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xxsycamore · 1 year

Note

Finally have a moment to send a request. I know you're flooded with them so this is only if you have time:

We all know Leon isn't a big reader and falls asleep reading books but....how would he react to an MC who doesn't read him a poem but recites him one from memory?

📜+ Leon

Thank you lovely Mo for the bright light you shine across this fandom ☀️

Congratulations on your milestone!

Please, there's no way I'd skip your request, Violet! It's such a good one too! Thank you so much for the kind words, I could say the same to you ❤

[📜] 𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚊 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝚙𝚘𝚎𝚖 𝚝𝚘 𝙻𝚎𝚘𝚗 。。。

Poems are "I Love You" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox & "Yours" by Daniel Hoffman

LEON:

I love your lips when they’re wet with wine

And red with a wild desire;

I love your eyes when the lovelight lies

Lit with a passionate fire.

It's been awhile since Leon joined you in the library - you'd suggested changing the company of the books for his company, but your lover didn't want to interrupt your favorite pastime. Bringing his wine glass to finish on a nearby settee, he made an excellent extra recliner as he invited you to rest against his chest...

It's just that, once the chapter ended, you found yourself looking more at Leon than at the book, and the words made their way out of your lips before you realized. It's some poem you read ages ago, but it described your lover perfectly in his current glory.

Leon's warm eyes shift to yours as he listens to the lines; they're lazy but lighting up with something you can't quite put your finger on. Heart rate increasing and voice beginning to waver, you stubbornly continue, led by a strange need to confess your fascination.

I love your arms when the warm white flesh

Touches mine in a fond embrace;

I love your hair when the strands enmesh

Your kisses against my face.

Hand previously used to prop his face against, Leon now reaches out to caress your face.

But then he produces a barely-audible gasp.

And kisses you out of nowhere, full-on the lips.

Your surprise is quickly shushed and transformed into bliss as you let Leon claim your lips, wherever that may come from... it's not like it's unwelcomed.

He cuts the kiss too short, holding your face in his large hands.

"You're a GENIUS, sweetheart."

You watch your lover jump to his feet, leaving only his lingering warmth on the settee where you remain to watch him with avid curiosity. Leon walks to the shelves and mutters under his breath the names of the different genres they're organized by, impatiently searching for something. When he leaves your line of vision, you stand up as well, following him in the depths of the library.

"Here. Love poems."

The sound of quickly turning pages comes to an end as soon as it began, as Leon stops at a random one.

Without you I’d be an unleaded tree

Blasted in a bleakness with no Spring.

You listen as Leon reads out the poem, not with hurry, but instead delivering each line as if the words come straight from his heart - or maybe that's how you hear them? Catching the meaning of these words makes you weak when it's the man you love who says them. Walking to where he stands in front the bookshelf, you hug him from behind and keep listening.

"Poems are typically short. They won't lull me to sleep, see? I will read these to you and train my stamina."

Uh-oh. This sounds lovely. And it also sounds like you'll be subject to hearing him say hundreds upon hundreds of love confessions to your face... and you don't want to die yet.

You start to play-smack his back in an attempt to change his mind, and to pray for yourself in the meantime.

∎ For You, My Valentine‼️ - xxsycamore’s 1000 followers celebration party | 💌 event masterlist

#ikemen prince #ikepri #ikemen prince leon #ikepri leon #ikemen prince leon dompteur #leon dompteur #ikemen leon #For You My Valentine!! - xxsycamore's 1000 followers celebration party

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nixieofthenorth · 1 year

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You are the moon, dear love, and I the sea: The tide of hope swells high within my breast, And hides the rough dark rocks of life’s unrest When your fond eyes smile near in perigee. But when that loving face is turned from me, Low falls the tide, and the grim rocks appear, And earth’s dim coast-line seems a thing to fear. You are the moon, dear one, and I the sea.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Moon and Sea

#Ella Wheeler Wilcox #quotes and poems

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solomonish · 4 years

Text

From the Mouths of Fools

Belphegor has a habit of forcing his brothers into trouble, mostly with you. There’s nothing more satisfying than the look of horror on their face when they think they must have dashed their chances with you and that they’re digging the hole deeper. Each time, you reach out a hand and ease their worries, and Belphegor’s stomach twists as you tell them with kind eyes not to worry, that they’re very sweet. Why did you have to be such a spoilsport?

