Fantasy beyond what eyes can see

[TrashRabbit]

Ash talking about getting married made his skin crawl. It reminded him that he was in way over his head. That the king would probably have his head if they were caught. That if she did marry Prince Crovus he had already decided prince Crovus would wake up dead. If Ash was a peasant girl he supposed they'd have probably already been wed. He'd given up on her running away with him, because after their most recent escapade with the baby dragon she'd had the chance- the castle had thought her dead and he had hoped. But she'd returned. Too loyal to her own people to give up the crown. He wanted her to but with the war coming he sensed her resolve was probably only greater than it had ever been. It did not help that he was from Gavelon. Nor did it help him that he was very wanted in Gavelon; but that was mostly Ashwyns fault after the escapade before last, and he hoped that that adventure had not added to much to the war tensions today.

She held his hand tight and he lifted it to kiss the back of it.

"Wars seem pretty mundane compared to the things I've seen with you, I'm sure, we'll be alright. One thing at a time. I don't think I would let them bargain you for anything--" He told her hoping to be of some comfort in a topic that was very much out of his education range. What did he know of politics or wars, or royal wedding arrangements? He was a thief, a bodyguard, an assistant adventure, the princess' consort- he didn't know jack shit about wars. But he didn't want her to fret. It didn't become her. She was carefree and incouragible and while her passion set part of his heart on fire it pained him that it came at the cost of jubiliance.

 

[mon]

Ashwyn knew his words were merely empty promises of comfort, but it made her smile all the same. She had thought then, she wouldn't trade this for the world. Not now, not ever. But in a mere few months, when the war finally broke out. People suffered, families were slaughtered, and Ashwyn had done the one thing she thought she'd never do when she passed her heart into the hands of the Witch.

"I know you wouldn't," she replied with all the cheek and confidence she could muster, grinning as she peck his lips, a smile which did not fully reach her eyes.

Her name was called out somewhere in the near distance, whipping their heads towards it in alarm. She knew she was caught.

"Run," she whispered to him, voice twinkling with mischief and life, starting the game all over again. She picked up her skirts and ran, the sight of her back becoming a blur with the many books and shelves, swirling into earthy colors and blinding light, until suddenly: there was nothing.

--

"Tuesday," her voice came out again, cold and even, sounding far off in the distance. It was a muffled sound that slowly became clearer, asked by a girl who was seated across from the man, a book in her lap. She looked over at him. Beside her, steam rose from a cup of freshly brewed tea. The teapot's lid was partially opened, allowing both the heat and aroma to slip into the room.

Calmly, she asked him, "Did you have a good nap?"

 

[TrashRabbit]

There was a heavy confusion as he woke- still trapped in another time and perhaps another version of himself.

"-I'm awake," He says like reflex. He puts a hand to his breast pocket and checks the key the lives there- worries that he's misplaced his gloves, the white ones with the castle livery on it that hides his hand tattoos when he serves tea to the queens hand maidens. He'll have to get the key back- he finds he's staring at Ashwyn and that all his thoughts evaporate. for a moment he's not sure where he is- not a strange sensation upon awaking. He waits for that moment of clarity to come back- only it doesn't. And for a brief moment panic washes over his face.

He pulls the key out of his breast pocket and turns it over in his hand, as if he expects some sort of answer from it.

 

[mon]

The key surprises both of them, albeit Ashwyn's surprise is merely in the slight raise of her brows. The rest of her face fails to follow. She recognizes the key almost immediately, asking with a frown.

"Where did you..."

Could he have found it when they were cleaning? That can't be. Ashwyn has searched every nook and cranny for it. Then perhaps he had taken it a long, long time ago? If so, it was a miracle he still had it.

"That's the key to the Forbidden Section, but why do you have it?"

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Constance keeps his keys on a ring-" He says like the words don't exactly mean anything to him; just facts with out context. He stands and crosses to the secret spot, behind the book case housing the books on law. He pulls out one and inserts the key into the keyhole hiden behind it. The door mechanism clicks the narrow bookcase swings inward. He turned back around looking concerned; "You-- you never married Crovus, right?"

 

[mon]

The mention of Constance has her blinking. If she had a heart, perhaps she would've winced. That was a name she hasn't heard in for a long time. Constance had been one of the many causalities during the break in and massacre. Even if she wanted to mourn him, Ashwyn was unable to.

Constance was someone far in their past. If Tuesday remembered him, then just how much more did he remember? The princess wasn't sure whether she should be happy or worried. (Though even given the choice, it did not really matter.)

