Staring at shards and distant stars

Fitz and I slept side by side every night. It was how I gauged that all was well between us. On the best of evenings, we would crawl wordlessly into the bed I'd built for myself- for us both, if I was being more honest than I ought- and sleep back to back, his heat warming me and my presence doing Sa only knew what for him. That is where we'd both remain until I awoke and crept from the bed to begin chores or ablutions or to sit and stare into space until Fitz awoke too, and I had to pretend to be a person again.

When I woke with my body curled toward him, the cat in my arms, I'd know my sleep had been uneasy but bearable, rife with unsettling imagery and sporadic bouts of wakefulness that I eerily could not recall. Those mornings, I stayed in bed longer than I needed to and let Fitz arise first, hoping that he would not notice. 

Most times, that hope was in vain, but he was merciful enough not to mention it directly. He tended to jest with me foolishly and treat me a bit more kindly after nights like that, probably in some well-meant bid to ease me. It very seldom did.

Whenever I awoke in his arms, the night had been a terrible one, littered with nightmares and memories of a horror I still could not fully accept I had lived and died and now lived through once more. Usually, I'd be coated in sweat with salty, dried grit in my eyes, disgusting, exhausted, and as weak as the kitten that so often slept between us in the blankets. 

Those mornings, there was nothing left to say, for I'd already shown my hand to him entirely the night before, and could only live with the wreckage left in such a grim aftermath. Ironically, those were also the mornings I woke feeling the safest, the warmest, and the most treasured and cared for. It was painful to leave his arms those mornings, tremendously so, a misery so tangible that it bordered on physical agony. It would have been easier if I didn't keep accepting that temporary surcease, but I found that I could never seem to refuse the momentary comfort those steady arms offered.

During the daylight, things were different between us. Mundane, usually. Pleasant, often enough. We lived in Farrow, in a cabin nestled in the middle of a birch forest, secluded and cozy, with a river nearby. We grew our own crops, a thing Fitz knew much about and that I recalled quickly with very little practice, for I'd been raised doing the same. He hunted for our meat and both of us fished. I wove and carved. He cared for the horses and chickens. I shepherded the goats and thought of my parents while I did. 

In the mornings, we'd garden together. In the evenings when our work was done, we'd share drinks beside the fire. We ate our meals side by side and told each other stories we'd both already heard and jokes that wouldn't have been funny to anyone but the two of us. We never spoke of difficult things if we could help it. Everything was difficult enough as it was. He tended to my injuries and never made a fuss about it, although he fussed, in general, over me. I did my best not to resent him for it.

I knitted him warm things once winter came, and made a coverlet for our bed in the style of my homeland. Sometimes, when I had strength enough, I'd sing. Sometimes, if he had drunk enough to be brave, Fitz would join me. I liked those nights. It was a quiet life, and an unremarkable one. It was a life I did not deserve to be living, and certainly never beside him. I suffered. He cared for me. He suffered, and I tried to do the same for him. 

I never knew what exactly might set the bad nights off. It could be a million things, or nothing at all. In the beginning, merely closing my eyes seemed to be enough to invite them. As time went on, the frequency of those night terrors spaced themselves out a bit more tolerably, giving me moments to breathe between skirmishes. Then some small, innocuous happenstance might arise and I'd have two in a row, or six, or ten. 

Once, in the earliest part of the winter, just after the first snowfall, I had an entire sleepless fortnight of nightmares, each one worse than the last. By the end of them, I was so gaunt and skittish and fearful that Fitz had forced me to sleep by day, heedless of my beastly ill humor, sitting beside me in the bed for long stretches of time and rubbing slow, gentle circles across my shoulders between chores, humming tonelessly and keeping watch so that I might rest. 

It had been on the heels of that attack that he'd brought the cat to me. "To guard you when I cannot," he told me, scratching the tiny kitten beneath its chin. "I don't know about that. He seems a bit small for the job," I'd remarked skeptically, though the kitten's purring did set me at ease in a peaceful, simple sort of way. 

"That's what you think. But he'll grow. Besides, he's got a survivor's spirit. He'll be a mighty hunter someday, this one," Fitz told me seriously, petting the kitten's soft brown ears and smiling faintly when the kitten yawned in response. "A very mighty hunter, indeed."

