Venus writes her thoughts
Sunday, 30 October 2005
Change and more change... the constant of life.
Danica has returned to live with us, and little Elysian too. It is wonderful to have them back with us again. Danica has ever been like a sister to me, and though he never spoke of it, I always knew how Xan missed his son. Isolde has revelled in her big sister role once again. I admit that to see him raises once again my old regrets that I will never bear children of mine own. Much as I know this is not how to look at it. Ekysian himself is a little gift, as Issy is, and I am luckier than I can say to have them both with me.
Yes. There. That is how to see it. Not to grieve for what is not and what never will be.
And we have joined the Hidden. All three of us have beomce Steel's officers, to carry out his vision. It is a noble one. I hope I am worthy. Very much.
Danica has returned to live with us, and little Elysian too. It is wonderful to have them back with us again. Danica has ever been like a sister to me, and though he never spoke of it, I always knew how Xan missed his son. Isolde has revelled in her big sister role once again. I admit that to see him raises once again my old regrets that I will never bear children of mine own. Much as I know this is not how to look at it. Ekysian himself is a little gift, as Issy is, and I am luckier than I can say to have them both with me.
Yes. There. That is how to see it. Not to grieve for what is not and what never will be.
And we have joined the Hidden. All three of us have beomce Steel's officers, to carry out his vision. It is a noble one. I hope I am worthy. Very much.
Monday, 03 October 2005
So very long once more until my thoughts have calmed enough once again for me to be able to commit them to paper. Xanthias once more returned to me, and threw my thoughts into such turmoil... I do not believe I have ever been so angry at a person in my life as I was to see him once more. Bitterly, bitterly angry...
He confessed to me that he had left because he felt responsible for my blindness. He told me that he had somehow feared that it was some kind of a judgement on me for loving him. I admit, this threw me into greater depths of anger. I did not know if I believed him. I was unsure if it was simply a flimsy excuse for being unable to cope with me as I was then, or whether he was telling thr truth. If so, I was even angrier with him, in a way. It was too close to some of the stupider and blacker thoughts I had had myself, from time to time. It was worse hearing them from another, and made me afraid that because of them I had failed another as he had failed me.
For he had failed me. He was not there when I needed him most. More than I could ever say to anyone.
I do understand his need to go back to the tombs of his family. They seem to him to live on in some way that is intimately bound up with the location of their bones. I udnerstand that he wishes to met go of their memory, and that of who he was...But he knew the pain... he should have known I needed him...
We exchanged many bitter words. I felt the anger swelling in me like a poisoned wound. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted him to realise what he had done to me. I told him of how I had come to be blind, how I had regained the memory. Some part of me watched with satisfaction as he went death-white as I told him matter-of-factly how I nearly perished in the maw of that ancient thing under the earth, and how I wandered close to death until Ildara found me and saved my life.
And yet the naked pain on his face hurt me too... And I wanted him. Even as I hurt him, even as the anger burned in me and itched and swelled, I wanted him still. And I hated myself the more for it. I could see only weakness in that desire. But nonetheless, for the first time, I let myself be angry at him. No carefulness, norestraint. i let him see all of me. Down to the hurt, the fury, the disgust in myself. I let it out. I let him see me. And I did not, in the end, entirely reject him. He came back to the cottage with me, though it was Danica's old bed he fell into and not mine own.
The next week was terrible. My thoughts swirled and clawed at me. I did not know what to do when he was in the cottage with me, and when he was out I was on edge, finding myself wondering where he was, what he was doing... What was worse in it's way was that Isolde greeted him with delight, threw herself into his arms. I had been angry at him for deserting her as much as I. Yet she took his return with delight only. I sometimes think that little one is too pure of soul to even feel such a thing as betrayal. She is so much sweeter than I, so pure by her nature. It made me feel only sourer, and loathe myself all the more for it. He went back to giving her the lessons in the sword he had began before he left, and I took the free time to hunt, fiercely.
I hoped for exhaustion. I had slept badly since I was cured. too long a dependance on the herbs for sleep I think, and with the turmoil of my thoughts... My sleep was interrupted often, and the dreams were bad. I began to wake in odd places, once kneeling by the fire, another time tangled in the bean vines in the garden, though I was sure I had barred the door before I slept. Hoping to exhaust msyelf more by researching in the library and my workshop, and to amuse Issy by showing her the new rooms revealed by the excavations, I took her to the Bunnies Clan Hall, and we spent a few nights there. Things came to a head when I wandered from my sleep in my workroom, where Issy and I were curled up on one of the beds, to wake in the arms of Xan in a dungeon I had never seen before, my face and hands covered in blood. He was frightened - he spoke of me wandering down talking of voices in the walls, not seeming to recognise him and scraping my skin raw trying to hear the voices. I can only think I was somehow walking in my sleep. I had never seen such a thing before. It would have gotten me killed on too many occasions. I stayed in the Guild hall, hoping that way at least I could be stopped form wandering off into danger and leaving Issy unprotected. She at least was not afeared. I think she slept through all my wanderings. And she loves the Guild Hall. She explores it as much as she can, and would be off entirely, I think, in the unexplored bits, if I did not keep a close eye on her.
