My Scars Need Patience, Love of Mine (Patreon)

"I adore your eyes."

The compliment is unexpected, but that's not why your breath catches. "What?" you croak.

Alessa's fingers don't cease their idle caresses over your chest. "I have always thought so, but I believe I have never expressed it." You feel her chin dig into the crook of your shoulder as she tilts her head to look at you. "I... desire to communicate it now."

It takes you longer than you would have liked to return her gaze. When you do, Alessa's brows are slightly pinched. "Darling one?" she asks, and you hate how the joviality in her tone is gone. "Have I misspoken?"

You force yourself to shake your head. "No," you lie. She has, but it's not her fault. "I was just—" You shake your head. "Surprised."

Her frown is not completely gone, but it eases. "Has no one told you before?” Alessa asks, a tease of a smile growing on her lips. “Did you live your entire life believing your eyes are displeasing?"

I never once thought that.

The laugh you give sounds stilted even to your ears. "No, 'Lessa. I was surprised you complimented me at all." You lean down to graze your lips atop the crown of her head, wanting to hide the sadness in your eyes. "For all I knew, you thought me revolting."

Alessa huffs, cool breath ghosting over your skin. Her fingertips steal the warmth from your flesh, and her body is a heavy blanket over your own. You realize now that she will never meet your mother.

The thought makes it hard to breathe.

"I would not kiss a revolting face," Alessa states and twists in your arms, trying to look you in the face again. You squeeze her tight so that she can't. "And I have flattered you plenty of times."

"Liar."

Her indignation has you genuinely laughing. You just wish your sight wasn't misty. "Also, you stole my line, beautiful. I'm the one who likes your eyes."

Alessa stops fighting and settles her head on your chest. Her cold hand sprawls over your heart. "You are impossible," she says in a quiet, careful tone. A tone of one who's unsure of what to say.

You blink the tears away and pull her closer until you almost crush her, but Alessa doesn't protest. She doesn't say a word as you push your face into the crook of her neck and inhale in her scent, hanging onto the present. The now. She speaks not, letting you swallow the lump that clogs your throat before you can speak again. "I'm sorry."

"Worry not, foolish one," Alessa whispers, finally breaking free to hold your face between her hands. You have nowhere to hide now, and her ice-blue eyes peer deep into yours. "I do not understand... but I need not to. I am here, regardless."

She catches a tear with a cold, slender finger. And silences your broken heave with the soft plumpness of her lips.

- - -

His arms seem made of stone as they wrap around you.

But no stone has ever been so warm. His breath raises goosebumps all over your skin when Hadrian leans down to whisper behind your ear. "What are you looking at, love?"

You blink, snapping out of a trance you haven't realized you had fallen into. "Hmm?"

Hadrian backs away to follow your sight. You feel more than hear him hum, the vibrations spreading along your spine until they tingle the tip of your toes. "The family?"

You’ve been caught, but you can’t look away. A family of five is lounging beneath a tilting willow tree, with the sun infiltrating like melted honey from between the leaves. A small child plays with a long blade of grass, leaning against her father's lap while the mother is helping the family's matriarch sit on a nearby bench.

The day is pleasantly warm, Hadrian's embrace even more so, but even still, you suddenly feel cold from top to bottom.

"Have you ever had that?" you find yourself asking. Your voice sounds strange to your own ears. Emotionless. Cold.

Hadrian seems to think the same. "Is, uh. Is something wrong?"

"No. Have you ever had that?" Your nails dig ever so slightly into his forearms.

Hadrian looks from you to the family. When he looks back to you, his eyes have darkened. "No," he says. You don't like what you hear in his voice either. "I... I never did."

The child rolls on stubby knees away from her father and takes a few wobbly steps, little hands spread out as if she wants to hold onto the air. You see the three adults watching with a joy so deep, it's almost painful. The corner of your eyes moistens.

"Do you ever wish you had?" you ask, but this time, you can hear the ache in your voice.

Hadrian is silent for a long moment. You would have thought he didn't hear you if his arms hadn't tightened around your stomach, pulling you flush to his chest. "I never thought about it," Hadrian admits, at last. "I was given to the Church so young. I was always thought of them as my family."

You close your eyes now, tilting your head onto his shoulder. You had a mother, but Hadrian didn't even have as much — you don't know if you pity or envy him.

"But now," Hadrian continues. "I— I suppose I would have liked to know. What it feels like, I mean. The nuns and priests weren't so..." He pauses as the child laughs merrily to the air. The other three soon following. "They weren't like that."