Realder, I had called him. It was, in a way, a private joke between my Catalyst and me, for Fitz was my King Realder, and I his prophet Salt. Thus, this cat was named after the man who'd brought him to me and to honor Girl-on-the-Dragon both. I doubted Fitz understood my implication. He rarely did, if such a thing might upset him. But I knew, and such knowledge pleased me, and besides all that, Realder suited the little tabby rather well. 

The cat was kingly and dignified, even as a bumbling, clumsy babe. In him, I found traces and caught glimpses of my own dignity, a thing that I'd thought was lost forever. But as Realder grew, I began to regain bits and pieces of it alongside him. When a small thing needs you, it can smooth over more pain than one might realize. When a small being makes you its world, all the better, for if you wish for its world to be good, you must be good as well. So I was good for the cat, and brave, and gentle, and in that gentleness, I found I still had a bit left to spare for myself, as well. And the gentler I was, the less afraid I became. 

But I was still very, very afraid.

I do not know what exactly brought the terror on that night. The day began simply enough. I woke with Fitz at my back, stretching hugely but quietly, his leg twitching as a hound's might do when you pet just right behind its ear. The air was cooler than it had been, for spring came very early in Farrow, a thing I was pathetically grateful for, for reasons mostly cowardly. Less snow to look at. Less ice to remind me of her. 

Perhaps the unexpected bite in the air was what did it. I did not think it would be at the time as I donned my quilted purple tunic and braided back my hair to help Fitz in the yard. "It's cold, Fool," he told me, slipping on the pair of mittens I'd made for him that Winterfest as a thank you for my cat. They were a measly token in comparison to my cherished companion, but Fitz wore them every day all the same, and had told me he liked the color I'd chosen for them. 

I'd thought he might. They were red, after all. I knew he'd always favored the shade. I wondered, sometimes, if they ever made him think of her, his Molly Redskirts. I told myself that I would not mind if they did. Perhaps I had even chosen the hue purposefully so that he would. 

"You should stay inside. Make breakfast while I see to the animals. There's no use in us both freezing our hides off," he continued softly. He always spoke so softly to me now, as if he thought a louder tone might break me in some irreparable way. I felt a strange resentment toward that. I was already broken. Nothing he did could possibly be worse than what had already been done to me. Besides, the person who'd been shattered was no weak child. If nothing else, I still had my fortitude. I wished he'd have but a little faith in me. Then again, I doubted in his position, having seen what he had, that I would have been able to find it in myself to believe in me, either. 

So instead of arguing, I said, "If you'd rather freeze your ass off alone than with company, be my guest. Bring back some eggs from the hen house on your way in if they've laid any." He had brought me three of them, a winter windfall, and I'd cooked them with some dried herbs and mushrooms we'd foraged that fall and some cheese he'd brought back from his last visit with Lady Patience. Then I'd spent the remainder of the morning and the early afternoon knitting him a hat to match his mittens with the last of the red yard as Realder frolicked amidst the skeins not in use. 

Fitz sat a little way off from us before the fireplace, frowning down at some paper and scratching away with his quill, and I did my best not to watch him longingly, for he looked so particularly beautiful then, deep in thought, that my heart could scarcely bear it. "Copper for your thoughts?" I finally asked him, when I could take his heavy sighs and knitted brows no longer. 

He glanced up, stared vacantly at me for a moment, then rubbed his temple with an ink-stained forefinger and said, "Nothing worth the price, I'm afraid." "I doubt that very much," I told him, then tossed him the hat. "Won't help your cold ass any, but that should keep your ears from freezing off, at least," I added, and he smiled at me, shaking his head. "Red again?" he asked, and I forced a smile in return, my chest suddenly burning in the wake of his innocent observation. "To match your mittens," I explained, looking at the empty mantel behind his head. 

"Ah," Fitz replied, and at first, I thought that was to be the end of it. "It's a cheerful color," he tacked on needlessly after a moment's awkward silence. "You should make yourself something to match it." "Red's never suited me," I replied with unconvincing lightness. "But it looks very well on you. Compliments you nicely."

"Thanks," Fitz said, then added, "Realder! Stay out of my inks. Go back to hunting the yarn." He grinned up at me with amusement, clearly oblivious to my watery internal distress, then scooped up the kitten and deposited him into my lap. "Your cat," he said as he did. "Our cat," I replied, watching how carefully he stroked his finger along the length of Realder's little spine, smiling in fascination when the tabby arched into the touch. "Whatever you say," Fitz replied, flushing a bit, "But he's mostly just yours."