(also posted on ao3 @ treetunkdaddy)

Poems: A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns, I Carry Your Heart With Me by E. E. Cummings, I Love You by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda

Leviathan: I love you. Leviathan: I love you more than anyone else in this world. You: Thanks! Leviathan: Happy now? Leviathan: As I thought, this was the right thing to say.

You stared at your phone screen for a moment longer with one eyebrow raised. Something here wasn’t right. Though you weren’t some grand detective, you could tell that the texts didn’t sound like Levi at all Even beyond the sudden boldness, if you pictured Levi texting those messages you could only imagine him with a rain cloud over his head as he hunched over his phone in sorrow. The somber tone didn’t match his usual excitement. Maybe he was trying to get into character for some sort of cosplay…? Biting the inside of your cheek, you tried to figure out if he had mentioned getting into character for something. Still, there was no way he wouldn’t know all the lines of a character he was trying to embody, and it seemed far-fetched that he’d choose something so...overt, let alone practice it with you.

Before you could distract yourself too much from the tasks you were supposed to be working on, a solid oof a few feet away from your door caught your attention. You could just barely hear a half-hearted grumble barely covering the low boyish giggles of a scheming Belphegor as Levi freaked out in a jumble of words that sounded more like a keysmash than an argument. A moment later, you got another slew of texts that seemed much more like the demon you knew.

Leviathan: AAAEWAGVNAFBPEABD Leviathan: WAAAAAIT! Leviathan: I take that back! Leviathan: AARGH, no, that’s not what I meant! Leviathan: I left my D.D.D. on the couch and Belphie ran off with it!

Ah. That made sense. It also explained the nervous energy you could practically feel radiating from where the two demons undoubtedly still lay in a heap. With a devious look on your face, you tapped away at your phone.

You: I took a screenshot of it!

You were right about one of them being outside your door. You could hear Levi’s startled yelp, followed shortly by frantic footsteps running down the hall to his door. The three dots danced on your screen as the sound got quieter, the message reaching you just as the door to Levi’s room slammed shut.

Leviathan: No, you can’t! Delete that ASAP! DELETEIIIITTTTT!

Snickering to yourself, you hefted yourself out of your seat and opened your door to peer out into the hallway. A little ways to your left, Belphie lay sprawled out on the carpet with a half-dazed expression on his face. Taking care to keep your footsteps quiet in case he actually was asleep, you bent over his face to look at his half-lidded eyes. After a moment of shifting into focus, Belphie gave you a lazy smile and patted the floor next to him.

“You should join me,” He offered. “The carpet is surprisingly soft.”

“Yeah, and surprisingly dirty,” You added, gently toeing at his shoulder as if that would spur him to move.

“If you stare at the pattern on the ceiling and let your eyes get unfocused, it’s real easy to fall asleep,” He suggested. You turned your head to look at the ceiling, seeing nothing but a boring, dark texture above you. If you squinted, you could almost make out swirls in the paint. Maybe demons had a better time seeing details in the dark.

Beneath you, Belphie hummed contentedly, folding his hands at his stomach. He almost looked like he was sunbathing in a meadow, surrounded by fragrant flowers - the image made your heart jump the slightest bit. Maybe, if that was the case, you would have joined him. Lying next to him as a gentle breeze danced over your skin and the tall grass kissed your skin...that didn’t seem like a bad way to spend an afternoon.

“Hey,” Belphie asked suddenly, holding you in a serious stare. It was one he didn’t bother to give you often, saving it only for when you trespassed him so greatly he needed to make it known (more often than not when he told you how lame Lucifer was if you mentioned how he’s helped you with some administrative details for the exchange program). “What did you feel when Levi sent you that message?”