You nod, eyes still closed, having nothing else to say. Sometimes grief robs you of words and thoughts, of empathy or sympathy. Sometimes, you're left hallowed, in the warm arms of one who can’t understand your pain.

Hadrian calls your name in his gentle, heart-rending tone. "But I'm not too worried."

You find that you can't answer. Hadrian doesn't seem to mind. "I'll never be young again, love, but I know now that God rarely grants what you want. You need to build it yourself."

You open your eyes and turn in his arms to stare at him. "What do you mean?"

Hadrian smiles — it makes him look ten years younger. Like the youth he says he'll never be. The young boy you wish you could have found to assure him that someday, in the future, he'll be loved. "You're my family," Hadrian says, his tone bursting with devotion. "If, uh. If you want to be."

Grief makes you hallow. And love renders you speechless.

You stare at each other. Hadrian's cheeks start to flush. "I— I mean—"

You don't let him finish. Looping your arms around his neck, you kiss him until you're both out of air. "Is that a yes?" Hadrian asks breathlessly.

You kiss him again.

- - -

Alain sweeps his hair back, pulling on the unruly curls.

You can see the sparkle of irritation in his eyes as he reads the elegant letter, his lips getting thinner and thinner by the sentence. "God wept, another dinner," Alain grumbles, throwing the paper away as if it had personally offended his bloodline.

He sweeps his hair again, and the curls immediately bounce back to his forehead. "I don't know where they're getting all the turkeys and fawns, but I wish the things would cross the sea already."

You take in the irritated cross of his arms and the flare of his nostrils. "You're sulking," you say.

Alain's eyes narrow on you. "I'm not sulking. I'm just done with all these bloody dinners. How many more cousins do I have to be introduced to? You'd think my aunts would learn to close their old leg—"

Alain stops himself, taking a deep breath. "I shouldn't talk about my family like that," he says, and steps closer to you. His brown eyes roam over your form on the couch, and a grin tilts one side of his mouth. "Who knows how many ears are listening, hm?"

You'd normally smile back and make some quip about getting them something worth listening to, but you find that you can't. Your eyes are glued to that letter, to the way he discarded it so...

Casually.

"I'd rather stay here with you, sparrow," Alain is whining, petulant pout on display as he inclines over the side of the sofa, lowering himself on his arms on top of you. "You're worth more than a hundred cousins sewed together. Although that would be a very funny picture."

His laughter ghosts the skin on your collarbones. You frown at the letter. You can see that, whoever wrote it, had been careful to trace the words as elegantly as they could.

"Sparrow?" Alain calls, pulling himself up again to peer at your face. "I'd invite you to come, pretty thing, but I can't. My uncle would..." Alain frowns. "It wouldn't be worth it."

"Who wrote that?" you ask.

Alain blinks. "What?"

"The letter," you say, turning your head to look at him. You don't know what Alain sees in your eyes, but it has him raising his eyebrows high. "Who wrote that letter?"

"Oh." Alain frowns at it now, still hovering on top of you. "Uh, a distant uncle. The father of this cousin. I forget the name already." A pause. "Why?"

"You forget the name?" The question comes out harsher than you intended to, but when you speak anew, you sounded harsher still. "You just read it, Alain."

Alain looks as if you struck him. "I glazed over the signature," he excuses. He readjusts himself, sitting beside you on the divan. "What does it matter away? They're here to seek favor from my uncle, as always. They're puppets. And brainless ones at that."

What does it matter?You scoff. "You really don't get it, do you? How fortunate you are."

Alain stares at you for a beat. "What did you say?" he says in a dark whisper.

He has never spoken to you this way. But then again, neither have you. "You heard me," you snap back. "Someone of your blood writes you a letter, and you don't have the decency to remember their name. Or the grace to meet their child."

She never wrote you a letter. You waited longer than it's sensible, but your mother has never once written you a letter. Or any other family you might have had.

Alain gets up. "You have no fucking idea what it's like to be a Theer," he says, his fists clenched tight at his side. "You have no idea what it means to belong to this family."

"At least you have a family.”

Alain halts, his mouth gaping as your eyes widen. Embarrassment overwhelms you, and you turn away, gripping the back of the divan like a lifeline. "I..."

What can you say? God's nails, you're pathetic.

A heavy, painful silence falls. You don't move, wishing he'd simply go. Let you be alone to bury the pain deep again and pretend this never happened.

But Alain has a way of surprising you. "... shit," he says and then, you feel his hands hesitantly touching your shoulders. "Sparrow?" he whispers so tenderly that you bite your lower lip. "Can you look at me?"

You shake your head.

Alain sighs. "Please?"

"I'm sorry," you say. "I didn't mean to argue with you. You didn't deserve that."