Despite Fitz's warnings about cold weather, I joined him outdoors that afternoon, for the ground was still soft enough for us to till our garden plot, so that is what we did, readying the soil for all the spring planting that would soon need to be done. It was dirty work, and by the end of it, I was sorely in need of a bath. My tired shoulders did not wish to carry the bath water inside, however, so I decided to follow Fitz's example for once and wash with the cool overflow of the rain barrel. Looking back, that decision, I think, was what truly brought my night terrors on. 

The water was capped over with a thin scrim of ice, which Fitz unceremoniously broke. He ladled us each out a bucketful to scrub off our chilled, dirty arms, then plunged his hands into his without pause, grimacing at the cold but continuing on despite it doggedly. 

Not to be outdone by his stoicism, I went to do the same, but the moment my fingers grazed the frigid water, I lost my breath and my senses entirely and gripped hold of the bucket's rim with bloodless fingers. Some of the cold water seeped over my nails and I realized one had split shallowly when we'd been working. The sting brought to mind Ilistore's face as she'd pulled the first fingernail from my hand, and suddenly I was heaving, a tense, cold sort of nausea slithering down my spine. 

"Fool?" Fitz said, immediately on high alert. "Fool, what is it? What's wrong?" "Nothing," I lied feebly, and he cast a disbelieving look at me and then prised the bucket forcefully out of my quivering hands.

"This water is no good. I'm going to heat some of it up for a real bath. You should use it first. You're always cleaner than I am," he said gruffly, and then wrapped a bracing hand around my wrist warrior style and yanked me to my feet. He darted a glance down at my cracked nail. "Go in and take down the tub," he bid me, patting my elbow with false heartiness. All at once, I wanted to fling myself into his arms and bury my face in his neck. He'd probably have let me. I refrained all the same. Dignity. It turned out I really did have some left to spare, after all.

Shame at my own weakness followed me as I lowered myself gingerly into the steaming tub of water later that night. Fitz, for some strange reason, had requested that this tub be brought from Tradeford to our cabin at once when first we'd relocated here. It was just about the only thing he'd bothered with procuring, which was odd, because more often than not he simply washed up using a basin or outside in the rain barrel. 

I wondered, sometimes, if he'd ordered it specifically for me, and then castigated myself ruthlessly for the fatuousness and delusion that pointless musing required. More likely, it was only because he thought I could not build a bathing tub myself. Fitz did not give gifts, and he certainly never gave them to me. Well, except for the earring, though I'd all but cornered him into that. And the cat, I comforted myself. He had given me the cat.

That was probably why I loved the little creature so much, besides all the other reasons I loved him already. But the fact that he was from Fitz rendered him a treasure most rare, and I treated him as such. Even now, the cat rubbed his lanky little body over the wooden slats of the tub, heedless of the thin trickles of water that coursed down the outside of it towards him. 

Good boy, I thought, for Fitz had told me once that cats can sometimes hear such things. At first, I wasn't sure if I fully believed him, but the cat always blinked at me slowly when I thought in his direction, so I did it, all the same, even if at times it felt a bit foolish. That was a feeling I was well enough acquainted with not to be overly troubled by.

"Fool," Fitz called. I was sequestered behind a tall wooden screen for privacy since there wasn't enough space to haul the tub into our bedroom. "There's venison stew ready, if you want any." "I'll have a bowl," I called back unenthusiastically, solely to make him happy. He stubbornly refused to rest until I had eaten something each evening. If I turned his offers down, he'd hover until it was nearly beyond bearing and I snapped, and then would gaze at me for the rest of the night like a sad, wounded dog. It was easier just to appease him right away, sometimes. 

I soaped up my thick, scar-coated back and sighed at how rough the skin felt under my hands. I avoided touching it with my silver fingers at all costs. The flashes of knowing I felt when I did were almost beyond bearing. I wished, fleetingly, that someone else would wash it for me and save me the discomfort. It was a stupid thing to long for. In order for such events to occur, I would need to allow someone close enough to touch me. That wasn't likely to happen anytime soon. Besides, the only person I trusted completely to touch my massacred back was Fitz.

