called_lioness | (no subject)

(no subject)

The hike to the castle is easy enough. It would likely have taken less time if Mary hadn’t been curious and wanted to stop and look at some of the older trees.

But that’s what holidays are about, really.

The plan is to ride to Port Caynn tomorrow and swim in the sea before spending the night at an inn of…slightly dubious reputation. (Alanna assures her it’s safe now. Lucy makes a note not to mention any former smugglers to Archibald Craven.)

But tonight is for camping, and as the evening approaching Lucy heads out to stroke her borrowed mare’s neck and make sure the supplies are all ready.

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That shuts Mary up again for a long moment, her face scrunching up red and angry and her throat clenched.

"If it was so hard," she snaps, all of a sudden, "you ought not to have!" and bursts into tears.

"Mary," Lucy says helplessly, and "Mary," she says again, and "Mary," as she moves and pulls the girl into her arms whether she likes it or not.

(What right, Archibald Craven asked, and now Lucy wonders if she never had any to start with, and all she can think is, Lion, please, don't let me have been wrong.)

"I love you." It's fierce and whispered and her arms are tight around the smaller girl and not letting go. "I love you. I love you. I will always and ever love you. You gave me reason to stay. You were worth it. You were always worth it and always will be. I love you."

She wishes if she said it enough it would make things better.

It doesn't.

It's just truth.

Mary is crying harder, now, nose running freely into Lucy's shirt.

She doesn't know what to say; it hurts every which way, to think that what she is saying is true and that it is not. If Lucy really does love her, and she is leaving anyways -

At least Oats promised to come back.

She does not wish she did not care, though. She had ten years of not caring, and that was worse.

"I love you."

It's like a mantra, and Lucy wishes it could change something.

It doesn't.

There's snot on her tunic and Mary's face is angry and sad and red all, and Lucy just holds her as closely as she can and kissing her hair and weeps, trying to keep her breath from shaking.

"Shhh," she says between repeating that she loves Mary, and if Lucy could hold Mary more tightly without hurting her she would.

She doesn't really want to ever let Mary go.

"I'd give you," Lucy says finally in a whisper, "everything I could, Mary. But this one I can't. And it breaks my heart, and I still and always and forever," and her voice catches on a sob she can't keep back, "love you."

Mary is crying now in unsteady hiccups, eyes still scrunched shut.

"It does not matter," she mutters, muffled, "about giving me things. That is not anything at all that is important -"

And then she hiccups again, as she remembers something that is important.

"Shall you want your tree back to take?"

"I'd give you myself," she whispers, "if I could."

And then she shakes her head, slightly, against Mary's.

"That's yours. As much as mine. That's for thee to keep, Lady Mary."

"And if I do not want to keep it?" Mary demands - though she already knows she will.

She doesn't flinch, just closes her eyes and holds Mary a bit more tightly.

"I won't make you keep it. But it's yours. And I won't take it from you, either."

"Then I must keep it," Mary mumbles, and there's a sharpness in her voice - the choice isn't really a choice at all, no more than she has one in Lucy leaving.

"I cannot let it die. It is not its fault."

"No."

Very softly.

"It's not. And you take good care of it. It is lucky to have you."

"It ought to have someone who will not leave it," Mary says.

She's not crying anymore, though her face is still red and stained from tears.

Lucy strokes Mary's hair without saying anything for a minute.

"I wish I could be the person to not leave you, Mary. I'll always love you and think of you and wish you well. I wish I was alive and could--I wish a lot.

"But I can't be the one to stay with you in body. I can leave you my love. And it's not enough, and I know it."

Lucy's still crying, silently, even if Mary is not.

"But it's all I can."

Mary is silent another long long time.

It's not enough. It's not.

But . . .

She doesn't want to be her uncle either.

"Will you be able to see me?" she says, suddenly. "They say that people can. When they are in Heaven. That they watch. But I do not know."

Lucy kisses her hair for a moment without saying anything.

She's thinking.

"You're part of me," she says finally. "Part of my heart. You hold a little piece of me in yours, too. Life is giving pieces of ourselves to others and taking pieces in return. I think there--there I shall know you, of course. Because you're still a part of me. So I'll see you, and know you, and love you from there as I do here. You've my heart, and you keep a bit of me with you that way. You keep my attention on you.

"And I think...I think there time doesn't matter. Not like here. Here it's one minute after another, and there it's all the minutes that's ever been at once. So I'll see you here, and know you're growing, and love you well. And at the same time I'll know you there and love you well, yourself as you'll be when you've finished your life.

"It can be both at once. And I don't think it really makes sense out loud here. But--but the part that matters is that I'll never not think on you, Mary, and never love less. Only and ever more."

". . . I cannot be here and there both at once," Mary says, after a pause, and there's something of the old demanding reasonableness in her voice.

Things need to make sense. Especially things like this. Important things.

"That does not make sense. I will not be there until I am dead. If I was I could look at myself too, after I am dead, and that would not make sense either."

Lucy looks at her for a moment before reaching into her pocket.

There's a handkerchief there that she begins to wipe at Mary's face with, absently.

"I will see you, Mary. I will make sure I see you ever minute until you join me there," she says finally.

And that's true too.

"I have to. You have me with you."

Mary thinks about this a moment, barely noticing the handkerchief rubbing away at her face.

"That is still not fair," she says, eventually. "Because you will be able to see me - and I shall not be able to see you."

"Life isn't fair, Mary. And God's not, either. Not really. He's just perfectly good. That's not the same thing as fair."

That's a tired whisper as she rests her cheek on Mary's hair.

"Part of me will still be with you, though. Even if you can't see me. I'll be there. I promise."

It's still not enough.

And that's life, too; it's never enough.

"But if you are I won't know it."

She pulls back, looking at Lucy in order to try to get across her seriousness - Lucy being there is something, even if it's not enough, but if she doesn't know how can it be anything?

"How can I know?"

Faith, she wants to say, and for Lucy that's enough.

But this is for Mary, and Lucy cradles her a bit more carefully as she thinks.

"Do you love me, Mary?"

"Yes."

It's flat - a statement of fact. Right now, Mary isn't sure it's something she's happy about.

"I think it's like love, a little. You can't see it and it's just something you know, without proof."

Her fingers are drifting over Mary's hair, slowly, and Lucy's silent as she looks at the trees over her head, green eyes shutting once and she listens to something far away and deep within.

"The tree isn't just a tree," she says softly. "It's my gift for you. It's a piece of me. It's my sweetest dream, and the part of me that's most me. While you have it, you have me. You know I'm watching while the tree is alive. I love you as dearly as I could any girl. I can't give you blood, and I can't give you my body. But I'll give you my dream and that piece of myself and my being."

The handkerchief is set down on one knee, next to Mary, before she goes back to stroking her hair.

Mary listens; and says, again, after a moment, "I am not going to let it die."

It's what she said before. But it's different - fiercer, for a start.

It's really all that needs to be said.

"And I will never stop watching or loving you," she says back.

It's a quiet and simple fact.

"Your uncle--if he was right and I should not have spoken with you so, if I've no right to your love, then I ask your forgiveness, Mary. But you bless me so. And I can give you those two things in return for the blessing loving you is for me."

"My uncle?"

Mary shakes her head, almost immediately - she's growing fonder of her uncle (or at least, more used to him) but she's used to thinking of him as wrong, always, on this sort of thing.

"My uncle does not know much about love. He is very bad at it. He only did it once before - and I think he wished he had not and did not care.

"But it is worse to not care. I know that. Even if it hurts to. And it does hurt very much now."

She says it all in the same flat, honest tone. This is how it is.