Fantasy beyond what eyes can see

[mon]

In the land of the north, there is a dense and dark forest. Past that forest, there is a castle. They say there lives an enchantress; a cursed being who was once a girl with beauty beyond compare.

They say she had no heart. She is as cold as ice, for a witch took it from her and once, she was fair and good, but now she cares for nothing and no one.

The villagers say that although their town was not part of her kingdom, she was kind and benevolent to them, providing aid in times of need and visiting often as a child. She was full of life. Laughter and mischief were her companions.

"It's a shame," the story would go, "Her parents were captured. Her family was massacred. The Great War took much."

When pressed, there was nothing more to say. It always ends with a word of caution: Take care not to journey too far North. The enchantress has no heart but she walks, and lives, and breathes. She is still in search of a beating heart.

And so, because of the tale, all those who have ears and hear heed caution. No one has ever ventured past the forest, until now.

 

[TrashRabbit]

Martha said that he had walked into the Gilt Rose under his own power. But he didn't remember that. Didn't recall complaining that his head was going to crack open before fainting. No, he remembered waking up two days later with all the fan fair of being alive for the first time. He had attempted to play the cards as they came, not admitting he hadn't the slightest to who and where he was. And he had made it as far as the breakfast table. But Martha, the inn stewardess, soon had him pegged as a man without a past. She'd promptly taken contorl of his situation and put him to work in the kitchens and the stables and let him keep a room in exchange.

“Until it comes back to you dearie,” She had said.

But days turned to weeks and then to months. And Tuesday had no more idea about his past than the day he'd awoken, only that his name was Tuesday. that He liked tea and rain and yellow flowers. That he was a sucker for cats. That he couldn't sing to save his life and that didn't stop him. And that Sometimes he dreamed of a silver haired woman who's laugh was like a carillon of small soft bells. She came in bits and pieces like the surface of a fractured mirror. And Sometimes he dreamed of blood and cold. And these things came to him without form. But he preferred those dreams to the others, because the made him suppose he was better off not knowing.

Martha had argued that he aught to take a real name like a gentleman. "Anything but Tuesday dear, that's the name of a scoundrel. You'd make a good Todd, I tell you what." But he had insisted, the soles of his boots had the words “Unles Dead Return To Tuesday” so he felt there was no argument against his supposed identity. But Martha had persisted; that either his name was Tuesday or he had recently stolen many of the man's things before he hit his head. Which he supposed was possible. Martha had sat him down soon after and warned him that perhaps it was best not to remember, that the amount of tatoos and the set of knives he'd shown up with implied that he had perhaps not been the best type of man. It was one of the few times he did not get a last word in a conversation. He could not refute her logic in the matter.

Today Martha had given him the day off and he had spent it haunting the town market. The whole time he felt he was looking for something and now and again certain people would catch his eye with a surge of expectation he didn't know how to act upon. Subconsciously he still knew a good mark for pocket picking when he saw it. In the end he bought an empty ledger and taken it back to the inn to play with. He could write, just a little, and he supposed he should practice if he ever wanted to be more than a stable boy. On his way in past the kitchen windows he nicked an apple tart from Martha's latest batch and once settled inside sat about his task. When he drew bored he began to draw and without thinking too hard at all about it discovered his paper sporting the likeness of the girl with the carillon laugh in his dream. On the page she looked ready to laugh or to to become angry, he wasn't sure which one it was. Perhaps both. His stomach lurched into his heart and had to shut the book

“Well shit,” He said to himself. He swung his legs down from where he had them crossed up on the table and headed straight for Martha.

“You stole one of my tarts, boy, you aught to feel some shame about it.” She said tersly, “Those were for the guests.”

“I think you have me mistaken,” He said smiling to show his good broad teeth and his innocence. She snorted. As this was his reply to most accusations.

“What do you want now.”

“Have you seen this girl?” He asked showing her the picture. He found that he could not look at the drawing for too long without feeling some sort of nameless distress and he felt and urgency in his request.

And here the innkeeps face blanched. “No...but you should keep that to yourself.”

“Do you have a good reasons or are you just being sour at me? You know how I feel about vagueness.”

“Everything about you is Vague, Tuesday, you aught get used to it.”