In the early days, he'd insisted on smearing pungent balms over it as I held a blanket up tightly to cover the rest of me, trembling with pain. "I promise I won't look at it more than I must, but it still needs to be treated," he told me. "If you don't stretch it every day and keep salves on it right now, the skin will grow too tight as it heals and pull at you whenever you move. You don't want that. Trust me."

He would know, and we both knew it, so I suffered his ministrations rigidly and often agonizingly, for the skin there smarted for a long, long time. Sometimes, when his touches made me flinch, he'd make soft little noises under his breath, ones of empathetic regret. It was a rare day when the kindly meant but excruciating tending did not reduce me to tears of misery and pain. "I'm sorry," he'd mutter. "I'll try to be quick. I know it hurts. Just hold on a bit longer, it's nearly over now."

Such goings on disturbed the cat greatly, and he'd perch protectively in my lap or beside my head, butting at my chest or forehead distractingly until my hands were free to pet him once more. When Fitz washed the unguent off his hands and gave me privacy to cover and collect myself, the cat would purr and chirp frantically until I held him close. 

The first time I'd ever heard him talk back to me was on a night like that. Pet the cat, Realder had suggested, his voice in my head putting me to mind of Nighteyes strongly. Not the tone, but the way it felt, sharing a space that intimate with a creature not of my own kind. So, amazed, I had pet the cat, and felt a little steadier for it. 

Tonight, I applied the salve on my own. I was finally well enough for it. No need to make Fitz help me with a task so personal now. Sometimes he still offered, but I always refused him. I did not wish to force him to continually play my nursemaid. He did enough for me already and always had. I could not bear to take even more from him. All he ever did was give. 

Even so, I wished the hands touching my back were his when my silvered finger brushed against the middle of my spine and the echo of my own screams filled my ears for one white hot, agonizing second. "Stew's getting cold," Fitz called, his voice breaking through the sickening din of my mind. "Coming," I replied weakly, and tried valiantly to shake off the bitter memory.

A cup of steaming tea awaited me beside the food. I looked to see if Fitz had one. He did, half empty already. "Lemon balm," he told me as I lifted the plain earthenware mug to my lips. "And lavender. They soothe the mind and calm the nerves, you know." "Do they?" I asked mildly, though I'd known such things since I was a child myself, long before he'd ever been born. He'd flavored the tea with honey, a generous pour of it, the way he knew I favored. Sometimes, I wanted to embrace him with gratitude so badly that my arms ached from it. I kept a stern hold of myself and refrained. 

"Thank you," I said instead. "It's good. Warm, too. Nice on a cool night like this one." Fitz nodded back, and I could tell the response pleased him, for he sat up a little straighter, his expression cautiously optimistic. "Maybe it will give you pleasant dreams tonight," he commented casually, unable to conceal his raw and anxious hope. "That would be nice," I agreed, with far less optimism.

But my dreams that night were not pleasant. They were about her. The evil things she'd done to me. The cruel words that she'd said. The pitiful ways I'd begged, and how little they'd mattered in the end. And the pain. Always, in those dreams, I could feel the pain like a memory imprinted on my bones. 

There were no words to describe the excruciation I had faced at Ilistore's hand and by her will. But the body remembers, always. It is not the sort of thing that a mind can forget, least of all a mind as fragile as mine had grown. I feared it would take far more than Fitz's tea to mend a thing like that.

The day had ended the same way it'd begun; simply, my back to Fitz and my arms around the cat. Realder purred against my chest, a massive noise from a creature so diminutive. I pressed my cold feet onto the backs of Fitz's calves. "You're warm," I commented. "Mmhmm. I am," he agreed, shouldering deeper into the blankets. I wondered if it was a bother to him, and guiltily made to pull my icy toes away. "Stay there. It feels good," he mumbled before I had the chance. "You're always nice and cool."

Reassured, I left my feet where they were and shut my eyes with a smile. "Goodnight, Fitz," I told him, glad for another night beside my friend. "Goodnight, Fool," he replied sleepily and then yawned. We both sank into sleep quickly. I could not speak for his dreams, but mine were petrifying and brutal, hoarfrosted and crimson-stained, a dreamscaped palace of incomparable, icy horrors. 

