Chapter 48
***
My despair-fueled cries dripped onto the world.
- Where is my eternity, which God has now granted me..................?
In the paradise that God had prepared for me, or in the maw of the sinners, or in the void and nothingness?
In my desperate struggle, a bitter smile spread across his beautiful face.
He picked me up and held me once more. A large hand caressed my tear-stained cheek.
Thick thumbs stroked under my eyes.
He calmed the flood of my eyes, which had finally broken through the dam of tears and overflowed.
- I have it.
It was a heavy promise.
With just a few tears, a grunt or two, I laid the heaviest burden in the world on you.
- You asked me to stay with you for one more second, right now. You asked us to live in the moment. So don't keep thinking about the future, just this moment. Just the here and now.
He pinpointed exactly what I needed to do and the mindset I needed to have.
- You don't have to be resigned, of course; you can be angry at this unreasonable world at times, you can cry at a world that doesn't make sense to you - you deserve it - but please.................. don't let yourself break down and despair, dwelling on a future that is yet to come.
Largo, I was already broken, despairing, and frustrated on this day.
Like a broken record, I couldn't get up again, I just sat there in the darkness, waiting for someone to reach out to me.
But I didn't want to show him, not even to him, the depths of my despair.
I hoped he didn’t know my rotten insides. May he never know my sick heart.
May he remember me in the most beautiful form he knows.
There was no prophecy, just a terrible illness.
-Your Grace.
- Just like that. We shouldn't think so, should we?
His voice trembled.
The sad glow of my tears washed over him.
I realized then, in hindsight, that he was holding on desperately, too.
Because I pretended to be okay, you pretended to be okay, too.
Maybe that's how I managed to hold on to what I wanted to go crazy with each passing day.
When he spotted me from a distance, the moment he came close and met my gaze, maybe even the scent
of my body shook him to his core.
- There must be a way.................. somewhere, it's just a disease, a little hard to cure.
I sucked in a deep, stained breath.
The full breath came out as a hmph, barely making it through my throat to form a sob.
- You say it's a cruel hope, but it's even crueler not to dream of it. It is said that man lives to hope.
You said so, but hope, still locked in Pandora's box, has always been beyond my grasp.
Even as a child, even now.
- It's a legend, a superstition.................. but the god you serve has granted it to me, and now I have a small hope.
-A small hope, one...................
- Forever, as lovers without parting.
We who had to lean on that petty superstition.
I wept for a long time in his comforting arms.
***
It took a while for my sudden outburst to stop, and it was nearly midnight when we descended the tower.
- Isn't it hard..................?
I said to him as we descended the circular spiral staircase, one step, then another.
I knew that it was much harder to go down than to go up, and I was worried because I was carrying the burden of the country.
The breeze from the observation tower washed the sweat from his brow, and he replied lightly.
- I haven't been hunting for nothing, I'm in good shape.
- Aren’t I.................. heavy?
- Can I be honest with you?
His eyes narrowed for a moment at the repetition of my question.
Since he was the first to speak, I couldn’t help but wait.
He puffed out both cheeks and grumbled.
- ..................I'm afraid I'm going to be torched.
- What are you thinking?
He let out a small laugh.
It was a pleasant laugh, and it bounced off the walls of the tower, leaving a small echo.
I liked the sound of the soft echo, and it gave me another chuckle of excitement.
I thought, Oh, Largo.
My hand trembled at the thought of the moment, and my pen fumbled and slipped.
The ink smudged and smeared black across you.
I wonder what I wrote there.
Staring at the black chest that remains of you, in an inaccurate memory, I groped for the memories of this day.
I recalled his words, so that even in death, I would not forget them. I inscribed them on you so that they would never be forgotten.
-Compared to the hunt, you are a feather in my cap.
- It's an odd comparison.
- The carpet that used to cover your room in winter was made from the hide of a beast that weighed over two hundred kilograms, while you weigh just over forty at most.
Misunderstandings about my weight aside, I pondered for a moment what kind of carpet was on my floor in winter.
Still nothing I remembered.
I didn’t even know what was in the room I had lived in for six years.
Perhaps it was no wonder he was looking at me as if I were about to leave.
He had laid everything out for me, thinking of me, remembering me, and yet he didn't want me to know.
It was not I, or I alone, who spoke of tears and sorrow.
He was the one who deserved to tell me your grief and resentment.
But just like the vows we made on our wedding day.
He endured and endured and endured because we swore to understand each other in a world without understanding.
To understand this ugly me.
- By the way, your cheeks were softer than usual when I touched them earlier.
- What?
- The cream that the head maid made for you must have worked really well. I think I'll have to try it when we get back to the castle.
He was doing his best to keep me from becoming fixated on one thought.
I followed his lead and left him with one word, one very deep vow.
- Yes, I will be very fair, and I will reproduce exactly what you said to me.
- And then we can go in to wash up together, it's going to be a long dawn today.
-...............Your Highness.
- Why? Isn't this a good place to talk, with no one here?
In fact, even our first night was held in the presence of observers, and the maids cleaned up any traces of our bedding. Besides, we've been married for six years, so what's there not to hide and say?
Still, there was a timidity in me that I had not yet overcome.
- There may be people following us, and there may be people coming up behind us.
- If they're in a good enough relationship to come up here, they'll be happy to hear about it.
And they'll discuss their night.
It was an irrefutable statement.
And contrary to my futile worries, it was bruises, bruises.
All I could hear was the sound of his footsteps, the rubbing of my clothes against his as they swayed on top of him.
- So.
- What?
- I like long nights, and I like long dawns.
I parted my lips once, then again.
The voice that came out was timid.
So timid that it didn't even reach his ear, even though we were so close together.
-..................I don't like it.
- I can't hear well.
- I hate the bathroom and...................
Reddening to the tips of my toes, I managed to mumble.
- Somewhere familiar.................. is better.
- Somewhere familiar. Like what?
- Your Highness, please...............
- Is it the bedroom?
He looked strangely amused as he answered for me.
My voice was perfect, creeping into the other side.
-............Yes.
- I'll take your advice, I'll take note.
I clutched at his sleeve, feeling strangely uneasy.
- What do you mean, take note?
- I’m saying that if I don't want to scratch your pretty skin, I need to clear the table as soon as we get to the bedroom.
***
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Toti (Friday, 05 July 2024 10:03)
THE PRENSES ��