And that made him frown, but he ignored the comment entirely instead asking; “She's very pretty, do you think she's real?” He looked at the drawing again fo ra moment as if to confirm his opinion.

“With your luck, yes,” She said, “Be a dear and fetch me up some Fire wood.” Tuesday's body language was loose and fluid and at her change in subject he swayed with indecision, tapping the little book with his drawing against his thigh.

“You'd rather have me never remember anything,” He said.

The older woman looked up from folding tarts and sighed, “I'd rather you stay out of trouble. I've gotten soft on ya, alright?”

That made him grin, “You? Soft on any body? Martha please,” Though when he said her name it was like the r didn't exist. His accent was sleight but marked him as having grown up in a particular town in the southwest.

“You've been in enough trouble the whole time I've met you. And don't try to dance around the thing at hand, you're not half so clever as to pull it off.”

He grumbled. He did have a habit of trying to redirect conversations where he wanted them to go but to little effect. He supposed she was right, about technically being in trouble, though he did not feel like he was any sort of trouble. Living and working at the Gilt Rose was good and easy. He got along well with the other stable boy and he liked to talk with the maids when martha let him get away with being in their company. He liked hearing the stories the travelers had to say and he was an alright barkeep.

“Don't be showing that around, you'll draw a fuss,” and there were few things worst in her opinion than a fuss. “Now, I wont ask you again, be a dear and fetch up some more logs for the fire. I've got more to bake after this.”

“Yes mum,” He said dutifully and did as he was bid. Though doing so put a stick in his craw. He was about to discover that the surest way to ensure he did something was to tell him not to do it.
---
There were no logs left in the wood pile by the stables and he could see why Martha was in sucha fuss that he go get more. Tobias should have done but then as much as Tobias was good company he was in the habit of forgetting to do things he didn't want to. So it seemed this errand would be bigger than he planned. So he trucked back inside to tell Martha so, though he was sure she knew before sending him. She stuck her head out of the kitchen as he came back down the servant stairs with his good leather cloak. (Of all the things he owned when he walked into the Gilt Rose it was perhaps his favorite. The inner lining was a deep blue wool and the pin was a piece of carved bone to look like what he thought might be a crow- the craftmanship wasn't great and he had forgotten he'd carved it himself so his opinion on it had lowered some. )

"Take the mule with you," She told him, "And try to be back by dark." She had known they were all out. today was supposed to be his and he frowned at her and said nothing in despair of it. "Be a good sport, you did pinch the tarts." He popped the hood over his head with a petulant pout and with all the airs of a man who had been wronged stalked out of the kitchen. "Will build you some character," She called after him.

He fixed up Russel, the piebald mule, with the big canvas sacks they used to collect sticks in. It was illegal to cut down the trees in the forest between them and the castle- Martha said they belonged to the king and all that. But he packed along the axe in case he found a good big log anyway. It was mid after noon and the skies were clear and everything was crisp. His and the mules breathe steamed in the winter air. It smelled like snow- though non had yet to fall this year.

He lead Russel out from the gilt Rose and across town, out past the mill and into the forest. The ground cover had been picked clean already by the towns folk. And he was thankful that it had not snowed as it would make picking up firewood even more difficult. He had one saddle bag half full when it did infact begin to snow.

"Oh Excellent, great, thank you so much," He said to the sky. and not to a higher power, just the sky, because that's where snow came from, "You think you could have held that in for another hour or two? Would it have killed you cloud?" The clouds of course made no answer. If he had been a smart man he would have headed back, and accepted Martha's apology for sending him out on his day off and so close to sunset and drink the hot coco she'd have made. But know. Tuesday was a stubborn man and he lead his mule further into the trees.

It was not until the snow picked up and it began to darken that he began to suspect he'd made a mistake. He turned Russel around to start heading back and after a few paces realized he hadn't the foggiest idea which way exactly he'd come from. He patted the beast side as it nickered, picking up on his own distress.

 

[mon]

The snow pattered down, slowly at first and then suddenly all at once, as though the skies were playing an amusing trick, opening the floodgates to a sea of brilliant white. Dressed up in furs, the color of deep indigo and navy---colors of the Royal family---Princess Ashwyn is unbothered by the fickle shift of winds. The icy breeze licked her cheeks raw and her boots crunched through the barren ground around the castle.

