment, smiled slightly, though his eyes seemed drowned in sorrow. “Could I possibly stop you from you leaving?” He asked though he knew what the answer would be. Elena shook her head, casting her eyes to the ground. “The King will be expecting me; his Queen is very rarely late.” She said. In two quick strides, Elena, Queen to his royal majesty, flung her arms around the man’s neck and rejoiced for the last time in the collision of her lips against his. “Goodbye, my love.” She breathed into his ear and, as suddenly as she had said it, was gone, slipping out the cabin’s door. ~*~ The King had known she would come, eventually. Therefore, when Elena stepped into the room, he was posted near the door in a chair, taller than he could ever be. Elena halted abruptly, slightly startled. “My Queen, have you finally decided to join me?” He asked charmingly, showing her the empty chair seated next to his. Averting her eyes from his, Elena inclined her head slightly as it was a custom and walked to the chair, sinking gratefully into its softness. An uncanny silence filled the room and, just as she was about to shatter it to pieces with a witty comment, the King spoke: “I can pretend it never happened.” Elena stiffened in the chair and her gaze darted to his immediately, but his eyes were fixed on the wall opposite him as though he were contemplating a puzzle. “I could make myself believe you had never loved any other man but me.” He stared at her suddenly, “But then that would be a lie, wouldn’t it?” Elena sat still, voiceless before the King’s disarming composure. I’m tired of hiding. She heard the words Alek had spoken buzzing in her ears and felt her temples throb with pain. She didn’t want to hide any more either. “I’ve loved him my whole life.” She whispered, drawing a sharp breath as she said it. “Could you forget him?” The King asked. His eyes seemed moist and vulnerable like she had never seen them before and in that instant, she pitied him. “I could.” She lied quietly. As though regaining the sudden strength he had lost, the King sprang from the chair and laid a gentle kiss on the woman’s forehead. Elena closed her eyes, biting down on her lip the way she always did when unusually fretful. “Goodnight then, my Queen.” He murmured and left the room. ~*~ Night had fallen upon the afternoon sky, the moon lurching upwards among the clouds. Elena stepped from her rooms, plunged into darkness as her feet touched the cold marble of the floor. Shivering with weariness, the woman leaned against the wall and clasped her eyes shut as if to stop the images from penetrating her skull. Images more somber than any of the deepest nights she had ever lived and more tempting than any desire. “What am I doing?” She asked herself in the emptiness of the hall, her voice sounding unbefitting in the ambient silence. Her skin felt clammy and feverish and she desperately wished her heart wouldn’t ache as badly as it did. A door stood jarringly at the end of the corridor in its wooden harshness. She knew who lay asleep in his bed on the other side. She had a present to offer him and clutched it to her breast as if it were some frail thing, which needed comfort. But it was not so. The thing was hard and as cold as the ground she stepped on, sharp and utterly deadly. The dagger’s hilt glinted in the slanting moonlight seeping through a window at the other extremity of the hall. Elena bit down on her fears, rising to her full height as she narrowed her sight upon the door and crept towards it slowly. The knob twisted left in her hold and pushed through. She saw his face silhouetted by the shadows of the night and walked to his bedside, her eyes never leaving his chest where his heart would be. If he has one, she thought cynically and regretted it almost immediately. This man had loved her more than she could have thought possible, but this was the only way for her of escaping the lies and deceptions that had gone on for far too long. She raised the dagger above her head in a sharp arch and whispered, her voice gone strangely emotionless: “I might have loved you, in another life. Goodnight, my King.” And the blade swept down upon the man. ~*~ Someone was knocking frantically on the cabin’s door. Alek staggered out of the bed, his heart drumming erratically against his chest. He had thought it better not to return to his personal rooms among the King’s staff and had stayed in this wooden shack he had come to hate in the midst of the forest and its stinging chilliness. “Who is it?” He called from inside the room. “It’s me, Alek.” A familiar voice called and he recognized it immediately, however distorted it seemed by panic and fear. Rushing for the door and unlatching it, he gathered Elena into his arms as she collapsed before him. She was trembling, murmuring words he could just barely hear as he strained his ears to the muffled sound of her cries. “What have I done? God forgive me and have mercy on my soul!” She shrieked. Alek grasped her shoulders in his hands and shook them slightly, forcing her gaze upon his. “What has happened, Elena?” He demanded brusquely as dread inched its way through him. Elena pushed her hands towards him and his eyes widened with terror at what he saw. Her slim fingers were drenched in blood where they curled around the hilt of a crimson-stained dagger. “I killed him, Alek. Killed him with this very dagger and watched as he died before my eyes.” The words spilled from the woman’s mouth in a mad frenzy. “Oh, Elena.” He cried and cradled her to his body as she clung to him in return. “I don’t want to hide anymore either.” She told him, trying to stop her words from quivering. “You’ll never have to, ever again.” He said. ~*~ The people had lost their King and they grieved for him in the Village Square where they would soon, in turn, lose their Queen. She stood, seemingly serene, wrists bonded tightly at her back, next to a man no one knew, who was being restrained in the same way. Soon. It would happen very soon. The noose was slung around their necks and it was only in that instant that they looked at each other, exchanging a glance more painful than any dagger could ever be. Their gazes met, revealing the truest love any man or woman had ever seen. A love so forbidden, it could never be forgotten. And it was then, as the people of the Village Square began to weep, not for the King but for them, that the time had come and it happened. Two lovers were hung in the Village Square, never again would they be cowards. THE END
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