“What?” You asked, shaken by the jarring change in his voice. He sounded much more stern, and though it was hard to tell while looking at him upside down, you were pretty sure he was holding you in a glare, albeit a very gentle one.

“Did it make you happy?” He asked. “That he might love you?”

Your face flushed at the personal question and you averted your gaze, missing the way Belphie’s gaze hardened at your reaction. “I-I knew they weren’t from Levi,” You answered, shaking your head and looking back at Belphie. “They sounded way too suave for him. I thought maybe he was playing a character, or something. I didn’t think they meant anything.”

“You thought they didn’t mean anything…” Nodding, Belphie’s mouth twisted in thought as he looked just past your shoulder blankly. Suddenly his arms shot up and he grabbed at the air a few times, shutting off any gateway to questions you might have. “Help me up. I wanna nap somewhere softer than this where I won’t get trampled.”

Rolling your eyes, you turned the idea of leaving him there around once before shifting to his side and pulling him up. He took the chance to stumble into you, jamming his chin into your shoulder as he wrapped his arms around you and nuzzled into your neck. Instead of feeling his breath tickle your skin, however, you felt his hair brush against you as he adjusted, eventually stopping once he was satisfied. You realized for a moment he was listening for your pulse, and your breathing shallowed on instinct, as if you wanted him to hear it. He didn’t tell you what he was listening for, only groaning when you started to ask him to let go so you could resume your day.

“Mmmm….maybe I should nap here? So comfy….” He murmured. Though he made no move to let go, he also didn’t fight you when you finally separated him from your body. Giving him a farewell smile, you turned your back to leave, not seeing his face fall in displeasure.

---

A few days later, there was a book on your bed that you were positive wasn’t there when you left that morning.

Dropping your backpack unceremoniously by your door, you peered at the worn cover to see it was an old collection of romantic poems. There was no suspicious Latin on the cover, now jewels (or missing jewels) to indicate it was a spellbook or otherwise enchanted, so you picked it up. Upon closer inspection, you saw it was a collection of human poems, many of which you read in your early school days. There were a few multicolored tabs stuck in it, no apparent rhyme or reason to their placement. Though it looked to be Satan’s book, you couldn’t imagine him risking getting adhesive on the worn pages. Curious, you flipped to the first marked page and scanned it, face flushing almost immediately.

O my Luve is like a red, red rose That’s newly sprung in June; O my Luve is like the melody That’s sweetly played in tune.

Flipping to the next marked page, your face turned an even deeper red as they scanned the page.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling) i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you

Each page you turned to gave you smooth velvet words that someone very clearly wanted to direct at you, each getting more intimate than the last. Every poem you read sent more blush to your face until you were positive another word would have you passing out.

I love your lips when they’re wet with wine And red with a wild desire; I love your eyes when the lovelight lies Lit with a passionate fire. I love your arms when the warm white flesh Touches mine in a fond embrace; I love your hair when the strands enmesh Your kisses against my face.

Honeyed words of Shakespeare and Dickinson forced your heart to pump faster in your chest than you ever thought possible. Though your body really did feel like it might collapse under the affection the poems held, you couldn’t stop yourself from flipping through. Even though it was clear these poems weren’t written for you, the slightest implication that someone could think so highly of you had your head spinning. Before long, you were skimming the last marked page, barely able to catch your breath.

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

A loud roar of Belphegor’s name shook you out of your love-stricken trance. Slamming the book shut as if you’d been caught doing something wrong, you listened to the hasty, angry footsteps of Satan right outside your door. The closer he got, you could hear his heavy breathing as he fought to contain his anger. “Where is that book? I know you were the last person in my room!”

Though the thought of being on the receiving end of Satan’s anger was enough to send you running, you slowly cracked open your door and peered out. Satan immediately whipped his head around to look at you, softening just a bit in an effort to let you know that you weren’t what he was after.

In a timid voice, you asked, “Which book would you happen to be looking for?”

“It was a collection of poems. You wouldn’t have happened to see it, would you?”