The land she stands is as cursed as she is and though snow falls in heaps, not a single snowflake lands on the clearing, the stretch of empty earth between the castle and the forest. It instead forms a sort of barrier. The contrast looks unnatural but it reminds her of where she should not, could not, step foot. Standing at the edge of it all, azure eyes could only peer into the dark.

And then a sound catches her attention: a loud cry of an animal. A donkey? She frowns at this because the sky is dark and the skies were relentless. A blizzard was soon to hit and only a suicidal fool would be out to experience it. She hoped she heard wrong, but when the sound echoed again, her suspicions were confirmed. Out of curiosity or something of the like, Ashwyn leaves to investigate going as far as she could go, standing just at the edge of the forest.

The lantern in her hands stretch shadows and while she is unable to step foot and actively help, Ashwyn could only pray that the light could serve as a guide to the poor, lost soul.

 

[TrashRabbit]

When he saw the light he had assumed it must belong to the miller's home at the edge of the woods. And seeing it set him to good cheer.

"Look there, Russel, you see, we're not lost.," He told the mule and hurried them along.

It was a farther walk away than he expected, the snow and the dark playing tricks with distance and time. And by time he staggered out of the edge of the forest the squall was nearly blinding- but not as blinding as the lantern once he'd stumbled out of the snow entirely. He lowered his arm from where he shielded his face from the wind and took in the sight of the princess. There in her furs decked all in blues she didn't look particularly real for a moment. Like a dream thing. Her hood hid her face well enough that the truth of that impression was lost to him. He looked up- and up at the castle behind him. And then taking a deep breath, like the idiot he was, spoke with absolute full certainty and as if it was some how here fault;

"This is not the millers house."

 

[mon]

Ashwyn cracks the faintest smile at his words, more out of habit than amusement. There's a relief in her eyes which doesn't match the feeling in her heart---that is, none. She has none, but it's there regardless like a walking contradiction.

"It isn't," she confirms, stepping closer to the stranger and his mule. The light brings to shape, to color and to life. Pictures are painted in his skin and the sun is in his eyes. The sun, she's read once in a book, is an idiom for life and she thinks of how selfish it is, that this male has to kept it to himself.

Tuesday, the name doesn't past by her lips but she whispers it to herself. The smile on her lips grows. It's a reflex to seeing him again, even if he does not remember.

"It's snowing really hard out there. Do you want to take shelter for the night?" she offers after a moment's study. She's glad, she thinks, that he's doing well. He looks happy and healthy. The familiar glint of mischief is not lost.

 

[TrashRabbit]

The look in her eyes by lamp light was not one he'd seen before. That look of surprised recognition. And having never met anyone who know him could not place it.

"If you'll have me, Mlady?" He said. The word M'lady came out like he'd never said it before. But he had in good mind what Martha had told him about his terrible manners and that he couldn't just run about calling everyone mum and guy. Her smile hits him like the first day of spring and he returned it- and for a brief second experienced a moment of sublime confusion. His mind grasped at something that wasn't there, like imagining an extra step on a stairwell leaving him for a moment not even sure what he was doing. "If you'll have me," He repeated with less confidence.

 

[mon]

Ashwyn nods as her smile dies, drowned by heavy nostalgia and the reminder that he does not remember. She doesn't introduce herself (for why should she? There was a reason why he's forgotten and though it pains her, it is the "right" thing to do) and merely walks towards the direction of the castle, leading him until the looming, stone fortress comes into view. Large wooden gates are shut tight and they look way too big, too heavy for a girl like her to open on her own. That part is true, and yet not quite.

She turns around to measure his reaction. Surely he's heard the stories surrounding the land. The forest up North which swallows lost souls, the empty castle, the Enchantress. None of them are true, of course. They were merely exaggerated truths. Would he run away with his tail between his legs, seeing how the stories were "true"? No, that would be quite unlike him. The Tuesday she knew would never.

