i want to be brave, but the night goes up in flames Who: Lavitz fon Amell (+ NPCs) What: Promises are made to be broken. Where: Around, the Necrohol When: Spanning over nineteen years, ending tonight. Rating: PG-13 Status: Complete
He woke to her curls only once, to her beautiful, freckled face calm with sleep. Sunlight struck her hair with such ferocity, it might've been fire, flames licking his cheek as he stirred, woken by the sensation of her shifting. Of her fingers, warm and soft, skittering up his spine with the movement.
With his nose to the crown of her head, he breathed her in, memorizing the moment.
Closer she moved, until their bodies aligned, her bare knee colliding with his the move that woke her, tumble of curls coming alive as her head lifted. He was greeted with utterly endearing exhaustion as her lips pulled back into a smile, a breathless knife in his heart.
"You stayed," she whispered, her voice hoarse from sleep, and with only a flicker of a smile in response, he pressed in, nose to her own. As if sensing the uncertainty, she came alive with her hands, smoothing them over bicep and chest, to rest at his neck. To brush his jaw; to settle on his heartbeat. "You have to go," she continued, words thick. Heavy. "When?"
A ray of light illuminated the back of her head, curls white, and he sucked in a deep breath, recognizing what wasn't an accusation, but an acceptance. She knew it as well as he did: a noble of age to marry couldn't be fraternizing with, let alone bedding, a commoner. Not from his proud, unyielding family. There was no bitterness, no cruelty in her tone— just tired acknowledgement that within minutes, he'd need to leave her, again.
This was their cycle: together at night, alone and apart in the morning.
Gently he scooped up her hand, lips falling to her knuckles, taking in her warmth and softness. "Not now," he murmured, words certain. Resolute. "Just a little longer."
She shifted upward, brushing his nose with hers.
"When do I get to meet Nowe?" she inquired around a carrot; he choked most gracelessly on his juice, forcing a cheeky grin out of her. "Lav, if you could marry him, you would." Well. "He obviously means a lot to you; why can't I meet him?"
"It isn't that simple," he muttered into the rim of the mug, upon recovery.
Her brows went up. "Isn't it?"
A sigh, as ceramic hit the counter. "Joz, he can't know we're seeing each other because I don't want him to be in a position to doubt his own honor. Our friendship means he'd want to keep it to himself to protect us, but his honor says if he was asked upfront, he couldn't lie. If it slipped, even by accident, to my sister, he'd never be able to live with the guilt." Nowe Vancoor was too good a man to subject to that.
Jozlyn made a 'hmmm' sound from her stool, munching thoughtfully on her carrot stick, her fingertips tracing invisible patterns in the very same counter. Finally, she said, "Do you like him more than me? Do you want to invite him into our bed? It's pretty small, but we could make a sandwich out of you."
The suggestion was too baffling to gawk at, and too amusing to take seriously, but he made a face nonetheless. She laughed toward the ceiling, and unable to resist the sound, he sidled closer, waiting for her to reach out for his shirt, rest her cheek against his shoulder. His chin settled on hers in return, hand threading through her hair.
"It's more than that," he admitted, after a moment, relaxing as her fingers crept up his back.
"What is?"
"Me liking you."
There fell a pause, and for a terrifying, paralyzing moment, he considered that he'd said the wrong thing— but she was withdrawing, a smile forming at her lips. Her fingers grazed his chin, gently. "I more than just like you too," she whispered.
He cupped her face and returned the smile.
There were arms looping around his waist, a nose settling against the curve of his shoulder as he stood at the window, fingers inches away from potted violets. "Say something," she murmured, voice strangely hoarse. Pained. Everything he needed to say was written into stiff shoulderblades and still fingers, into quiet breathing and silence. It was the silence, as always, that spoke loudest.
Her voice softened. "Lav, please. Please look at me, or at least say a word, say anything." And then he was twisting, shifting in her arms. Hands cradled her jaw, pulling their faces closer, forehead to forehead.
"I don't know if I can make this work, Joz." If her words had been soft, his were lighter than feathers. "This is bigger than just you and I, and I can't let you live a life like—" Like a criminal, like someone who had done something wrong. As if he were ashamed of her, his dirty little secret, and that had never, not once, been the case.
She reached for him. "We could make it work. It's eight, nine months until then. No one sees you, no one asks question. You're a ghost," she finished, fingers stilling at his collarbone.
They fell silent to focus on the weight of it all, to revel in the presence of the other before it was gone in the blink of an eye. One wrong word or sighting, a slip of the tongue. A cover-up would be difficult, but she wasn't a noble, didn't understand the expectations or how the bar his family had set for him came so impossibly high, so high he could never touch it no matter how many ladders he stood on to get there.