Taking a deep breath, you opened the door all the way and held the book out to him. Snatching it out of your hands, Satan widened his eyes at the tabs. “Did you-”

“It was like that!” You defended. Satan realized you were jumpy and slowly inhaled, willing himself to calm down before you continued. “It was on my bed when I came home.”

With a gruff hum, Satan nodded at your explanation before flipping through the marked pages. “It’s alright, (Y/n). It’s not your fault. I’m positive Belphie was the one who took it since he was-”

Stopping mid-sentence, Satan flushed a deep red once he read which poems were marked to be read. “O-oh,” He murmured, pulling at his sweater collar and clearing his throat. “This is...these are pretty romantic, huh?”

“Well, it is a love poem collection,” You offered helpfully with a shrug. As if he didn’t believe you, Satan looked at the cover himself.

“I hope you didn’t mistake my intent. I didn’t mean for this book to end up in your care.”

“Ouch,” You hissed through your teeth. “Aren’t you a heartbreaker?”

Satan’s eyes widened before he furrowed his brows and backed a few steps away. “No, that’s not what I- I didn’t mean it like that.” Heaving a sigh, he placed a hand on his chest and shut his eyes as he scowled. “Thank you for returning it to me. Have a good day.”

Satan turned on his heel and walked briskly away, leaving you to chuckle at the empty space before retreating back to your room. On your bed, beneath where the book was, lay a green sticky note you had missed in the excitement. Picking it up, you saw a note scrawled in messy handwriting that made you question just how genuine these advances were.

I’m not the best at expressing myself with words. Maybe if I borrow the words of others, you can finally know how I feel.

---

The pattern continued for a few days, with each brother falling victim to one of Belphie’s tricks. Each time, they managed to fluster themselves to impossible standards, aside from Asmo who insisted he never sent you that love letter and don’t you know how beautiful his handwriting is like the rest of him? Oh, but if a love letter was what you were after, he’d send mountains and mountains until you just couldn’t resist him anymore-

By that time, you had gently shut the door in his face and jogged back to your room, just as red as the rest of the brothers were when it was their time to be the victim. Belphegor even managed to send you an email with a fake account with a name so similar to Lucifer’s you almost didn’t catch the differences. By that time, you saw through his jokes and simply asked:

You: Really? An email? [email protected]: What? He’s such a loser that I wouldn’t put it past him.

Even now, over a week since the last incident, Mammon was shouting in the hall as he kept running circles around himself, demanding Belphie to stop making advances on his human and to stop making him look like a fool. Without fail, Belphie always asked, “Oh? Is it foolish to think highly of the human?” Mammon was sent into a new frenzy every time.

By the time they were finished, you were exhausted just from listening to their incessant bickering. Mammon had scurried off, desperate to hide his embarrassment, while Belphie slumped down on the couch next to you and gave you a lazy grin. This time, you couldn’t bring yourself to return it. The antics had to stop.

“I think you should stop using me as a tool to mess with your brothers,” You said, not yet unpausing the show you were watching before the fighting started. Belphie scrunched his face and looked at you without moving his head.

“No can do. It’s too fun to see how desperately they try to save your honor from themselves. Idiots.”

Cringing at the insult, you continued, “Okay, but can you stop with the love advances? It’s a bit...much.”

Finally moving, Belphie turned his head to give you a scrutinizing look you didn’t understand before relaxing back into the couch. “Sure,” He answered humorlessly, tone dry and brittle with what was, to you, misplaced disgust. “It was losing its charm anyway.”

Now he was sulking, and you had half a mind to press play and just ignore his bitter mood. Still, you didn’t mean to make him pout, even if you had no idea where it came from and therefore weren’t exactly responsible for the shift. Sighing, you turned your back on him and leaned back, moving so your head was resting on his slumped chest. Without sparing you a look, Belphie reached his slim finger up and slowly carded them through your hair, making no effort to comb any tangles and deciding to ruffle it instead.

