Monday 12 March 2012

Crossroads

I sit alone with my back against a tree. It is my tree, or so I have named it in my mind. It is a large creature with a twisted trunk and thick coiling roots broken through from the earth as if it were to come alive when no one saw. But for now it is still and sturdy, just the faint waver of its fledgling branches in the gentle breeze as they bristle gently back and forth, bursting with the pride of its new summer leaves. My fingers move gently through the grass beneath my palms, brushing past daisies and rich bitter smelling dandelions. My head leans back with dark eyes gazing towards port, my home and my duty.

I hear myself sigh wishing Alexander were here so I could try to explain my heart. But he lies bloodied and broken on an infirmary cot, his snowy skin with a deathly sheen but he is still alive as much as a vampire can be. He has coiled himself into a slumber of self preservation, closing off the world to brood or to dream or merely to do nothing, just sleep and forget all. I have spent the night watching him with my hand over his, but he is cold and unresponsive. He did a great thing even if he took risks but paying for such choices is something we all must face. And yet he refuses to wake for anyone, or so I think. Not even for me.


And so I continue to sit alone by my tree trying to make sense of the choices before me. The banners of Tarrund flutter in the wind, rippling blue and gold that bursts with both pride and promise. I smile softly at such a vision and know that the troubled town is forever locked in my heart. I have fought hard to belong there and even harder to stay.


But how much longer can we rule as one? The governor and I have reached a crossroads where we are pulled apart by our past, just as it once joined us. Can a love founded in a far off land, tried and tested endure? Can it survive the paths we have set ourselves on as we grow and change? Yet he has not much changed. Instead it is I.


The choices I have made have set me on a new path and no longer do they trace in the steps of his magnificent shadow. In a way I feel free and yet in another I am terrified. He is still my Prince, my first love and my adoration yet there are secrets of my past that will rock the foundation of his world to the core. Could I do that to him? Could I have him hate me? Selfishly I will be the beauty that slipped through his fingers and into the arms of one who loves me for all that I am and not the facade that Alexander has forced me to play. He had wronged me in more ways than one and yet nothing he has done compares to my own deeds. And if he knew the depth of my despair he would turn his eyes from me in disgust.


A darkness springs from within me, cleaving to such thoughts of anguish and yet here I still sit alone by my tree, turning my head to gaze out at the wilds. I breathe in the air and find it both fragrant and dense. Swirling aromas of petals and pinecones and an undertone of rippling water catch upon my inhale. Such a calming picture it paints in my mind as eyes closed I savour each memory it provokes.


~His arms come around me, gentle but protective; the magic of his touch sending a shiver of warm energy over tired skin. His fingers smooth luxuriously through my hair as he looks at me, a gaze that makes me feel he sees only me. The aroma of forest encompasses us both, entwined with that something unnameable that makes me catch my breath. His lips at my ear he tells me always want I need to hear and he listens to my answers patiently, lovingly as if he marvels that I speak them to him at all.~


My eyelids slowly open and I am still alone by my tree and yet I am not alone for he is here with me somehow. We have no mind link, no blood bond, no telepathy and yet just thought of him warms and calms me. And it makes him only more alluring for his mysteries captivate me to my very core. I picture him before me, caught in the moonlight, when the lunar sheen dances over his dark elven skin and his eyes are alight with blue adoration for me and I know despite everything....he is the path on the crossroad I cannot turn from.

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