In the end, of course, he came to find me even in the sanctuary of my workroom. So many stiff half-conversations that suddenly flared into life only when we bit off painful words at each other... I was weary. So weary it seemed to have seeped into my bones. But I was working when he came. Hoping for exhaustion. Hoping for sleep. He seemed half-shocked and half-saddened when he saw me. I told him of the deaths this place had seen in a raid while he was away, and he spoke suddenly that it hurt him to see me take such a burden alone. That he cared not for the mess in the workroom, but for that within me. That I had broken once and should not risk doing so again.
I was furious once more. I stiffly told him that I had not broken. I knew he meant the blindness... I let him know that no matter how terrible it had been, how much it and he had hurt me...I had survived it, as intact as I could ever be. Once more he looked stricken... and it hurt. I was so tired... I felt tears come to the surface suddebly, shamefully. I hid them in Isode's sleeping hair... but they left trails in the dirt on my cheeks. And fir a moment it seemed such folly to think that we could ever have anything of what I had thougth we once had. That we now could only hurt each other as the vestige of that...love? It seemed so...so very hard...
And then he apologised. For everything...just for everything. And so did I. I was so sick of hurting him...so sick of hurting myself. Words...so easy to speak, and they drive so very very deep, and stick like barbs... and it was so sweet simply to say sorry, and to hear him ask for it. So sweet to let go of that anger and that disgust, those swelling, hateful things. So sweet to let him see the weariness too...and for me to look at him afterwards and feel...something. For there to be something remaining between us once that had gone.
And the next words he spoke, softly, hesitantly, were to ask if I would sleep better were he with me in my bed.
I admit that I was stunned. And I felt an odd stirring of joy. Some, I admit, was that he could desire me still. That I had not become some dry and soured old woman full of hatred like bare broken bones and nothing else. And more joy that he truly and simply wanted to help me. That he still did care. For the look in his eyes. Nothing chancing, nor calculating. He could barely voice the words. He seemed to be almost holding his breath in suggesting them, as if afraid that I would turn on him once more. the hope and the fear in his eyes... He had abandoned that courtly mask of courtesy he had so often worn when he claimed he was baring his heart. All of a suden, it seemed to me that the prince was gone, and I could see only the man, with the awareness of his own failure of me in his eyes, and his wish to make amends heartbreakingly naked as he looked at me.
""Are...are you sure? That...that that is what you truly want?"
"I have been yours, since the day that you allowed me to be. Always my mind dwells on you. Why would I not want it? The question is, more importantly, do you truly want that?"
And I knew it was what I wanted. that he was what I wanted.
And if it is weakness to want him, to let myself love him, than I am weak. It cannot be less cold or less painful than strength.
He confessed to me that he had left because he felt responsible for my blindness. He told me that he had somehow feared that it was some kind of a judgement on me for loving him. I admit, this threw me into greater depths of anger. I did not know if I believed him. I was unsure if it was simply a flimsy excuse for being unable to cope with me as I was then, or whether he was telling thr truth. If so, I was even angrier with him, in a way. It was too close to some of the stupider and blacker thoughts I had had myself, from time to time. It was worse hearing them from another, and made me afraid that because of them I had failed another as he had failed me.
For he had failed me. He was not there when I needed him most. More than I could ever say to anyone.
I do understand his need to go back to the tombs of his family. They seem to him to live on in some way that is intimately bound up with the location of their bones. I udnerstand that he wishes to met go of their memory, and that of who he was...But he knew the pain... he should have known I needed him...
We exchanged many bitter words. I felt the anger swelling in me like a poisoned wound. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted him to realise what he had done to me. I told him of how I had come to be blind, how I had regained the memory. Some part of me watched with satisfaction as he went death-white as I told him matter-of-factly how I nearly perished in the maw of that ancient thing under the earth, and how I wandered close to death until Ildara found me and saved my life.
And yet the naked pain on his face hurt me too... And I wanted him. Even as I hurt him, even as the anger burned in me and itched and swelled, I wanted him still. And I hated myself the more for it. I could see only weakness in that desire. But nonetheless, for the first time, I let myself be angry at him. No carefulness, norestraint. i let him see all of me. Down to the hurt, the fury, the disgust in myself. I let it out. I let him see me. And I did not, in the end, entirely reject him. He came back to the cottage with me, though it was Danica's old bed he fell into and not mine own.
