Topic: From These Ashes

Spirited Corsair

Date: 2010-03-15 04:17 EST
From These Ashes
15 March 2010

"Woman! Are you coming to bed, or do I have to come back out there and drag you in here?" Harry's voice called to her from their bedroom, and though she couldn't see him, Maia knew the smile that was on his lips. Playful. Comfortable. Perhaps even tinged with the delicious splash of his desire for her. The woman loved that after years of living and working closely together, that the man still looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time. She loved a lot of things about him.

"Keep your shirt on, Lowe, I'm just finishing up," she called from the study. Truth be told, Maia had finished working in her journal nearly an hour before. What had demanded her attention was something else entirely. Once the ink was dry, she folded it carefully and slipped it into the envelope she had marked with an H.

Maia turned out the lights in their flat, checking the locks and windows as she moved through their apartment to join the man who was already warming their bed. She couldn't wait to crawl in with him, feel the tangle of their arms around one another, and whisper until they were both asleep. She couldn't wait to find out if he had, indeed, kept his shirt on.

The letter was left in an envelope on the table near the hearth, where Harry and Maia frequently sat. Under the envelope was a small, flat box. There was no real adornment to speak of on either, but it wasn't the sort of occasion that begged adornment. Still, the woman of water felt a need beyond her understanding to express something, and that something would sit on the table and wait for him to find it, in the morning.

Inside the envelope, he would surely know her messy scrawl the minute he clamped those dark, soulful eyes upon it.


15 March 2010

My Harry,

I never know what to say to you when the Ides of March come again. I can tell you a thousand times that I am grateful. Grateful for the very notion of you. Grateful for your presence in my life. Grateful for every inch and every minute of the life we share now, but in the end, they are all just words and they will always fall short.

They will fail, but I will try anyhow.

I need for you to understand, in no uncertain terms, that you are the single most precious thing in my world. Without you, I survive. I fight and I hunt, I command and I serve. Without you, I would carry on just as I did. But with you, Harry...with you I live. I am alive. When I am with you, I am not the captain, or the hunter or the flood. With you, I am just a woman. With you, I don't have to be anything else, and you cannot know what a gift that is.

When I came to know you that awful September years ago, you were the only person I had met who really knew what it was to look into a mirror and see the worst looking back. I felt, then, that I was trying to crawl out of a grave and find the morning. To my eyes, you were what I could hope to be. You were a phoenix, rising from the very ashes that had consumed you. You were vital and beautiful, stronger because of the very fire that destroyed you. These days, I remember that man, but look on the one before me, breathless and amazed. Every day, you are more beautiful.

In my hope that you will never forget how you look to these eyes, I have enclosed a small token. I hate how empty it sounds to tell you that I am glad you are still here, but it is the truth of it. I can only hope that I continue to bring you the joy and peace that you bring me. No man deserves it more. I love you with every shadowed corner of my soul, and every starlit haunt of my beating heart.

Entirely Yours,
Maia


Inside of the little box was a silver coin. On one side, the date was engraved in clean, unambitious lines: 15 March 2010. On the other there was stamped an elegant engraving of a phoenix.

HGLowe

Date: 2010-03-15 18:06 EST
Windows
15 March 2010


Harry rubbed his thumb over the coin and thought.

There weren't so many ways to express how much Maia's words meant, just as she knew that trying to put words to something larger than words was just as impossible. But the words provided a window, into that larger thing, and Harry marveled even now that the view in was familiar. Into that woman's soul. Into her heart. Into his own, even; broken and mended over the past three years. Into their shadows and into the myriad bright, sunny spots, so many of them built over within that span of time.

Harold had not given much thought to the day, until the day was there; he was too alive to spend a desperate amount of time thinking of his own suicide. And that, to him, was wholly appropriate; there was no reason for the shadow of that heartbreak to intrude on the light of today.

He didn't ignore it, though. And he did reflect, come the Ides; every year since, he walked onto that dock, often with his Browning in hand, to stand in his own shoes and remember. Not to grieve, really. Not to hold any self-pity. Not to even really analyze how it happened. Just to remember it, as it was fitting to do so.

He remembered a lot of things on this day. The Maritime, the people; those he loved and those he hated, and sometimes, those who were both. He remembered the joys, the sorrows, the hopes and fears and long dark hours and bright moments. He remembered them. He remembered himself. He remembered and sometimes he even felt a sense of wonder at how it all had led to this.

This was beautiful, and in his darkest hours, Harry could not fathom he would ever know beauty again. It made it all the more precious, now that he had it; he never, ever forgot to be grateful.

Harry rubbed his thumb over the coin and thought.

He heard her moving, behind him; it was early yet, and the sky was cloudy outside of their window. And he turned to look at her, wild-haired and naked as the day she was born; the beautiful lines, toned and trim and flawed and perfect, all at once. She caught his gaze, and then she stepped over without hesitation and put herself right in his lap.

Harry slid the coin into his pocket and wrapped his arms around her, taking her in, holding her close to his chest; warm, living weight, held by warm and living arms.