"Open," she says. The doors fly open in obedience. Warmth emanates from the empty halls and candles lit on their own as she entered. The land around the castle is cursed, likewise the castle is not normal as well. The witch had been cruel enough to enslave her, but not without provision or aid. ("Dying is too merciful," she told Ashwyn once, "There is no value in it.")

The gate closes once they enter and Ashwyn decides to lead him to the stables first so his mule would have a place to stay. She reassures him that it'll be safe and that there's fresh hay and water should it wish to eat. The fact that she's so well-stocked is bizarre.

 

[TrashRabbit]

Tuesday has heard a lot of things in the short span of his new life. He's heard the world is flat and also that it's round. He's heard that in the west there are people without heads with there faces on their chest- And he's learned that much of this is nonsense and that repeating it had made him look a fool. He had thought the same thing about the stories about the forest and the castle to the north. And he thought them just that.

Until the moment the doors flew open.

His eyes go wide. He was no stranger to parlor tricks, seeming to have come ready made knowing several- but dancing a coin out of a child's ear was another thing altogether. Though the look on his face was the same as many of the kids he'd danced a coin out of their ear. The look of confused awe doesn't disappear instantly, it lingers and strays in a very un-Tuesday like way. He knows he's walked into something that will perhaps not be easy to leave. But he has accepted hospitality, and living at an Inn these past few months he thinks he knows the codes and rules of this kingdoms hospitality. A noble, even an estranged noble with magic doors aught not to kill him. He hoped.

He says; "That's a clever thing you did there-" But the words die as the doors slam shut. There are no pullies, no wires, no servants to be seen. He tries to cover up his discontent, though the look confusion resurges as he speaks and sees to the mule; explaining that his name is Russel- no, no, the mules name is Russel and that his Tuesday, and that the mule isn't his at all. In fact he chatters the whole time, not so much out of nerves as it seems to simple be his due course. The only way he's managed to make people like him at the Gilt Rose; "And you see- Martha, she's a damn hag sometimes she sends me out for fire wood when the day is supposed to be my own." He says more words to her than he had in there first few weeks of acquaintance. "Does this castle have a name?" He asks, "I always fancy buildings with names."

The well stocked larder of the stable escapes him, this is a noble's home after all and he does not find it strange for a rich persons home to be stocked like a rich persons home. He's a fool and a half and if Ashwyn really were a monster who ate people he'd be dead by dawn.

 

[mon]

He talks a lot, filling the empty spaces with words as though the silence would swallow him whole if not kept at bay with mindless rambling. Ashwyn finds she doesn't mind it. The castle is a quiet place with its large rooms and grand halls. It echoes with silence, befriending quietude and acquainting it with the ashen babe.

The stories he tells is entertaining and her lips curl in a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. She's jealous, she thinks. Or she would be, if she was capable of it. Jealous of the friends he made, jealous of the one he calls Martha who can love and care, and feel with Tuesday. He deserves it, even if his past argues otherwise.

"No, there isn't," she answers him, not understanding the need for a name. The castle is a castle, an inanimate which needs no name. Why tie an object down with something that gives life? Names held power, a meaning which most take for granted. Ashwyn is indifferent to the idea but Tuesday's fascination for such allows her to muse him.

"You can name it if you like."

She doesn't know why she offers. She never wanted a name for the castle.

There is fresh fodder for Russell. It is just enough for one mule and the rest of the stable is empty and abandoned, kept in perfect condition, despite there being no other animal. She doesn't linger long enough for Tuesday to question. She knows he's smart and if she wasn't careful, she might just scare him off. He'd run away, escaping the castle's mechanics, and drown himself in a sea of frost and ice. The possibility makes her frown. If he does run off, she isn't sure if she could save him.

"You must be hungry. There's food in the dining hall. You can join me for dinner," Ashwyn offers. A few twists and turns leads them into a dining hall. A long table stretches from one end of the room to the other. Dishes filled with food laid on top of a carmine tablecloth. Candles are lit at the center of the table. The assortment of dishes is something to awe at. From appetizers to desserts, there is nothing short of options.

Ashwyn removes her cloak and hangs it at the back of her seat. She sits at the far end as she always did, the place where her father sat long ago. Plucking off a goblet from the table, she twirls it in her hand as it slowly fills to the brim with a fizzy, amber liquid. It smells faintly of grape and while Ashwyn had never favored fruits, she doesn't mind wine so much.