“I would like to know what’s got you in such a sour mood,” You said bluntly, turning your head to watch Belphegor stare at the ceiling blankly. Other than the occasional slow blink, you would have thought he had fallen asleep with how long it took him to respond. You knew better than to think he was ignoring you - he was either thinking of an answer he was satisfied to give or teasing you, seeing how long you’d wait for him and then pointing out how much you must value what he has to say if you’d wait that long.

“You enjoyed it too much,” He finally said, keeping his gaze from yours.

“I enjoyed it?” You repeated, narrowing your eyes. “I can assure you, I enjoyed none of what happened.”

“The fighting, maybe,” He agreed. “But I heard you tell Levi you thought it’d be sweet if he had texted you. I saw your face when you thought the poems were from Satan.”

“You were there?” Trying to remember the scene with Satan, you ran a hand partially through your hair and rested your palm on your forehead.

“The love letter, the gift basket, everything- you enjoyed it before you realized it was fake.”

“Belphegor, where were you?” You asked, knowing he would ignore your question. How many other times had he been secretly watching you without your knowledge? The thought made you shiver.

Clearly disgruntled, Belphegor growled at your questions before rolling his eyes. “At first I was just messing with you, but I never would have guessed you would sooner take sweet nothings from the mouths of fools before you’d ever take the real deal from me when I offer it out to you.”

Blinking rapidly, you felt your face warm and your heartbeat stutter for the thousandth time this week. “You...you never offered me anything,” you answered dumbly. Displeasure flickered across Belphie’s face before he sighed again and slumped further down, forcing your head down with him.

“Of course I didn’t. The others did, but not me,” He replied in such a way that barely hid the frustration in his tone, but the irony he was lamenting was lost on you. Sitting up, you shifted to sit on your knees and bent over Belphie to look at him.

“What are you talking about?” You asked. Belphie turned his head away, but you grabbed his cheeks and gently pulled them towards you so he could face you directly. “Belphie, tell me what you were trying to do.”

For a moment, Belphie wondered if he could just slump out of your grasp and lock himself back in the attic, clear by the pondering expression he wore on his face. You squished his face a little tighter, just enough to keep him in place and speak up. “I guess...I was hoping you would think the love letters and everything were from them and you’d reject them.” He looked to the side to avoid the pity you couldn’t hide on your face, his gaze unintentionally hardening. “Why didn’t you reject them? You should have rejected them.”

“I knew it wasn’t real! I was just trying to make them feel better,” You defended. Swiping your hand away from him, Belphie lifted himself up so he was sitting straight and crossed his arms, the image of a petulant child. “Is this...is this your version of a confession?”

Though he did his best to maintain his glare, Belphie couldn’t fight the light pink that tinted his cheeks. “So what if it is?”

Thoroughly pleased with yourself, you sat back on your heels and pretended you needed to mull things over. His hair was covering his eye and he kept his head turned away from you, but you could feel Belphie’s pensive gaze on you as you made your decision. Grinning and leaning closer, you asked, “Is this another prank?”

You felt his cold hands on either side of your face before you even saw him move. He glowered at you with no heat, putting on an upset show. If anything, he was more upset that you insisted on teasing him when you were so nice to the others. “If you can look at me and say you think I’m pranking you right now, you really are just a stupid human.”

Your grin widened. “A stupid human you’d have no qualms about kissing, though, right?”

There was no need to answer you with words when showing you was much more enjoyable.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me belphegor #swd belphegor #obey me swd #belphegor #belphegor x reader #belphegor x mc #belphegor fluff #obey me imagines #long post #my fics #belphegor writing #satan writing #mine

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cynicalrainbows · 4 years

Text

Poetry & Prose

In which Cathy suffers with Guilt and Jane discovers poetry.

The poems mentioned in this fic are (in order of mention Her Kind by Anne Sexton, an extract from Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur, On A Train by Wendy Cope, The Dormouse and The Doctor by A A Milne and The Past by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.) Wendy Cope is absolutely recommended if you’re not a fan of poetry in general- her poems are very simple, and all the more effective for that simplicity. The dormouse poem I recommend if you wish to have your heart torn into shreds- yes, it’s technically a children’s poem but even thinking about the absolutely tragic plight of the sad dormouse still makes me tear up to this day. Literally no other piece of poetry has ever affected me so deeply so I’ve just projected that onto Cathy.