It said all that there were no words for.

HGLowe

Date: 2010-03-15 22:11 EST
Walk With Me
15 March 2010


He stood on the dock that he shot himself on, three years ago today.

"Walk with me," Harry had said to Maia, over their breakfast, after they had held each other for God only knew how long.

"All right," Maia had replied, unhesitatingly. They never worked, on the Ides, by mutual and silent agreement, and while she never tiptoed around him, Maia always afforded him his space on this day without complaint.

But Harry didn't want space on this day, and so they walked. When they reached the docks, he didn't hold his Browning in his hand; instead, he held hers. It was an overcast day, cool, and the breeze off of the sea smelled faintly of mist and spring. No thunder or rain, though the planks of the dock were dark and damp.

He held her hand, and he thought. He thought about a lot of things. About what had happened here, and all that had led to it, and all that it had resulted in. How it all had tied together, across so many years, until finally he had mostly managed to free himself from it. He only had one promise left. And that promise...

And finally, Harry broke his silence.

He stood on the dock that he shot himself on, three years ago today. And he told Maia everything. He told her about the attack by the vampire Sara; not his Sarah, the horse-woman, but the one before with the motorcycle. He told her about how he had come across her attacking Archie on this dock, and how he had done what was demanded of him by every fiber of his being and fought her off. He told of the fight in the water when they'd gone over the edge, and the drowning, and the fact that he was a dead man, until she came out of the depths to save him.

He told Maia everything. He told her about how the blue women had breathed life back into him. He told her about how she was attacked by a ship firing shells. He told her about how he had tried to save the blue woman, but wounded and sick from sea-water, how he hadn't been able to. He told her about how Archie had pulled him away.

Harold Lowe's voice didn't waver. There was none of the sheer terror that he often woke to feel, until more recent times; none of the choked desperation and sheer panic. If there was unhealed trauma there, then he chose to keep it to himself.

He had never told anyone this. Not even Archie.

He stood on the dock that he shot himself on, three years ago today. He told Maia everything.

He told her about how the woman had come back, and touched him. And how, into his mind, she put what was done to her at the hands of her attackers. Every moment, every sensation, every horrible pain, every stench of sweat. Every bite of the rope, every sickening, unending moment of pounding penetration as they took every part of her and tore her asunder. As they raped her.

As they raped him.

It was something he had kept silent. Picked himself back up, from where she'd dropped him to the floor, his body flooded with the phantom pain, his mind reeling from the sickness and terror of it. He managed to go on, silently, too. Eventually, he even managed to mostly forget it, except sometimes in his nightmares. There were things he could not take; the bite of rope on his wrists. And he always paused a moment, before jumping in the sea. He told Maia that was why he had been so fierce in the sea off of Drall's, trying to steal back his right to be able to swim again, without waiting for them, or for her.

Harry didn't blame the blue woman. He blamed the monsters that did it to her. He didn't understand why she had done it to him, in turn, except that he had not been able to save her from it after she had saved him.

He could live with that burden.

He told Maia everything, though, because it was time. He told her what it had done to him when he had found out about Archie's own history, and that abuse. About how it all came flooding back, in empathic response, and with no possible resolution. He told Maia about how he had tried to hold Archie up, and about how he had failed there, too, because he could not hold himself up any longer. He told her about the silent loneliness, where he kept moving because he didn't know how to die.

Until he did.

There were so many things that led to what had happened here, on top of that, too. He held back nothing; some she knew, some she didn't, some she could have inferred. About what it was when people left you, until all you could do was leave yourself. About what it was to lose that last edge of hope, and realize, with utter calmness, that you were finished. He told her about his last days, as well, and what he had done, and his very last thoughts as he'd walked out of the Maritime's door.

He stood on the dock that he shot himself on, three years ago today.

And finally, when he was done telling her all of it, he told her one thing more:

"I have a letter to write," he said, after the silence. And her hand, through it all, had been holding onto his, sometimes tightening in silent support. Now, it squeezed again. And she knew what he meant, and he saw the fire light her eyes, pale blue flame, which blazed inside of his own heart.

Rising from the ashes meant knowing how to leave the ashes behind.

They walked away together.

Spirited Corsair

Date: 2010-03-16 15:51 EST
Home
15 March 2010

Maia was quiet as they walked home; she had nothing to say, and she would not fill the space with idle chatter. All the while, her hand was in his, palm pressed to palm steady and sure. She wanted to be grounded and safe for him. No--it went beyond want, in her mind. She needed to be grounded and safe.

It wasn't until they had crossed into their flat and she'd hung her hat that she turned to the Welshman to fold him up in her arms. The lean, strong limbs drew him in tightly, and he could feel her breath against his skin as she whispered into his ear the same three words, again and again.

"I love you." On and on, like a litany. She pressed a kiss to the cheek she so loved before finally letting go, brushing her fingers over the phantom place where the traces of that kiss might linger on his cheek. The unabashed tenderness of that thought flooded against the furious fire in her gut, drowning its intensity for a while.