And he loathed every fibre of his being knowing he would choose them over her in the end.
"I never wanted to be," he whispered. "I wanted it to be different." Encouraging hands grazed the back of his neck. "You deserve so much better, Joz. You deserve so much better than all of this."
The fierce blue of her eyes met his, and for a moment, he thought she might hit him. "Be quiet, right now. Do not put yourself down that way. Let them say whatever they want to say, but don't echo it back to me like it's fact," she warned him, touch sliding back to his face. "You're the kindest," a soft kiss, "funniest, most accidentally charming person I've ever met. I have all that I need right here, standing in front of me."
Quietly, she added, "I'll make it okay. I promise."
His eyes fell shut, and without a word, he brushed a kiss across her temple.
The wood of the floor was hard where he sat, spine aligned with the wall. Something heavy and bitter and obtrusive pulsed in his throat, threatening to rob him of air he'd been struggling to breathe for minutes. He watched them from across the room, following their movements with familiar numbness. Watching, waiting.
Inevitably, the man knelt next to him, hand settling upon his knee in silent, awkward comfort.
"Lavitz," he tried in a strained voice. "Do you want to see her?" No. "Ayla has had her all this time." Stop. "We're hoping to bring over a white mage, but we didn't... we thought you would like to name her. Before that happens."
"Lydia."
A pause. "Lydia?"
The knight dropped his skull into the wall, meeting the eyes of Jozlyn's mother and pointedly avoiding the bundled mass in her arms. He sucked in a breath.
"If it was a girl, she wanted to name her Lydia."
There was no surprise that her grave was being tended to by a head of familiar red hair. Six days after Faram's Mass, the anniversary always loomed, casting shadow; he should've expected them to be there, but the last they'd crossed paths was years ago, before Nowe's death.
The flowers hung by his side as the pair, looking so tired, approached. Ayla settled a hand across his bicep, throwing a glance to the huddled form rows ahead. The look said everything.
He was moving before he had the chance to stop his legs.
Nineteen years later, she was practically the spitting image of her mother: no curls, but red of hair, bright-eyed. The realization took his breath away as each leg was put forth before the other, almost mechanic. But she wasn't Jozlyn, never would be— she was dead and no doubt disappointed somewhere. Not once had he ever spoken to the girl he'd fathered, nor had he ever held her, touched her, faced her head on. It was enough to hate anyone for.
Letting people down was really, truly his only accomplishment.
The blue of her eyes held him in place upon a curious glance his way, tears lining her lashes, and the pressure in his chest returned, clamping hard. His grip tightened around the bouquet, each breath more painful than the one that preceded it. She looked so much like Jozlyn; the resemblance couldn't be denied. Guilt and self-hatred swam inside as he moved toward her, pausing at her side. From the ground, she sniffled.
"I know who you are," were her first paralyzing words, but rather than interjecting, he allowed her to continue. "I've seen you come here to her grave sometimes. Are those—" Another sniff. "They're her favorite, aren't they? The flowers."
Speech, by some miracle, eventually came. "Yeah," he murmured, unable to muster much else.
"What..." She dabbed at her nose with a sleeve; it was alarmingly familiar. "What do you say when you're alone? Do you say anything?"
When I don't choke, I tell her I'm sorry, had been his first thought, but he swallowed the urge, expelling a shaky breath. "It depends. I try." The words died in his throat, and slowly, cautiously, he knelt down to lay the bouquet at the base of the headstone. Her gaze quietly followed him, and when it seemed she'd opened her mouth to say more, she stood.
"I do, too, even though I know she won't answer back," she offered in parting, slipping past to join her grandparents. There was an opportunity for him to say more, to ask her to stay and talk, but fear kept him rooted in place, froze him to the spot, until—
"She was a good person. Your mother."
The words tumbled out unexpectedly, and she paused in her step.
Lydia murmured an I know before at last leaving him alone with the headstone. After the last of her footsteps had faded away and there was nothing left to distract him, he looked to the engraved name and drew out a hand, fingers gentle against the stone. Every year there was something for him to confess or apologize for, words he'd prepare for days and nearly lose to nerve to spill, but now he was quiet, nothing but a hiss of wind keeping him company.
Quietly, he reached up to the clasp at the base of his neck, undoing it to remove one ring from the chain— small and jeweled (a woman's ring). He parted snow and soil by the stone for a small hole in which to place it, numbly, tiredly covering it back up. Through the leather of his gloves, his fingers were ice.
A shift, to trace the J of her name. "You've always deserved better, and so does she. I never did the best that I could, even when I wanted to." To the Z. "So this is the best that I can do."