"Help yourself," she tells him nonchalantly. There is more than enough food for two.

 

[TrashRabbit]

He doesn't want to name it, doesn't have the slightest where to even begin with such a taste- he wanted her to answer so he could ask her name. But the moments gone. And it keeps his mouth shut and follows. It's not until they are inside the grand hall, so empty and still and yet full of so much food- it is not until he watches the drink fill itself that a shiver runs up the back of his spine and leave the hair on his arms pricked. He looks up at the ceiling, hoping that he will simply look impressed. He has learned that he is not a good liar, nor actor. Martha had whacked he more than enough times with a spoon for his bad cheap lies. He doesn't know it but its the reason he kept to keeping his mouth shut instead.

This isn't right he thinks. And then looking square at the princess; She isn't right. This is just like-

He pauses. Looks away, eye brows knight together. Sure and petrified that she is some sort of dead thing that can read his mind.

Just like what?

He sits. A couple chairs away from the head, not at her elbow, as if he expects some others to join them. He doesn't. But he wants the illusion. He had read fairy tales, and children's quests, they were some of the only things manageable to his skills, and he knew it was best not to be rude. He also knew it was unwise to eat fairy food.

"Were you expecting some one important tonight?" He asks, and picks a bunch of grapes onto his plate. Pretends to pop them in his mouth, but instead rolls them down his sleeve.

 

[mon]

His question is calculated and Ashwyn knows that it is out of wariness and caution that he does. For the briefest moments, she considers teasing him. It is a fleeting thought which is as faint as the whisper of summer in the air, despite the stone walls of winter outside. It is dry and warm, and uncomfortably so, but she sits there with her back straight and the cup to her lips. She hears the question in-between his words and shakes her head in response.

"There's always this much." It's the truth and it isn't like any of the food goes wasted (she hopes). It disappears once mealtime is over and despite being conjured by magic, there are no repercussions. Studying him under her watchful gaze, she tilts her head and a look of childlike curiosity flickers over her stony countenance.

"Are you afraid?" she asks casually, like one would the weather. Of me echoes mournfully, off the walls, off the empty tunnel in her chest, unspoken but in the air.

 

[TrashRabbit]

The grape pauses where it is in his fingers and he looks at her, "Should I be?" He holds her gaze as long as he can. The words left his mouth faster than he could think about them and he feels they are almost not his. Another Tuesday's words. A brave man. A more confident man. But he holds her gaze. Her eyes are more blue than his, a sort of clear Lapis Lazuli and shockingly vibrant. (His own eyes are of a more mortal sort, of less noble stock; a dark sort of blue, navy almost with speckles of brown.) And he almost feels comfort staring her down, like he's just come home, with that look in her eye he can't place, that look of recognition, that look of knowing. He'd do anything she'd ask, he thought, if she wasn't so hollow-- if she didn't look so empty, so defeated.

Something vibrates in his mind like bees.

Should he be afraid? Everything is wrong. It was nameless and terrible and the more he couldn't put his finger on it the more he wanted to say yes. The more he looked at her, at least her exterior the more he wanted to stay no, how could he be; she was home. The food was conjured, that was true, but as sure as there were bad witches there were good ones and he had been nothing but polite, hadn't he? Perhaps the feeling was a trick, a conjuring of its own. But he wanted to trust himself. Because if he could not trust himself he would be lost. But his heart said no. But his head said yes.

 

[mon]

She considers his words and the pull of her lips is slow but dawning. It twists on her face in a lovely manner, giving fact to rumors on her exquisite beauty. If this was what she was when she was smiling, what more so when she was laughing?

But she doesn't laugh, because it would be a hollow sound, and she shakes her head instead. She tells him no with all the sincerity she could muster and the shrugs back into her seat as she finally begins to eat, starting directly with an impressive slab of meat. The steak is cooked medium rare, almost to perfection. It melts like butter in her mouth and she makes a show of how yummy it is.

"I'm won't hurt you," she tells him, "Nor would I eat you or kill you, or whatever the rumors make me out to be." She sounds a bit amused, almost proud when she says this. The stories get more exaggerated as time stretches on. She wonders if they still see her as a beast.