Maia put on a kettle and made a full pot of tea. It was all for him, though; the woman had other plans for the hour. As she put a tray together with a little teapot, a clean cup and a few of Bertie's biscuits, she wondered if this was how the Paladin felt as he carried her own broken body from the site of her seven days in the dark.

No. He didn't love me, then. He never loved me like this.

It was a calm and truthful realization. The woman held on to this calm as she brought her Harry some tea, reaching out to touch him. Perhaps she had fallen so completely in love with the man because once, when there wasn't anyone left in the world to hold her and make her feel like a person, he opened his arms. Touch was so powerful. She knew that it could heal more than it could hurt. Hands on his shoulders for a moment, and then she kissed the top of his head, loving the way his hair just tickled her nose.

"I'm going to the roof, Harry. I need a little practice," she said. She needed a little space to filter through every stupid, useless thing that could be said so that the good would be all that's left. Harry watched her a long minute, knowing from the distant storm in her eyes that she was feeling unsettled. He also knew the woman well enough to know that she'd work it out on her own, and if that didn't work, she would curl up with him and they would work it out together. He knew better than anyone not to pry.

For her part, Maia knew that she didn't have to remind him that she was right upstairs if he needed or wanted anything. She left the hat and took her rapier and main-gauche with her. There was a little balcony outside, once only accessible through her bedroom window, though in the renovation of the place, the Hausenfelters had made the balcony wrap around that corner of the house and added a door from out to it from the hallway. Out that door she went. It was easy to climb up to the roof from there.

Maia had always been comfortable being up high. She liked the way that the air opened up when you got away from the ground. It was almost like you could breathe more of it. Sometimes, it just made her feel closer to the stars, and she liked that, too. That day, she closed her eyes and let the cold breeze wash over her face. And then she started to move.

Sword in hand, she worked her way through old sparring matches and old battles. It wasn't long before the chill of the day and the heat within her own body were at war, making her skin a little clammy. It didn't matter. The movement of it, the dance of steel and feet, the careful weave of the body, the deliberate thrust and cut of the arm--all of these things were a comfort. Maia never felt more at home in her body than when she could dance with a sword in her hand. It gave her space to think.

Maia had heard horrific stories before. Each one had fueled her fire, and each one had made it easier for her to duck out of the civilized world and live her life in the fray. She knew that for every vampire she destroyed, every demon she cut to ribbons, and every monster she eliminated, that someone in the world was being saved from terror and horror and death. She chose a life of terror and horror and death to prevent it.

It was always different when you knew the storyteller.

She knew, from the moment they met, that Harry was brave. He wore it plainly, and hiring her was no coward's feat. Everything she had seen of him since had only reaffirmed it. That day on the docks, the bigger picture painted for her made her feel like perhaps even she had underestimated the man.

For every added layer of awe she had for Harry, she had found more rage for the circumstances that led to the Ides. Maia hated what had been done to the man, and she hated every last soul that had a hand in it. The intention behind each action didn't matter much to her; the end had been drawn by them and it had killed the man.

But you have to love them, too, Maia.

The thought smacked her hard enough to get her to stop fighting. She breathed deep, feeling a little winded now that she had stopped moving. Maia swiped the back of her left hand across her brow, set herself, and tried to dance some more.

You have to love them, too.

It stung because it was true. Everything that had happened had been awful and in many ways, unforgivable. And yet, Harry was so calm as he told her those things that she thought had never seen the light of day before. Maia understood that sort of calm. She had found it recently.

The woman had lived a hard and often terrible life. From the time she left the Asteria at the age of fifteen, everything had been a constant fight. She had to fight to defend herself, day in and day out. Things got a little easier in that regard when she came to Rhydin, but she traded one sort of monster for the more literal kind. People and things that she loved fiercely had been destroyed, or had just up and vanished.

She didn't walk on to a dock with a weapon. She did take up a sword and and a cause, and on more than one occasion, Maia had walked into certain death. She never really hoped that she would die, but she never really hoped that she would live, either. Not until she tried to give up the fight. Not until she felt the spray of the sea on her face again. Not until she fell asleep in a lighthouse with another survivor.

Had she not taken every step she had taken, and lost every thing that she had lost, it was unlikely that Maia would have found Harry. Maia would not have ever understood the word home. Home was the flat beneath her feet with its warm, clean lines and the smell of firewood and tea. Home was the ketch as it bobbed through the water and the close quarters of her cabin. Home was the top of a lighthouse, and the kind of quiet that can only be found there. And none of those places were home without Harry.

You have to love them, too. Without them, you would not have him.

Maia fought some more with the shadows in her head until she was calm, through and through. Once there, she climbed back down to the balcony to go inside and clean up. She put her things away, feeling lighter for it, then checked in on Harry.

"Just need to clean up, love."

He could look at her then and see the peace she could carry, not just a facade of calm. Harry would see the more relaxed carriage of shoulders, and a warmth in her eyes that belonged to no other. With a little smile, Maia hoped that he could see what she saw when she looked at him.

Maia saw home.