I relived for what felt like the thousandth time my flaying, my beatings, my mortification and my torture. Her taunts rang in my ears and my humiliation and shame throttled me like a noose. Cold became pain and pain turned my veins to ice, and through it all, I called and called for help from the one person I'd sent away with instructions not to ever turn back. But I wanted him to turn back so badly. I wanted it more than anything else. I wanted him to come and rescue me. I wanted him to take me away from this terrible pain. I yearned to be someone worthy of his protection. 

I came awake screaming, as I so often did, screaming and sobbing both. My throat hurt, so I must have been doing both for quite some time before I became aware of myself. My jaw ached from clenching and gritting my teeth, and the tip of my tongue was bitten bloody. Tears poured from my eyes like twin waterfalls. My entire face was slick with them. My hands were outstretched, reaching fruitlessly out for help that would never arrive. It was far too late for that now. Far, far too late.

But help came anyway. Strong, warm arms gathered me in and cradled me close. A gentle hand rubbed small circles into my scarred and heaving back. A quiet voice told me, over and over, that all was well and that I was safe. And tender lips met mine, slowly but without hesitation, and they kissed away the very worst of my all-consuming fear. They kissed me like I was a person they loved. And I kissed them back. Gods help me, I kissed them back. I always did. I always would.

I was almost certain Fitz only did such things to quiet me, but even so, his actions baffled me to my core. I could not figure out what he might gain from such an act. Perhaps he missed the company of another, so tucked away in the country and far from civilization. Before, he'd had Starling for these sorts of things. Despite his beliefs to the contrary, he was a young man yet, and I was sure he still had needs, positive of it, in fact, for I slept beside him nightly, and was in a position to know. 

I could never fill a bulk of them for him, and he'd made that abundantly clear, but perhaps in the dark, one pair of lips was just as good to him as any other. Or maybe he just wished to give me something to live for. I knew he feared badly for me in my hopelessness. 

I was unsure why he'd even gone along with it that first time. I had certainly not expected him to. In fact, I'd been half-crazed with terror upon realizing what I'd done, kissing his lips in the wake of his comfort, and had been sure he would throw me from the bed, perhaps even the cabin, or worse, but he had not. He'd only bade me not to speak, and cupped my face, and tenderly kissed me back. It had been the sweetest, most carefully considered kiss I'd ever received in my life.

He had not stopped at one, either. We'd kissed for hours that night. I'd never kissed anyone for as long as I kissed him. I had never been kissed quite so well, either. At the beginning, his lips had been trembling, and I'd been crying still. By the end, he'd had one arm fully around me, that hand resting upon my lower back and pressing me nearer to him and the other cupping my head, gentling my hair and murmuring against my mouth. 

We'd all but fallen asleep that way, and if I had not woken the following afternoon with sore lips and my face still buried in his throat, I would have taken it for a dream and thought nothing more about it at all. But then it had happened again, and again, and again and again. And now here it was again, happening once more. 

My tears coursing over the back of his hand, he pressed his lips to mine, his mouth upon me insistent but never greedy, affectionate but oddly void of any one deep emotion. It did not matter. I loved him so much. I wondered if he knew what a boon he was granting me, comforting me in this way. It was a gift undeserved, but pitifully welcome. I soaked it in, let it seep into my skin beneath all the ugliness and scarring and hurt, and tried to give his concern over me a place to live there. 

He smelled like the lavender he'd crushed for my tea and like the cooking fire and like the only man I'd ever truly love, or at least, would love this much. I clutched his shirt, not daring to cling to his body. I kissed him like I was in love with him. He kissed me back like he cared about me deeply, and for a time, I pretended at believing that he could love me in return. That we were lovers who did this sort of thing together every night, simply because we could. It was a dangerous daydream, but one I sometimes indulged in anyway after my worst of nights. It was something to get by on. Something for when the stilted, oppressive boundaries he insistently clung to settled back in, like a door slamming closed in my face.

I wanted to hear him say my name, but I knew that he wouldn't. He avoided it like the plague, any mention of it, and so I avoided it, too. So much was said in our silences, I mused, as he pulled me closer and kissed me deeper, and my hand finally dared to stray from his shirt to the place where his heart was thumping, steady and strong, in his chest. I caressed it a few times, that faithful heart, and in response, he murmured, "Shh, shh," into my mouth and squeezed me all the tighter. 