In regards to the brief mention of Thomas and Elizabeth….I do sometimes think the case gets examined in a slightly….I don’t want to say unfair way but a way that applies modern understandings of things and modern expectations to a time that was wildly different. Specifically, during a time when it was entirely legal to beat your wife and divorce for women was not an option, what else would you do in a similar situation, other than sending the victim away?

Anyhow, I hope you all enjoy this fic!

‘I have gone out, a poss- poss-’

‘Possessed.’

‘Possessed witch, h- haunting the black air, braver at night, dreaming evil, I have done my hitch-’

She pauses.

‘What does it mean?’

‘Hm?

‘What does done my hitch mean?’

She thinks of horses- All hitched up; I’ll just hitch up the cart, words she’d only overheard in her first life since the tending of horses with none of her concern back then, and words she’d heard not at all in her second, since no one seemed to ride much nowadays. And getting hitched, hitched up- Anne had told her that it meant ‘marriage’ nowadays.

Neither meaning seems to fit here though.

Cathy takes the book and scans the line herself, her brow creasing, which makes her feel vindicated. Cathy is never, ever patronising on purpose, and she can tell that she takes especial care never to reply to a question as if the answer is obvious (even when it is) but even so, it pleases her when Cathy has to actually consider her answer before she gives it.

‘Mmmm… A spell, I think. Or a period of time.’

She sounds disinterested, lacklustre, even though this is usually the sort of question Cathy enjoys: usually, they’d debate it back and forth until they’d come up with an answer between them.

Now though, Cathy answers like she just wants to get on.

‘I have done my hitch over the plain houses, light by light-’

She’s reading slowly to make sure she doesn’t stumble but it’s alright- it’s one of the reasons that she enjoys reading poetry, because it’s one of the rare, precious times when reading quickly doesn’t matter. In fact speed (as Cathy has told her over and over) is actually a bad thing, especially if you’re reading a poem that’s unfamiliar.

‘It just means that you have to read it again because you’ve missed the meaning. Much better to read slowly so you can absorb it.’

And they do absorb it- it’s become their thing. Cathy’s the only queen with an unending appetite for poetry; she’s the only queen who reads slowly as a matter of course (she likes to focus on that rather than on the fact that she’s the only queen who needs to practise reading aloud) and so in this, they’re well matched.

Reading the poetry slowly doesn’t make her feel humiliated in the way that reading prose slowly does, and being able to argue over the meaning of whatever they’re reading- over the word choice and the subject and the feel of it- after she’s finished is her reward. It stops her feeling like a child because although Cathy is undoubtedly the better reader, they’re equals when it comes to interpretation, and that’s another reason she enjoys it.

Not that she’d taken Cathy seriously when she’d first suggested it.

(‘Practise makes all the difference, you know.’

She was sitting in the windowseat of the bedroom she shared with Catalina, back in the first house, hot-eyed and burning with embarrassment and steadfastly trying to ignore Cathy’s presence next to her.

‘It needn’t even be for long.’

She’d had to fight to keep her voice even.

‘There’s no point. I’m no good at it, I’m no good at any of it.’

‘True.’ Cathy’s bluntness sometimes makes her laugh- then it had made her want to cry. ‘But you don’t have to be. You can get better at it, but only if you actually work at it.’

‘I am working at it.’

‘I know- and it’s good you’re going to classes, I’m glad Anna suggested them but….you need to practise at home too.’

‘I do.’

‘With someone else it’ll be more effective. I can help with the hard bits.’

‘Cathy. I know you mean well. But I don’t want you to feel like you need to- to teach me like I’m a child.’

Cathy had shrugged. ‘That’s ok, I understand. Would it help if we didn’t think of it as teaching though? Because honestly I don’t want to think of it as teaching either. Too much pressure and I’d worry I wasn’t doing it right and-’

‘What would you call it then?’