"I'm not a witch and you're the last person I'd expect to judge a book by its cover." The fork jabs in his direction, over the map of pictures he's painted on his skin, before puncturing another cut of meat.

"It's the inside that counts," she continues but then pauses, considering her words, "Although, I suppose I am being judged by my insides. It is up to you whether you want to stay, but I really am no threat."

 

[TrashRabbit]

He expects the laugh, he expects it so much that his brain nearly supplies it for him like a dream. like a dream. He lays a hand on belt pouch where he's tucked away his ledger. Good gods.

He believes her when she says no, but feels no satisfaction. His blood does not cool in relief. He continues to stare as she makes a show of the steak. He would be lying if he said he wasn't hungry. There is some curse. He decides, then and there but he cannot tell if it his or hers. Some terrible magic at work. She is the girl from his notebook and from his dream and he wondered if he slammed it on the table if she could explain herself, not would- could. Because curses were like that, at least the ones in children's books.

Her jabbing a fork at his tattoos startles him into looking away as he tuggs down the sleeves- Martha was always telling him not to roll up his sleeves while the guests could see him. They are already pulled down and tugging on them looses a small parade of grapes across the table. She'd have to have met him before to know how much ink he had- he thinks-- watched the grapes go in defeat. I am a part of this and she knows it.

"I believe you," He said to his hands. Reading All Fair to himself ruefully. All was not fair at the moment. "But you'll be disappointed to know that a cover is all that I am. There's nothing in the book. I am empty like a new born babe and yet you sit there and you look at me like you know me. How dare you! How fucking dare you. Is this a game?"

He had wanted to say other words, he had wanted to pretend he was fine, that putting half of two and two together did not fill him up with an emotion so big and complex that he didn't know what to do with it. But he was a terrible actor and he had never cried before and the hot in the backs of his eyes sent all his best laid plans eschew. What ever this magic was it involved him and it involved all of him that was missing. He thought he was angry but it was betrayal, hot and painful.

He glances at her, wounded and expectant.

 

[mon]

She watches as the grapes roll from his sleeves with a pointed gaze and raised eyebrows. There is no surprise in her face. Only understanding and dry expectancy. Like a parent catching a child with their hand in a jar of cookies, their face dusted with crumbs. She's seen more shaken free from those sleeves. Clinking silver, gems and rubies, shiny baubles that catch his eyes. Ashwyn commented a long time ago that he was like a magpie, picking up trinkets along his flight.

She warrants his distrust but she did not foresee his sudden outburst. There's emotional weight in his words and though she hears it, she cannot comprehend it. It bounces off her thick skin and makes her frown. She doesn't understand.

"Am I treating it as a game?" she questions as she rises from her seat. There is nothing funny about her voice and it crackles in the air, stinging like static. "Are you not Vidar Kryssvinds? The man who calls himself Tuesday. You know me and I know you, but you've forgotten me. You've forgotten everything."

There is no heat in her voice but it is harsh and it is sharp. It slices into the skin and bites into the soul, because it is the truth. It is the truth she does not want to confess, the one she keeps hidden, but why? Why should she hold her tongue around him? Why should she care if he remembered?

But then she sees the wetness in his eyes and watches as they melt down his cheeks. Whatever words she has left stay lodged in her throat, physically unable to come out. It's full and stuck unlike the empty void in her chest and she closes her mouth, looking down at the dinner table. The steak sits on her plate half-finished. She no longer has an appetite because food tastes sour after a bitter accusation.

"You're tired. You had a long day," she explains, ready to leave. She cannot deal with him when he's like this because she knows the sight of him should make her hurt and yet it doesn't. "If you're done eating, I'll show you to your room. It's best if you rest here for tonight. The storm won't cease til daylight."

It's scary how even her voice comes out.

 

[TrashRabbit]

She says his name. And names have power. It sends a burst of movement through his chest; a static bolt of visceral unpleasantness. She says his name. She says it with her perfect voice and her perfect lips and yet its so even and so hollow and wrong. He holds on to it in his mind like he might loose again.