The next week was terrible. My thoughts swirled and clawed at me. I did not know what to do when he was in the cottage with me, and when he was out I was on edge, finding myself wondering where he was, what he was doing... What was worse in it's way was that Isolde greeted him with delight, threw herself into his arms. I had been angry at him for deserting her as much as I. Yet she took his return with delight only. I sometimes think that little one is too pure of soul to even feel such a thing as betrayal. She is so much sweeter than I, so pure by her nature. It made me feel only sourer, and loathe myself all the more for it. He went back to giving her the lessons in the sword he had began before he left, and I took the free time to hunt, fiercely.
I hoped for exhaustion. I had slept badly since I was cured. too long a dependance on the herbs for sleep I think, and with the turmoil of my thoughts... My sleep was interrupted often, and the dreams were bad. I began to wake in odd places, once kneeling by the fire, another time tangled in the bean vines in the garden, though I was sure I had barred the door before I slept. Hoping to exhaust msyelf more by researching in the library and my workshop, and to amuse Issy by showing her the new rooms revealed by the excavations, I took her to the Bunnies Clan Hall, and we spent a few nights there. Things came to a head when I wandered from my sleep in my workroom, where Issy and I were curled up on one of the beds, to wake in the arms of Xan in a dungeon I had never seen before, my face and hands covered in blood. He was frightened - he spoke of me wandering down talking of voices in the walls, not seeming to recognise him and scraping my skin raw trying to hear the voices. I can only think I was somehow walking in my sleep. I had never seen such a thing before. It would have gotten me killed on too many occasions. I stayed in the Guild hall, hoping that way at least I could be stopped form wandering off into danger and leaving Issy unprotected. She at least was not afeared. I think she slept through all my wanderings. And she loves the Guild Hall. She explores it as much as she can, and would be off entirely, I think, in the unexplored bits, if I did not keep a close eye on her.
In the end, of course, he came to find me even in the sanctuary of my workroom. So many stiff half-conversations that suddenly flared into life only when we bit off painful words at each other... I was weary. So weary it seemed to have seeped into my bones. But I was working when he came. Hoping for exhaustion. Hoping for sleep. He seemed half-shocked and half-saddened when he saw me. I told him of the deaths this place had seen in a raid while he was away, and he spoke suddenly that it hurt him to see me take such a burden alone. That he cared not for the mess in the workroom, but for that within me. That I had broken once and should not risk doing so again.
I was furious once more. I stiffly told him that I had not broken. I knew he meant the blindness... I let him know that no matter how terrible it had been, how much it and he had hurt me...I had survived it, as intact as I could ever be. Once more he looked stricken... and it hurt. I was so tired... I felt tears come to the surface suddebly, shamefully. I hid them in Isode's sleeping hair... but they left trails in the dirt on my cheeks. And fir a moment it seemed such folly to think that we could ever have anything of what I had thougth we once had. That we now could only hurt each other as the vestige of that...love? It seemed so...so very hard...
And then he apologised. For everything...just for everything. And so did I. I was so sick of hurting him...so sick of hurting myself. Words...so easy to speak, and they drive so very very deep, and stick like barbs... and it was so sweet simply to say sorry, and to hear him ask for it. So sweet to let go of that anger and that disgust, those swelling, hateful things. So sweet to let him see the weariness too...and for me to look at him afterwards and feel...something. For there to be something remaining between us once that had gone.
And the next words he spoke, softly, hesitantly, were to ask if I would sleep better were he with me in my bed.
I admit that I was stunned. And I felt an odd stirring of joy. Some, I admit, was that he could desire me still. That I had not become some dry and soured old woman full of hatred like bare broken bones and nothing else. And more joy that he truly and simply wanted to help me. That he still did care. For the look in his eyes. Nothing chancing, nor calculating. He could barely voice the words. He seemed to be almost holding his breath in suggesting them, as if afraid that I would turn on him once more. the hope and the fear in his eyes... He had abandoned that courtly mask of courtesy he had so often worn when he claimed he was baring his heart. All of a suden, it seemed to me that the prince was gone, and I could see only the man, with the awareness of his own failure of me in his eyes, and his wish to make amends heartbreakingly naked as he looked at me.
""Are...are you sure? That...that that is what you truly want?"
"I have been yours, since the day that you allowed me to be. Always my mind dwells on you. Why would I not want it? The question is, more importantly, do you truly want that?"
And I knew it was what I wanted. that he was what I wanted.
And if it is weakness to want him, to let myself love him, than I am weak. It cannot be less cold or less painful than strength.