Another tear fell. His thumb caught it before it could so much as wet my cheek. My Beloved, I thought, but my cowardly tongue said nothing. "Fitz," I whispered, my lips forming the word soundlessly. "Shh," he replied, and it sounded as if he was in terrible pain, too. "Shh. Shh." He didn't wish to speak of it. Of course he didn't wish to speak of it. I fell silent and took what I was given, and just as silently, he gave.

The worst of my terror gradually melted away as he kissed me, leaving me boneless and exhausted in its wake. As I sagged into Fitz, he shifted to take more of my weight in his arms, never breaking our strange embrace. I felt oddly weightless that way, as if for a time I did not need to worry about even the most basic things required of a person. It was as if in those dark, midnight hours, he carried the weight of my burdens for me so that I might rest. Almost, it felt like floating.

It was Realder who at last broke that spell, as he so often did. Make room for the cat, he chirped, pushing at our chins so insistently that we had no choice but to part, our final kiss left incomplete, hanging in the air between us like an unfinished note in a song. 

Fitz stared at me, his lips parted, and this time, I was certain he was going to say something. Surely, this time he would offer me something more. I stared back, barely able to breathe, willing him desperately to speak. But he did not. The only sound was the cat's rumbling purr as he settled cozily between our chests. Warm, he said with great satisfaction, and shut his yellow eyes.

I wanted Fitz to kiss me again over the cat's striped brown head. I wanted him to hold me near. I wanted, selfishly, for this comforting interlude to continue. I could continue it, I thought wildly. I knew now that he likely wouldn't rebuff me, or at least would not do so roughly. But in the end, I couldn't make myself move. I was many things now, but I still had my principles. He had not offered me anything more, and thus, I would not try and take it. 

But how I wished I could. He confounded me so terribly, the man lying next to me in bed. One moment I was sure I knew him, and the next, he was a stranger to me. No good would come of this. I knew that. Was certain of it. I had seen his future, and there was no place for me in it, none at all. I had realized that long ago, and had slowly come to accept it. It was only a matter of time before he realized it, too.

But until he did, I would not leave him. I couldn't. This gift of time he'd given me was far too precious to waste. Time alone to heal. Time to have him all to myself. Time to pretend it could always be this way. The two of us could be so happy, I thought wistfully, if only it could always be this way. 

I stared at Fitz in the dark, and silent as a grave, he stared back at me, his eyes trained on my mouth. Then he slowly shut his eyes, and so I reluctantly shut mine, too. His silence was an answer to every question I dared not part my lips and ask, no matter how badly I wished to hear his voice in tense and tender moments like these. 

Between us, the cat purred on, oblivious to the turmoil seething above him. Fitz let out a long, low sigh, like a wolf bedding down for slumber. I burrowed deeper beneath the coverlet, suddenly chilled without his warm arms around me. As if he heard the pitiful thought, he slung a sleepy arm back around my shoulder, caging both me and the cat beneath it, his thumb rubbing tiny little circles into my skin and his breath hitching almost imperceptibly when he felt me finally relax into his touch. 

It was a small gesture, in the grand scheme of things, but one that meant very, very much to me. It was very nearly enough. It was a mere heartbeat away from everything I needed from him. I waited to see if he might bid me goodnight, but he only stroked my shoulder wordlessly, as if lost in thought, or in some strange, all-consuming dream of his own. In that silence, I had my answer. It was the same as it had always been. 

I closed my eyes and buried my face in the kitten's velvety fur, and wished it was Fitz's chest instead, that Realder's calming purr was Fitz's voice, telling me all the things I wanted most in the world to hear. Saying anything, really, at all. But all between us was silent as death, and that silence was its own sort of barrier, a divided I was far too cowardly to try to bridge alone. I had so very little courage left within me. I could not bear to waste what remained on this.

Though I lay in his arms, it felt as if we could not have been further apart from one another in that aching, lonely moment. I studied his beautiful face in the dark. Gods help me, but he really was beautiful. It was unfair, how guilelessly beautiful he was. He kept his dark eyes shut tight, and in the doing, I knew he could feel my demanding gaze upon him and was willfully choosing to ignore it. I sighed, accepting defeat, and shut my eyes again reluctantly. Between us, the cat purred on.