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People, being people, often act against their better judgment. They have stupid ideas and they are drawn in by dangerous things and people. Mostly this ends badly. But sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the dreamer is right.
Cilren still remembers when she first saw that bard performing. She had snuck out. She remembers the tavern light dancing over his skin, his hair, his clothing. Making his teeth seem sharp like she imagined those of a wolf. He had everyone captivated. His voice and the rhythm of his whips made it impossible to look away. There was something about his presence, his confidence, his grin, that had her rooted to the spot. And then at some point he locked eyes with her. And didn't look away again. The intensity of his gaze made her think she could feel every single one of the nerve endings in her body.
She had often been warned about strange men with uncertain intentions. It was no secret that her father was a wealthy man. It was best to avoid the mess that would inevitably come with any romantic entanglements. But. There was something in the air that night. And she felt bold and beautiful. And he was a stranger in town anyway. He didn't know her father. If he wanted her, and he did, it was for her own sake, at least for now.
So when the bard strolled up to her after his performance she didn't walk away. She allowed him to look at her and looked at him in return. She allowed him to talk to her in a low voice that made her breath stutter. She played coy, pretending she wasn't aware of his intention. At some point his hand found hers and she didn't pull away as his thumb started stroking her wrist, right over her pulse. She remembers a moment in the conversation when he leaned his head back slightly, exposing his throat. There was just a bit of sweat running down, drawing a line from right under his chin, over his Adam's apple, the dip of his collar bones, to his chest and disappearing under his shirt. Cilren was overcome by the sudden strong need to close in, push him against the table. Follow that line with her mouth. Her tongue. Leave small bites along the way. Feel his hands in her hair. She wanted. She wanted so much and she was tired of pretending. So it wasn't long until she took his hand properly and lead him to her home. To her room. To her bed. Until she let herself be consumed.
Over the following months their encounters slowly became more frequent. She found herself looking forward to them and missing him between. He always stayed after. He was respectful, gentle, romantic and kind. Only rough when she asked and horribly romantic. Some nights they simply lay beside each other and talked for hours. The nobleman's daughter found herself slowly falling for the performer with a mysterious past and an accent that came and went. A tale old as time.
They were truly happy even if they had to be careful and quiet and dared not to hope for a future. Until that night of course. But even then. He wrote to her. And he came back.
She couldn't believe her luck when she finally held him in her arms again.
She felt even luckier still when they made the impossible possible by joining hands at the altar. It felt like forever lay before them and they would never have to be lonely and afraid again.
Cilren knows she was naive. Of course she knows. But when he had taken her hand, so gently, and met her eyes with such love and warmth she had really believed it could last. For a moment she had believed she could have this. That she was allowed a simple happiness without catch. That everything would be okay from now on.
Naturally she was wrong.
Fate had to take him away from her again. And she fears that he won't return this time. That she will have to stew in lonely uncertainty and fear until death takes her as well.
At night she wakes from dreams that are strange and frightening and when she reaches across the bed for comfort finds it empty. She cries in the dark and there are no strong arms holding her, no voice murmuring sweet nothings against her hair. Her skin is lonely without the touch it has grown so used to in such a short time. And she is cold.
After a while she lies back down and she turns until uneasy sleep finds her. Images of her father, dead in his bed, are chased by ever changing memories. She sees her wedding day. Her husband looks at her with singular focus, with a palpable pride that fills her with emotions she never thought herself capable of. And just as they are about to exchange their vows a red fog descends on the scene. Suddenly they are standing in a battlefield. The air is filled with horrible cries and her husband's gaze is hard. He is looking through her at something else and then he turns around and walks away. Into certain doom, she knows without knowing. Her fingers find no purchase in his clothing and though her throat feels raw with shouting there is no sound. She can't stop him. She falls to her knees and she is seven years old again. The blood soaked earth turns to wooden floor. She is clinging to the hem of her mother's dress. She will never see her again. Her mother becomes her father becomes Jacques. There are voices she can't quite make out, shouting at her. There is mud and wood and blood. And she's alone. Alone. Alone.
And there is nothing she can do.
People are killing and fighting and dying and she can't do anything. Anything but watch. Assassins in her home. Bloody sheets. Orange orange orange. A lover slipping away. A husband stepping through a portal. Without so much as looking back. Her being left behind. Again again again. An empty house. Heels echoing down the street. And nothing she can do.
Days bleed into each other.
She has no one to talk to.
She is cold.
She cries a lot.