The Forbidden Room opened and a cloud of dust flew in their faces. Ashwyn sneezed, covering her nose and mouth with her hand. Crovus. That was one name that had her skin crawling. The light in her eyes dimmed, but her face remained cold and neutral where disgust would've normally curled.

She held out her left hand in response. Her fourth finger bare without the band of a ring and she watched as relief sunk in azure eyes. How curious, she thought. That look had her momentary distracted from the subject of the key and how he came to have it.

"Why?" she asked him. As far as Ashwyn knew, Tuesday shouldn't retain the memories of when they were together. But then again, if this was truly the case, he shouldn't have remembered Constance either.

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Because, you didn't want to?" He says with out the confusion in his own voice letting up. As each one of these facts is coming out of his mouth as a surprise. The dream didn't stay solid mind this time and his mind chased at it. This morning the dream had lingered, He had lingered. But not now. He steps into the forbidden portion of the library and looks about, it is not a welcoming or familiar place but he knows there is a second door that lets out into the narrow book shelve that houses the books about the husbandry of hounds. "Anything worth having in here?" He asks, half a joke, half poking around for anything worth taking- as were his instincts.

 

[mon]

She assumes he's asking about Crovus, about their would-be engagement, something Ashwyn worked hard to prevent in the past. She shook her head, correcting him.

"Because of you," the words leave her mouth before she could capture what they meant. It was the appropriate truth but that had lead on more than she intended to.

It had been years since she last stepped back into here. Aside from books there were also important scrolls, documenting her ancestry. Real copies of the country's laws were also kept here, as well as certain wares and family heirlooms, too precious or dangerous to be left out in the open. There were swords, still sharp, glistening cold steel in the dark, hung on the walls. Their hilts decorated and their blades enscripted with runes and ancient text. Faded tapestries were now dusty and dulled, but their intricate patterns had not been lost. Ashwyn was amazed they were still in one piece.

In the past, this was one of her favorite places to rendezvous with Tuesday. The room was usually left abandoned as it was hardly ever accessible. Her hands skimmed the wooden tables and chairs; places she used to sit once upon a time, while Tuesday kissed her senseless. The memory brought a shadow of a smile on her lips, more forlorn than nostalgic.

"How much do you remember?" Ashwyn asked, looking up at him. Her cerulean eyes flashed in the dim light, something akin to warning.

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Not enough," He says from some where in the shadows.

Her look fails to catch his- he remains unteathered from her in this moment. As he has been since the last time he left, he is closer but some how he is father from her than ever. At least, before he left, she may not have had heart but he had treated her as if he knew she should have one. He is opening the flat storage draws built into the wall- there are maps, and carving on whale teeth, and round a something that glows. He opens and shuts them methodically. Like a man who has lost something, a man who is intent on finding it. He doesn't know what he's searching for. And after his flury of activity and finding nothing stands quietly in the dim forbidden room.

"Why did I let this happen-" He says. And he says it quiet, not a whisper, for his voice cracks in the middle of it. The up welling of grief doesn't seem to have a source in his mind. He knows he speaks of Ashwyn's curse, and his own amnesia, but there is a deeper ache. How keenly and complexly he feels the myriad of travesties that have brought them to this point, though he does not know what they were; A war, a witch, Crovus. He knows the princess will bring him no comfort in this moment of weakness nor will she judge him- and it redoubles the feeling. He's not sure how she can be the same Ash from his dream or how that dream could feel more real than all months he'd spent cleaning the floor of the Gilt Rose Inn or even this very moment. It takes him a visible moment to contain himself.

"If you didn't marry him because of me, how come we are like this? Did I leave? Did you send me away? Was it the Witch? You must tell me. If you can-- please," He says as he crosses the room back to her, and stops short of taking her by the shoulders in that familiar way. His hands hover, over their intended placement. "Please," He adds.

 

[mon]

(RPN should add an "OW" rating on thread posts because that's exactly how I feel)

Ashwyn doesn't understand his mutterings or why he was frantically searching about. But then again, there were a great deal of things she did not understand about him. Now more than ever. When she had a heart, it was easier to fathom his thoughts and actions, for she knew him like the back of her hand. The time they spent were immeasurable, and she realizes her mistake a little too late for her own good.

Stopping in her tracks, wide eyes stare at him, unable to mirror the conflict in oceanic blues. She frowns instead, looking off-side; not unable to speak, but simply unwilling. Yes, it had been her who sent him away and yes, it was him who left. The Witch took everything from her but at the price of peace for her kingdom, a stop to the war. For the safety of a thousand, her happiness was such a small price to pay.