"I was callous, too," Alain admits. He pulls your shoulders, and you let him turn you. His face is dark with concern. "But you must understand, those people aren't my family. None of them are. They just..." Alain clicks his tongue. "They just share a name."

He sits beside you again and takes your hand in his. "Ysabella is my family. I have no one else. It's me and her." Alain pauses, seeming to hesitate. "Which is more than you have, isn't it?"

You look at your joined hands. "It wasn't always like this. I used to have a family too.”

"Shit," Alain curses again. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. "I don't... I didn't know. I'm sorry."

You shake your head and kiss him briefly on the lips. "It's alright. I manage."

"I wouldn't," Alain says before pulling you into his arms. You don't know how long you stay like this, holding each other, but slowly, the pain eases away.

"You know..." Alain eventually breaks the silence. His chin rests on top of your head, and his fingers trace senseless shapes on your arms. "I'd advise against it, sparrow, but if you really want, you can always just take my name. What's one more Theer, anyway?"

You can't believe your ears. Slowly, you back away from him to look him in the eyes. Alain smiles lazily at you. "... are you asking me to marry you?"

And you laugh hard when his face falls, color gone, and he starts to babble desperately to backtrack.

- - -

Note: This Romanus is of the hunter's origin.

Ysabella's hair flies with the force of the wind.

Her hand fits in yours as if she was made for you as the pair of you stand on top of a small hill. Soft, green grass and uncountable yellow flowers sprout from your feet to the bottom of the hill where your horses rest.

You can see Billy sniffing one of the flowers.

"Isn't it pretty?" Ysabella asks you. She has her chin raised, face tilted towards the clouds, and her lips upturned in a serene smile. It's a dangerous smile, that one. A smile who could move armies and shatter hearts. A smile that, despite the beauty of your surroundings, has you entranced on her.

"Pretty is putting it mildly," you answer.

Ysabella's enchanting smile grows. "I can see you looking at me."

You chuckle and kiss her cheek. "Guilty."

Her laughter tingles in your ears. "C'mon, now, dearest," Bella beckons, tugging you closer and pointing a finger forward. "At least pretend to enjoy the view. I did bring you all the way here, after all."

You’ve half a mind to nuzzle your face into her neck, but you can never deny her. "As my lady commands," you say and follow her finger. The valley opens before you, widening to grand distances.

It's not a sunny day, and the grey clouds from above give a light that makes you assume it's colder than it really is. Grass turns grey, the mud black, and as you inhale, you half expect to feel the familiar tinge of ice in the air.

Like the moors of your childhood.

"Over there is God's Groove," Ysabella tells you, pointing to the right side of the valley. You see a small cluster of houses there, with a crude wooden wall surrounding them. "It's too small to be on any map. I like to go there once in a while. Pretend I'm not... well, pretend I'm someone else."

The size is different. The color is wrong. The wall curves at the wrong point.

But even still, all you see is the shadow of the village you grew up in; of the last place you ever truly considered home.

"Darling?" Ysabella asks when you stay silenced.

You let go of her hand and take a blind step forward, felling as if the air has frozen in your chest. Your old village. Without reason, you look around, searching for the shape of a grizzly bear with a limp. Searching for your oldest friend.

Ysabella calls your name, but all you hear is the mad beating of your own heart. He's not here. And neither is she. Lord help you, neither is she.

Ysabella yells when you stagger a step away and almost fall down the hill. "What—" She clings desperately to you. "What's wrong? What do you feel?"

She's panicking, you realize. You want to calm her, but you can't speak over the knock on the back of your throat. "Dear?" Ysabella cups your face. "Please, tell me what's wrong."

"My home," you rasp from dry lips. You look at the distant town again and feel a pang so deep in your chest that you think grief is eating away at your insides. "My home was just like that, Bella."

Ysabella looks over her shoulder, and then, she turns back, and her beautiful, soulful eyes are moist with tears. "Oh," she says, and you know she understands. Ysabella pulls you in the tightest hug you've ever gotten, trying to meld you into her chest. "Oh, my beloved."

You hug her back and shut your eyes. Shame will come later, as well as regrets, but right now, you cling to her, to the warmth she offers, and pray that it's enough to shove away the ghosts of a stolen life.

"You don't need to tell me," Ysabella whispers, her fingers plunging into your hair. You shiver as you feel her nails drag along your scalp, the gesture tender but firm. "But if you ever want to speak of it, I'm here. I'm here."

And she says it again and again.

"I'm here. I'm here.”

Perhaps one day, you'll believe her. For now, you're sure she won't be here for very long.