For the world's more full of weeping...
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand
It was hard to know the exact moment when this place became her home. Was it when she left Henry the first time, fled from those she did not want to have around her to her place of solitude. Was it when she painted each wall, echoing her own desires and will into each small movement of the brush. Or was it before that, as she knelt in her bedroom over the dying body of her mentor.
In the later afternoon sun, she sat under the tree and reflected on this, her home. When she was young, she had longed to be free of this place, longed to be able to have those small things she considered important above all others. The freedom to read a book, the chance to have a moment to just sit and think. She had all that and more now, but had learned that they were as nothing to what she must pay for those small things.
Constance could never forget the pain that had shaped her, here. All the nights she had cried herself to sleep, until she learned that tears mean nothing, that the pain would always be there. There, on the porch where Dominic burned her hidden books to punish her for the sin of independent though. Staggered against the wall of the living room, hearing Chelsea’s words of reassurance, still in shock from the knowledge that she was pregnant. Tears in the kitchen, as her mind shattered under Verdani’s harsh words. The front hall, where Hadrian had raped her, so that she might become his creature.
The child had learned to bear the pain, and became a woman in spite of everything. Holding all the secrets close, holding the knowledge that no one wanted her to share. And yet in the end she was tired of it all, tired of the fight to make things better again.
Her vision shifted, showing the figure standing just over her shoulder in her contemplations. No longer the fury of a few nights past, it is just there, watching her. Constance turned to looks at her for a moment, seeing a change in the others eyes that she had just recently come to know in herself.
“How long?”
The voice that answered was cool, “Not long now.”
“My dreams.”
“Yes. One last battle to fight.”
Constance sighs, looking across the small space of grass. “Good. I’m tired of this.” The moment stretched out, silence heavy with everything not said but understood. After a while, she spoke again. “I’m surprised you are not trying to change my mind about Blythe.”
“You do not love him.”
She turns to look at her avatar, slight smile on her face as the cold, serene eyes gazed back. “Perhaps. But there is the love of a friend for another. That is enough.”
“That matters not. He can not hurt us.”
“True.”
The silence stretched out, leaving the two of them in simple companionship. Constance did not know when the figure near her faded, but kept watching the sky. A for a moment, she felt whole again
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand
It was hard to know the exact moment when this place became her home. Was it when she left Henry the first time, fled from those she did not want to have around her to her place of solitude. Was it when she painted each wall, echoing her own desires and will into each small movement of the brush. Or was it before that, as she knelt in her bedroom over the dying body of her mentor.
In the later afternoon sun, she sat under the tree and reflected on this, her home. When she was young, she had longed to be free of this place, longed to be able to have those small things she considered important above all others. The freedom to read a book, the chance to have a moment to just sit and think. She had all that and more now, but had learned that they were as nothing to what she must pay for those small things.
Constance could never forget the pain that had shaped her, here. All the nights she had cried herself to sleep, until she learned that tears mean nothing, that the pain would always be there. There, on the porch where Dominic burned her hidden books to punish her for the sin of independent though. Staggered against the wall of the living room, hearing Chelsea’s words of reassurance, still in shock from the knowledge that she was pregnant. Tears in the kitchen, as her mind shattered under Verdani’s harsh words. The front hall, where Hadrian had raped her, so that she might become his creature.
The child had learned to bear the pain, and became a woman in spite of everything. Holding all the secrets close, holding the knowledge that no one wanted her to share. And yet in the end she was tired of it all, tired of the fight to make things better again.
Her vision shifted, showing the figure standing just over her shoulder in her contemplations. No longer the fury of a few nights past, it is just there, watching her. Constance turned to looks at her for a moment, seeing a change in the others eyes that she had just recently come to know in herself.
“How long?”
The voice that answered was cool, “Not long now.”
“My dreams.”
“Yes. One last battle to fight.”
Constance sighs, looking across the small space of grass. “Good. I’m tired of this.” The moment stretched out, silence heavy with everything not said but understood. After a while, she spoke again. “I’m surprised you are not trying to change my mind about Blythe.”
“You do not love him.”
She turns to look at her avatar, slight smile on her face as the cold, serene eyes gazed back. “Perhaps. But there is the love of a friend for another. That is enough.”
“That matters not. He can not hurt us.”
“True.”
The silence stretched out, leaving the two of them in simple companionship. Constance did not know when the figure near her faded, but kept watching the sky. A for a moment, she felt whole again