It was her fault for dragging Tuesday into this mess. Because of his involvement with her, his happiness had been intertwined with hers. Robbing him of his memories had been the only way to sever their ties and now they were coming back, like growing tendrils of vine on an ivory bricked wall.

Ashwyn was at a loss for words, but she hung her head in would-be guilt. Her silence said it all.

"I'm sorry," and then very quietly, a warning, "There are some things better off staying forgotten."

 

[TrashRabbit]

"No one gets to decide that for me," He hisses. He lets his hands take her on either side of her shoulders, "Ash, I said please. Tell me. If I could trade curses with you I wouldn't because this is a misery." His grip on her isn't rough, he would never hurt her, but it is intimate, it is the position he tended to take with her for serious conversations. She is just the right size to fit beneath his chin and she is just half a step away from that familiar nook. "Please," He adds again, knowing that begging a girl without a heart is like trying to squeeze water from a rock.

 

[mon]

In all her life where she's known him, Ashwyn had never heard Tuesday beg. He was too proud, too secretive of a person, keeping the desires of his heart clammed up like a chest with no lock. Seeing plead was so foreign to her that she couldn't help but felt her resolve waver.

Her hand came up to one of his hands on her shoulder, resting on top of it before pushing it away.

"You left," she decided, a half-truth was better than the whole, "You were free-spirited and untameable. This curse of mine had you feeling trapped, so I dismissed you from your duties and you turned, and ran. You never looked back."

She said, eyes cold and visage frosty. It looked almost accusatory.

The ashen babe took a step back from him, withholding the fact that the Witch had taken his memories, an act with Ashwyn allowed because she couldn't bear to see him waste his life with her.

"Are you happy now? You left me for abandoned," she said, devoid of emotion, "But it's not something I would blame you for. No one wants to stay with a monster."

 

[TrashRabbit]

"You don't-- blame me?" He says slowly.

He lets her slip from his gasp. The accusation that he would leave her wounds the lingering dream version of his psyche that still grips him. But his minds sees the truth in that, what binds him to the castle is more his missing self hood and her ghost than the girl that stands before him now. He is not happy. He is the most miserable he has ever been in his artificially short understanding of life.

"Then-- why did you take my memory?" It's not a real accusation, only the way the words shaped themselves. The feeling that his mind had been violated, stolen, taken sat in his heart as naturally as knowing that gravity worked. The you stemmed from the nameless them he had been imagining- that hunch that everything was connected. And that it seems a thing a cursed princess in a castle might do to their lover who abandoned her. "I don't even know if I have family. I left here a few months ago and only made it as far as some Inn. What kind of life is that? So I left? Is this my punishment?"

 

[mon]

She doesn't blame him. At least, she doesn't think she does. The past her would've wanted him to leave, forget about her and start over a fresh. Staying with a ghost, a shadow of who she once was, was too cruel of a deed Ashwyn could bare. But now?

Perhaps she does resent him, because not only had he left and started life anew, but he had came back, in search for her. All her plans prior had been futile and she wasted away within these palace walls for nothing. If he continued to stay with her, then perhaps she would truly feel alone, knowing that he would be waiting on someone who isn't complete, who could never love him like she once did.

His accusation had her looking up, her lips parted in stunned alarm. The briefest flicker of guilt---an emotion that should be lost on her, alighted and died.

"I didn't," she pursed her lips, the room was beginning to feel too small for the two of them. "I..."

Her silence told him enough and her arms crossed over herself, in a subconsciously defensive position.

"It was supposed to be a mercy. There's nothing for you here, Vidar. You weren't supposed to remember," she sighed, unable to look at him.

 

[TrashRabbit]

"And what is there for me out there with nothing? Nothing Ash. I wasn't supposed to remember- I wasn't supposed to know you'd done me evil?" He says.

He takes another step away from her. He didn't believe that she hadn't done it, because his heart ran hot and something in him had been and always will be suspicious and in constant anticipation of hurt. Betrayal is a sinking feeling. A sucking sensation. A red hot warren of spongy and clawing thoughts.

"A mercy. Who decided that? You with no heart? What have I ever done to deserve this?" He didn't remember of course, he could have done something, how was he to know. But the hurt inside him said he was innocent, that he didn't deserve this.

 

[mon]

It's a blessing in disguise that she is unable to feel, because she is certain she would be hurt seeing the betrayal in his eyes, glaring like a wounded animal. Was it really her fault? She had done what she believed was right and she did not regret her decisions, however selfish they may be. His charges against her had her frosting in demeanor.

"Well, there's nothing here for you either! What is it you suppose I do? Trap you here with me?" her voice raised, hand slamming against the table. "You," her eyes narrowed, remembering how disappointed he had looked when she failed to react the way she did in the past, how she failed to reciprocate his affections because she had no heart.

