#lorefell

            These moments, these little gifts, they were his respite, his solace, his PEACE. She was his peace. So he entered the gardens she’d asked to meet, shadows curling and retreating from his figure at the pace of his heart and in the middle, near the fountain, he paused, turning, trying to spot her in the maze of trees and hedges and bushes. 

                                                    “ Liza? ”

               “ my human heart has grown heavy and weary. ” what would it be like to give in? to give up? to lay down and rest ––– stop fighting? 

❝   i’ve uh   ------   ❞   barry shakes a little   ,   scripts   &   notes in hand. this was so embarrassing. he’s done some of the worst of the worst deeds in his past life  &   yet here he was   ,   incredible frazzled with the scene velma had chosen. doing his best to stay calm   &   collected   ,   the former soldier clears his throat   ,   hoping to eliminate any uncertainty in his voice.   ❝------   i’ve never performed a scene like this before. it says that the characters kiss in the script   ?   ❞

           And there it was, that dangerous line he toed between the mocking obedience and the open rebellion. He’d been so uncommonly friendly the entire morning, she knew it was only a matter of time before he’d turn on her, like a sunny day clouding over. If only she could smother him with a pillow without then prompting war over the throne. 

          So instead, Jude sighed and turned to look at him, lying about in that lazy way of his, and planted her hands on her hips. 

                         “ If you could do it without the screaming, that’d be great. ”

              Temptation came in the form of her lips between his shoulder blades and her breath, hot against his skin as she spoke. Aleksander had thought her to be asleep still, gold hair a halo around her features as she rested her head on the pillow next to his. He’d spent far too much time looking at her, at the slope of her nose and the way her lips pursed and twitched a little as she dreamed. 

             But duty always came calling, and he had a dream of his own that he was well on his way to bring into reality. A Ravka without oppression - grisha able to come out of hiding, out of pretense at being something else than what they were. That couldn’t wait, he thought. Even if, right now, he wished it could. 

             Slumping a little, a smile overtook his features. He’d meant to slip from the bed quietly without rousing her, but that plan had failed spectacularly. “ I’m afraid the decision is not entirely mine to make. ” Nonetheless, he turned over to face her, sliding slender fingers into the sunshine of her tresses, his other hand finding her waist beneath the sheets, pulling her closer. Pressing his mouth to the corner of her lips in a chaste kiss, he murmured. “ But I could probably afford to make them wait a little while. ”

                                             “ Lost? ” 

                   He felt detached, aloof. She was right there, and yet she could have been across the country and she wouldn’t have been further away in his mind. They’d been found out. They’d been discovered, tangled in one another, and they had been dragged apart. 

                  It shouldn’t have been a problem. Who was he, after all, in the eyes of the king, but a lowly bastard witch boy trying to make a name for himself? Property. He was property of the king, and the king would make him know it. Yes, the king had only told him he wished for Aleksander to have no distractions, but there had been more to the tilt of his lips, the gleam in his eyes.

                  It had been a threat. A way of his to say that, yes, the king knew he cared and YES, should he disobey, she could easily be used as a leverage. And in the many days since then, until long after Liza had returned to her village, he’d simmered with rage. He could do NOTHING, would do NOTHING, because he had promised her he wouldn’t. 

                  No matter what, he would not ruin all he had accomplished. This goal, this target was bigger than the both of them, not to be thrown away at a whim. And he would not touch a hair on the king’s head. But he dreamed of it. 

                  This detour on the way back to Oz Alta had led him past her village deliberately, and he’d ignored the king’s suggestion in favor of seeing her just once. 

                  “ You are not lost to me, ” he whispered. He hadn’t touched her. He hadn’t even tried to pick the flowers from her hair, although he yearned to. “ You are right here, and you are doing well. You would be lost only if I could never reach you again. ”

                  And when his was a name feared and respected, when no king could just tell him what he must and must not do, he would bring her to his side again. He swore it to himself. 

              He WAS a winter’s night, he thought to tell her. But then, she already knew. She wouldn’t have said what she did if she hadn’t a clue. They were a hair’s breath apart and even now, his skin was cool to the touch.

             Rose petals lay scattered like specks of blood around them and her hair was loose, flowing between his fingers. He’d worked the flowers from her hair until they decorated the dark marble beneath their feet - and it had done nothing to diminish her beauty. Not that he’d expected it to. If anything, she gave beauty to the flowers.

             Now, his fingers pushed through the strands until freed, and then his arms came around her, drawing her close. “ Will you stay the night with me? ” he asked. It was daring, it was dangerous. But he was nothing, no one in this place. A pariah. He would not be sought after until morning and even then, they didn’t walk into his room. Perhaps for fear of catching the disease they thought his POWER was. And more than that, he did not want to part. Not yet. Not when he was drunk on the taste of her in his mouth, spring melting the frost in his veins.

             “ You could sleep next to me, and find -, ” he let out a slight laugh, one only she heard these days, “ that I can be quite warm. ”