Post by Eurydice on May 26, 2007 23:40:03 GMT -5
Maura looked at her father, and asked the first of two questions that had been burning in her mind since their first meeting. “When did you know you were going to stop her?”
She watched Bryant as he stared straight ahead and was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was almost flat. “When she sent me to fetch her sword. When she reminded me that I was sworn to protect her. When I realized the person I was talking to had ceased to be the woman I was meant to protect a long time ago.”
Maura looked at him, impassive, and after a space of silence, asked him the other question that had been turning itself over in her mind. “When did you know you loved her?”
The silence that followed was heavy, deafening.
Bryant laughed quietly, a forced, humorless laugh. Another silence. “You have to be more specific, Maura. In this lifetime? The innocent and shaky love we shared growing up together? The bond that formed between us after everything fell apart—”
“What’s the first thing that came to mind when I asked?”
“When she was purged,” he said, after a beat. “Even when we hated each other, through our bond as kentomin, I always knew she was… somewhere. Okay. Until she was purged. I woke up and felt her absence and felt like my soul had been torn out.” He trailed off, tried to speak again. “Seeing her alive, after…” He fell silent again, closing his eyes.
She felt strangely detached, watching him through all of this. She should have felt pity for him, remorse for bringing it up, but she felt nothing. She could only watch him, impassive and intent.
Hands went up to cover his eyes; when he spoke, she could hear the effort it took him to speak steadily and how close it was to breaking. “You should go to sleep, Maura.”
Maura stood slowly. “Good night, father.”
She turned before she left the practice yard. Standing by her father, she saw the lady, watching him, hands clenched at her sides, tears streaming down her face, a simple white dress pressing against her slender form. Almost as soon as Maura registered who she was, she was gone.
***
Maura did not sleep. She stretched out on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and waited for her father’s inevitable footsteps to sound in the hall outside, echoing gently throughout the keep, lulling her to sleep. It was nearly two hours later that she realized belatedly that she had been listening and listening and still was not hearing anything.
Wandering out to the practice yard, she found him where she left him, sitting off to the side, painted in starlight and shadow.
She approached and didn’t try to move quietly, making sure he knew she was there. “Bryant?”
He inclined his head slightly in her direction, but his face was still shadowed. “Yes, Maura?”
Maura opened her mouth to speak and realized she had no idea what she was going to say. He looked so completely alone, sitting there, the sword laid across his lap. She thought about the lady standing there beside him, white dress soaking up moonlight, weeping over him, but not reaching out to touch him. What could she possibly say?
“You should sleep,” she said softly.
Bryant nodded slightly, face still hidden. “I know.”
Of course, he didn’t move.
Maura watched him sit there a moment longer and then quietly padded across the stone floor to sit beside him.
He said nothing, and he didn’t shrink away from her or even look angry or upset with her, which she had expected. He just sat there, blank and unmoving. The long shadows of the dreamscape night did not entirely mask the fact that he had been crying. With the sword, he looked almost like a watchman, sitting there on guard against the merciless wave of memories that threatened to overwhelm him completely, on watch lest another flood of memories approach.
Maura sat with him in silence, sharing the watch.
The night crept on.