"You were always chasing something that no longer existed. You may not see it as a mercy now, but you will later." That much she felt sure of. The cycle would repeat itself. He'd regret having loved her, staying with her because his feelings tied him to.

Angry at herself for losing composure, Ashwyn turned on her heel to storm out of the room. She's always hated fighting with Tuesday.

 

[TrashRabbit]

Its not a proud moment when he grabs one of the suits of armor and sends it to the ground just to hear it clatter, nor when he sweeps everything off the ancient table and onto the floor. He slumps against the wall of draws and sits. He tucks his nose into his knees as he finally cries over the whole mess. It's a mess. He didn't remember that fighting with Ashwyn was a messy affair, or that he sometimes refused to apologize for days and Ashwyn sometimes never at all. That Sometimes their fight proved useless and silly after but a few minute's discussion. He doesn't know that he had been to proud and ashamed to let her see him cry- at least before the curse.

And in this moment he can't chase the things in his mind around to make sense them. He recalls the first time Martha had slapped him across the face, and how the urge to strike her back had burned up inside him and then drowned because he had no where else to go. And his mind offered that perhaps lurking the same castle as a heartless girl who'd stolen his self hood was perhaps better than being a strangers servant. He did not currently have enough life experience to be able to know. He trusted himself enough to know that if he had left it had been for a reason, he also trusted himself to know if some one had hurt Ash he would not have sat idly by. What He didn't know was he had been gone for years, tracking the witch down. He didn't know that his letters had never made it back to Ashwyn. That those letters-- that their separation is what had lead him to him reading. He didn't know how close he had gotten. Or how the witch had come to Ashwyn and painted him the picture of a desperate man- that she had given her a lock of his hair in exchange for his 'peace of mind'.

And he was never supposed to know again.

His mind is as cluttered and wrecked as the room he sits in. With half a mind to leave and the other half insisting there will be an answer. There must be an answer. He longed for the girl in the library he knew. He longed to put his head in her lap and stare at the tiny deer figurines that sat on her side table and think large thunderous thoughts until her humming could part them like the eye in a storm. The memory hazed and clouded as soon as he had realized he had it- only remembering that it had existed and that it was just on the tip of his tongue.

He stays there a long time, alone in the musty forbidden room. But when his white hot anger burns down into a dull heavy coal in his gut he gets up- lights the candles. He opens everything he thinks some one might rather he didn't touch. He finds no clues about himself, but he does find the records from the war, the cities that were sacked, the ever increasing number of lives lost in battle listed with the same dull numbers used to count loaves of bread or shoes. He thought there should be some second set of numbers for when sums were of existential importance, and in need of a special sort of urgency. Lives couldn't be counted so easily could they? The records of the war cut off abruptly, just as things seemed most dire.

He knew that it was connected. As surely as he knew that he had loved Ashwyn once. But his mind was unable to fill in the gaps and it bothered him like a missing tooth. Hours passed, nose tucked in the old war figures- he was a slow reader and part of him wanted to procrastinate looking at Ashwyn again. Would it be a mercy? Would he agree later? He didn't realize that out side the forbidden room and the castle the sun had begun to set.

 

[mon]

Leaving the room had instantly cooled her head, riding her of the faux anger she had conjured in her head. The feeling didn't stay for long, naturally but Tuesday's words echoed in her mind, making her feel more hollowed than ever. She occupied herself by roaming the halls. Keeping herself busy meant she didn't have to think about other things. Things like Tuesday, things like her past, things like how she ought not feel bad for herself. The pity party was long over.

The princess had strolled outside the palace walls, towards the borders of the forest that she is unable to cross over. She finds a barren place to sit herself down and there she sat, knees hugged to her chest, staring blankly into the barricade of trees. The shadows caused by looming trunks and thick branches remind her of the spell that took her heart; the dark tendrils which snatched a beating bead of light, the size of a marble, the color of translucent tiger's eye, shining with the brilliance of a star.

"That's my heart?" Ashwyn had asked, once upon a time, choked up and heaving over at the hollowing void in her chest.

The Witch had nodded, an unreadable smile on her face. With a wave of her hand, the bead had burst into a billion sparks, flying from her hand towards the sky, out to the corners of Elinroth. It had been blindingly bright and when the flash faded down, the Witch was gone and with it, Ashwyn's heart.

That was the last she remembered, the memory as distant as a dream.

The air grew colder as night fell. Ashwyn felt her fingers numb as she sat in the dark stubbornly, wishing now she had brought a cloak, or a light. Logically, she knew she should return soon, but returning to the castle meant having to face Tuesday and she was in no mind to see him now. Getting up to her feet, she stamped her feet to keep warm. Her breath created small puffs of fog in the night air.