She's the only person he's heard say it. And maybe he doesn't want anyone else to ever say it again.

He pulls his ledger out slowly, carefully. It never does well to yell at a lady, it isn't fair to scare them; some part of his mind reminds him of this, remembering somewhere a bit of learned wisdom. Reminds him to be careful with his temper. But the princess- for he still does not know her name and yet she spat his out so easily- She doesn't seem to be affected. She is cold. And hallow. And he doesn't have to remember to guess that she is a shell of herself.

She talks of putting him to bed like naughty over tiered child- he supposes he might look like one.

Vidar Kryssvinds he repeats it in his mind to taste its truth. He had been content to Tuesday forever. Rather fancied it.

He opens the ledger and smooths down the pages. And pushes it across the table, she is standing now but his arms are long and he pushes it to her. The drawing of her is a bit smudged from having been closed inside the book and jostled around on his journey but its an accurate portrait. And she is smiling, just about to laugh in a way she hasn't in so long.

He says; "I could not forget you if I were dead."

 

[mon]

The girl in his drawing is of striking resemblance to her. Same face, same size, all identical and yet not quite. Ashwyn doesn't laugh, nor does she smile. She doesn't hold the sun in her eyes or wear bubbling giggles on her lips. The girl can't be her because she's seen herself in the mirrors. Her reflection has always been cool when she graces down the hallways, all alone with nothing but her thoughts. She stares a moment longer and it takes her a second to realize she was wrong.

It is herself, before the curse. Before she lost Tuesday, before she lost her heart.

In that moment, she's almost glad she's lost her heart because she cannot feel and she cannot hurt. No matter how much she wishes to, she would never understand. The sight of him blurs into blotchy colors and shapes and when she blinks, her vision clears. Something slides down her face in a smooth descent. Her hands raise to touch her face and she stares at the wetness gathered at her fingertips.

Funny, Ashwyn thinks. Her face is completely devoid, ever cold as the stone statues outside her residence. She didn't know she was still capable of tears.

"Good night, Tuesday," she says to him that night, after leading him to his room. It is located in a tower in the castle's west wing, the most secluded and yet spacious living quarter her premise has to offer. The tower is high, overseeing the whole area like a nest on a tree branch.

"Sweet dreams."

She hadn't known her words would mean anything. How could she? A girl with no heart has no dreams.

 

[TrashRabbit]

Sleep didn't come easy, he was full up of too many things and to many unaswered questions. He thought of fleeing. He thought of doing something clever- but couldn't manage it. In the end he fell asleep atop the sheets watching the dark shapes the snow made against the glass of the windows.

--

In his dream he startles awake. The sound of her laughter is as big and clear as the sky he looks up into. Theres a second ticklish touch of a feathery seeded end of a long stalk of grass pestering his cheek and nose. He bats it away.

“I'm awake,” He says like a reflex.

The argument had been going on for days. He would take the night watch and since the princess would insist on stopping for lunch. He would rest his eyes while she ask if he was sleeping or not. Usually her asking woke him up enough to answer. He was a light sleeper and his startle had been all to real to deny.

The sun told him they had been stopped for there lunch for longer than they aught. The sky felt big today and cloudless, and under the dappled light of an old oak in and otherwise never ending sprawl of hilly field he could forget that they were under any kind of urgency. That they had a place to be. A goal. An objective. That he had become her majesties royal thief.

She had got him good and if she had been a peasant girl he might have darted up on to his knees and rolled her into the grass in playful retaliation. But she is royal. Instead he rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow and said, “You are a menace.”

 

[mon]

Her smile grows and the word menace is taken with the grace of a compliment. Playfully, she sticks out her tongue like she is a girl and not a Princess, and then something warm touches Tuesday's cheek. When she pulls away, silver locks tickle his face. Her lips curling and eyes dancing.

"But you love that," she hums smugly and she gets up, folding her arms behind her back.

 

[TrashRabbit]

"I'm not a fool, I know what's good," He called after her.

Tuesday was no stranger to courtship or even sloppy ill fated romances, but never had he undergone the unfortunate fate of being so completely smitten. He also knows how to be a menace. He sweeps her hair aside leaned down and kissed her on the back of her neck.

