WHEN IN DOUBT, TRY NOT TO DIE_FRIDAY'S ROMANTIC CHALLENGE

Denise and Donna are doing another ROMANTIC FRIDAY CHALLENGE:
http://romanticfridaywriters.blogspot.com/

It is about wavering in coming to a decision and the consequences.  My entry is from END OF DAYS.


http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0082ZJD08


Alice Wentworth and the spectral Victor Standish are the only "survivors"


in a violent quest to save the planet from an extra-dimensional invasion by beings much older than Earth.


Now, with all of Earth's champions dead, the way is clear for the fae High Queen, Oyggia, to lead her forces to conquer the mortal plane.

Victor shook his head.  “We saved your realm.  And unless you want to show your elite killers by your lack of gratitude how little you think of your realm, you owe us a debt.  And you will pay up, bitch!”

Her words were a throbbing husk, “I do not owe you your lives, whelp!”

He made a face.  “Ah, actually you do.”

He held up a restraining hand at her outraged face.  “But we won’t act like you’re sane or anything like that and open to simple reason.”

Oyggia rasped, “For what are you asking, Standish?”

Victor snorted, “Oh, I’m not asking you for anything.  But a last dance with Alice would be a nice touch to the end of the tales told of this night, don’t you think, Sinend?”

Sinend turned to her liege.  “What harm could granting them a last dance do, Your Majesty?”

Her winter frost eyes grew contemplative.  “None.  And there actually may be profit for me in it.”

Victor snorted, “Well, we’ll dance anyway.”

“How, Victor?” I husked.  “We cannot touch and there is no music.”

He winked.  “No music?  With me in your head, au contraire.”

A melodic, bitter-sweet waltz sang in my head with the sighing of violins, and I knew it was echoed in Victor’s as well.

“And touching?” I asked.  “What shall we do about that?”

He smiled as sad as the tune in our heads.  “What we’ve done since we first met, Alice.  We mirror one another, moving in sync one with the other, heart to heart, movement for movement.”

He held out his hand.  I placed my hand above his misty one.  We began to dance slowly and gracefully.  Hot tears blinded me and hid his face from me.  And yet, they did not, for I had his eyes ever before me, whether awake or asleep.  As the Sidhe watched on, we danced.  Some were openly grieved.  Most were bored, ready to slay us at their queen’s command.

Our last dance was much like our whole love affair.  We were so close, yet so far apart.  Mirroring each other in step and heart, but forever separated by our very natures.  Still, we moved as one, fluid and sweeping.  The melancholy tune tugged at me soul-deep.

“What is this beautiful tune?”

Victor smiled, “It’s from a movie, BROTHER’S KEEPER.  I thought it fit me since I am Death’s son.”

“How so?”

“With Death as my mother, isn’t everyone my brother and sister in a way?  And didn’t you bleed and suffer for the whole world, Alice?”

“I fought for those I loved.  To die for an abstraction is beyond me, Victor.”

We danced in sweeping steps that took us all along the circle of hilt-clenching warriors.  Victor ignored them. 

He studied me as if trying to memorize each gesture I made, every word I spoke.  We whirled and twirled in a dance of love unlike the one of death Skeggjold and I had taken but moments before.

He murmured, “I love you, Alice.”

I smiled evilly.  “I know.”

He winced.  “Does that make me Han Solo or Princess Leia?”

“Oh, the dashing Han Solo, of course.”

I fought the urge to nuzzle my head on his shoulder.  Oh, it was so hard to dance like this.  But then had not our whole love been an affair of maddening abstinence?

“Victor, do tell me what is the name of this tune done so hauntingly by these violins?”

He smiled wickedly.  “It’s called COWS ON THE HILLS.”

“You jest!  Whatever made you think of this as the music for our last dance?”

He winked.  “As we waltz this tune, the transformed Queen Meropis is grazing contentedly in the Elysian Fields.”

I giggled, “Even now, with the rest of our lives measured in but heartbeats, still you can make me laugh.”

I drew in a breath I did not need as I swung in circles in our last waltz.  “Are you dead?  Are you a ghost?  Oh, I must know, Victor, what are you?”

“In love with you, Alice.  Leave it at that.”

“No, I simply cannot die without knowing.”

His wavering form kept dancing but his face grew grim.  “You will weep bitter tears at the price of knowing, Alice.  Do you still want me to tell you?”

“Yes!  I will not die without knowing just how you come to be dancing with me, to have helped me these past days though all say you are dead.”

He and I danced as one, our feet seemingly floating above the still smoldering grass.  He brushed my lips with his.  They tingled.  There were tears of farewell in his eyes.

           “I can see where you would have to know before you died.”