Stop being stubborn, she told herself, finally turning back. A thought nagged in the back of her mind: It's not like he wants to see you either.

Somehow, it left her feeling gloomy.

 

[TrashRabbit]

He set off into the castle with a single candle and did his best not to startle every time a candle lit itself on his approach. The princess was not in the dinning room, though the food was mounded high as it had been the previous night it looked untouched. The princess it seemed worked on a schedule, and he imagined their fight had disrupted it. Perhaps, he thought, she was up in her room. He wasn't sure where her rooms were, and he felt it beyond his social prowses to go calling there. So he turned heel and headed back up to the rooms she had shown him to the night before.

His temper had cooled but his convictions had not. He needed answers and strangely he got more of them in his sleep than awake. what ever magic was unraveling, he needed it to unravel faster.

 

[mon]

It just so happened that Ashwyn had to run into Tuesday upon returning to the castle. The direction of his course implied that he was returning to his rooms. Though she could not feel the twinge of disappointment in her heart, her body reacted as though she could. Blue sapphires lowered downcast.

In the past, the two had arguments like any couple, any duo; but it was only so rarely they left them unsettled. Cold wars between them could last for days if started, and those were the worst ones.

She's grateful she does not have a heart then, assuming that this was a start to another cold front.

"Good night, Tuesday," Ashwyn said after a moment of steeling herself up to face him (Why was it difficult? It shouldn't be). Her voice was hollow, devoid of emotion and spoken with a nonchalance as though their dispute had not happened.

 

[TrashRabbit]

He sees her. He hears her. but his mouth goes dry. The disconnect between her hesitant body language and her empty voice set him on edge. Remind him again that she is not quit right. That she had in some real way betrayed him- And he hopes it was in this state, because at least that he thought he could forgive.

"Good night," he says. But his voice is also hallow. He stays up until his candle burns down, making himself a pagentry of shadow puppets and tries not to think. He falls asleep in the darkness, but at least tonight he takes his boots off.

 

[mon]

It starts with a subtle suddenness. Like all dreams, there is no recollection of the beginning. There is only now and what is.

There is Ashwyn, standing in a forest glade. It is dark and yet the air shimmers, no doubt because of the presence of the hooded figure before her. They're talking lowly to one another. Their lips move in a murmur but no sound is made---at least, no sounds in this memory.

Ashwyn looks ghastly. Her face is pale, streaked with pain and tormented visions. Scenes that haunt her sleep darken the shadows beneath her eyes. And yet despite all this, she looks no worse for wear. She stands squared with her face set, convicted. There is a fragility in sunken azures which show of remorse and regret.

Light scatter in streaks across the night sky, leaving a collapsed Ashwyn. She falls to her knees before the Witch, clutching her chest as she heaves. Her eyes are skewed shut and a cold hand reaches out, tilting her chin upwards by the finger. When she looks up, she sees the Witch, full in face---a face which no matter how much she stared at, she could not recall the appearance. It's veiled with magic, shifting among realities. Though she does not remember how the Witch looked, she knows that she is sorry: a look of regret which Ashwyn could no longer mirror.

Somewhere in the distance, she hears her name being called, shouted in desperation. She turns around to face the voice she is so familiar with, but it no longer reaches her heart.

 

[TrashRabbit]

"Ash?" he calls. In the dream running through the forest underbrush is like running through water, where his feet move but they don't eat up the ground right. The sticks and logs don't trip but cling to his boots like deep. this memory-- this nightmare, it has been worn smooth until the details shine. The image of her and the witch engraved like a renaissance painting in his mind.
"What have you done?" He demands. His voice is raw and its unclear which woman he is yelling the question at.

 

[mon]

"You're too late."

The Witch's voice is soft and mellifluous, syrupy smooth like a bubbling brook. It echoes with sympathy, spoken as condolences. She looks over at Tuesday and though the shadows of her hood hide her face, one could tell she was looking sorrowful.

The Witch conveyed the emotions which Ashwyn couldn't, for even the princess repeated the Witch's words in a whisper. Her expression dazed and stoic despite sapphires being wet with tears.

 

[TrashRabbit]

The only thing that stopped the knife in Tuesday's sleeve from seeking a home in the witch's throat was the queer way that Ash mirrored the witch.

"What did you do her?" He demands again. The weight of the knife against the base of his palm begins to feel like regret; hesitation and recklessness have both been equal oportunity tools in his life and this time he is not sure which one was the right choice.