 

[mon]

She squeaks at his kiss, shoulders hunching just as quickly as her twirling around with her hand covering the bare spot of skin. It sears with heat and spreads to the highs of her cheeks which puff in a pout.

"You are a fool," she rebuttals through heavy lashes and weak glares. There's no venom in her words, only warmth. It's shared when her fingers occupy the empty spaces in his hands.

They are walking, maybe floating. And then the scene shifts with a gust of wind. The sea of grass blades turn into a desolate battlefield of ash and blood and bone. The sky is charred, mourning the heaps of broken bodies around them.

The wind whips around them. It is hot with war and stings the eyes, and Ashwyn stands before him, facing the fields, with her back to him. She's talking to someone cloaked in night, their words are a low murmur. Something in the air changes.

"You are a fool," Ashwyn says to him when she finally turns around, the grief of a multitude in her smile, parted in unsaid goodbyes.

"And it's time to wake up."

 

[TrashRabbit]

He jolts awake as he hits the floor. He's rolled off and he's stiff and the chamber has that good still feeling when the roof is insulated by snow and the outside world is all muffled with snow. He pulls himself up- expecting the dream to fad, like all his dreams do. But it stays sharp. The feeling of protracted doom at the end lingers in him. He stretches for a bit, back complaining the whole time, then sits on the edge of the bed with his ledger and sketches the for boding figure cloaked in night- more dream like than the rest more abstract.

Her royal thief; It shudders every bit of good common sense he had left. He feels as though he has a single slice of a mirror, that reveals only a slice of himself and it leaves him more confused than he started. He does not consider leaving, though he knows it would be easy enough to slip away. He senses that slipping away is a skill of his. He could slip about the castle, but if there was a clue to be found he wouldn't know what it would look like.

So he heads back down to that grand dinning room, sure that it will be ominously filled with food and perhaps the princess. He still does not know her name. He should. He doesn't know if he can bring himself to ask.

 

[mon]

Compared to last night's banquet, the morning's meal is simple but filling. Eggs, buttery croissants, condiments and lots of tea with curls of aromatic steam leaving porcelain stouts. Sitting in her usual place is Ashwyn with a cup to her lips, looking as perfect and still as a picture. She looks up from her drink when Tuesday enters and her lips tug slightly upwards in greeting, more out of habit than sentiment. The smile looks awfully fake against her dead set eyes and nothing like the Ashwyn from his dreams.

"I hope you slept well," she says to him, gesturing him to join her at the table. Like yesterday, there is more than enough food for two. Her eyes study him as he sits down, catching things others typically would miss. "You look troubled. Is something the matter?" she asks, cutting straight to the point.

 

[TrashRabbit]

He sit and starts to fill his plate. He lets her words fall on him dully, and thought of her miserably like a doll or puppet. He wonders if she was really herself anymore because if the dream was memory- and it had felt that way- she had been some one vibrant. Some one worth holding on to.

"Is. Something. The matter." He says, not to her but the empty other side of the table. He says each bit like he understood each word separately but not together and taps his fork thoughtfully against his plate. "I think we Both know something is deeply fucking the matter." he turns to look at her then and adds, "Are you going to tell me whats going on or should I guess?"

 

[mon]

Sub-text is harder to catch when you have no heart, Ashwyn learns. She hears his words and sees his anger, sees it in his face, in his eyes, in the way his hands clench at his side. She sees it and yet she remains impassive, like a spectator watches a play, as though everything that's spat at her is completely unrelated to her. Logically, the signs tell her he's upset. Yes, this much is clear, but why is not something she could understand.

So, she quirks a brow at him and continues sitting where she is, in complete utter calm as Tuesday assaults her with accusations.

"What do you want to know?" she asks him as she cuts into her croissant. The bread knife slices it in half and she begins buttering it with impressive nonchalance.

He's a lot angrier than how she last remembered him to be, but this in new and interesting too. It is nice seeing him riled up for once. The Tuesday she knew was always collected and calculating and she had made it a personal mission to tease him every opportunity she could get in the past. But that was then, and now was now. She couldn't appreciate his emotions the way she could in the past, couldn't hurt to see him hurt or bring herself to cheer him up either.