‘How about….two friends who just happen to get together sometimes to read together?’

Jane had shaken her head. ‘You wouldn’t enjoy the sort of books I’m reading.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of books.’ Cathy held up the slim volume in her hand. ‘I was thinking of this. Poetry is MEANT to be read aloud but it’s too weird just doing it on my own.’

‘I’m not really into poetry.’

‘Why not?’

The idea had stumped her a bit, she’d never had to defend herself like this before. ‘I’m just not. I can’t understand it.’

‘No one’s meant to understand it, not the first time anyway. That’s part of the fun of it.’

‘And I read too slowly anyway, you’d be just as bored.’

‘Poetry is meant to be read slowly.’

‘Mmm. Yes. Sure.’

‘No, really! Listen-’

Cathy flipped the book open. ‘I’m looking for something short….ok, this’ll do-’ She’d sat up a little straighter and began to read quickly, flatly, as if she was reading from the newspaper, an account of something: ‘You tell me to lie down, cause my opinions make me less beautiful-’

The first line interested her but she had been distracted too because even she could tell that there’s something wrong about how Cathy was doing it- she’d felt rushed.

‘Do it again.’

‘Why?’

‘You were too quick-’

‘No.’

‘Oh.’ She’d felt deflated- had Cathy just been trying to prove her point because now she’d felt tricked and cheated- but then Cathy had put the book into her own hands, open on the page.

‘You read it.’

She’d tried to push it away.

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Don’t you want to hear it again?’

‘Yes-’ And she did. Something about it had struck her in a deep inside place: My opinions make me less beautiful. A memory teased her until she grabbed at it: Henry’s cold, closed up face when she’d screwed up her courage and begged for mercy for Robert Aske and the Pilgrimage of Grace. She’d been less beautiful to him that day, she was sure.

‘So read it. I’ll help if you get stuck on a word. And there’s only us here, no one else is listening.’

Still, she hesitated.

‘It’ll sound better when you read it, I promise you. Just give it a try. Please.’

It’s the please that did it, because she’s never able to say no to people when they use it. Even when she should. (Henry had said please when he’d asked for her hand- the first and last time he’d ever used it with her. She should have said no.)

‘Ok.’

‘You tell me to quiet down-’

It turned out actually to not be too hard to read, she’d only hesitated briefly over ‘tongue’. And oddly enough, she’d found that Cathy was right. It did sound better, somehow- perhaps because she was reading so slowly that she had time to take in each word, like bricks being added to a wall, one by one, each making the whole a little more complete.

‘-difficult to forget but not easy for the mind to follow.’

She’d closed the book on the last word and seen Cathy beaming at her. ‘You see? You see?’

Reluctantly, she’d nodded- but she hadn’t been able help a smile twitching the corners of her own lips too. ‘I see.’)

She hadn’t taken Cathy seriously when Cathy had told her that maybe she could like poetry, because she’d believed she couldn’t- she associated with confusion, with trouble. (They had said that Anne had had poems dedicated to her at Court, so many that it had caused a stir and then more than a stir. She hadn’t been able to trust poetry after she’d heard that.)

The poems Cathy has her read aren’t like that though- they have easy, simple words and some of them aren’t about anything much but they manage to make her feel things in a way that she’d never imagined printed words would be able to do.

There’s one that Cathy shows her, about riding in a train, that makes her want to cry for the soft simplicity of it, of how it reminds her of the peaceful feeling of watching the scenery as Kitty sleeping against her shoulder when they have to travel for an interview. It surprises her- she didn’t think that poetry could be that easy.

But now Cathy doesn’t look as if she finds it easy. She just looks tired.

‘-my ribs crack where your wheels wind-’ She reads on. It occurs to her that on a normal day, she’d be more focused on the words, about how they remind her of how she’d writhed and strained so hard giving birth that it had felt as if her own ribs were splintering in her chest- but now she’s more preoccupied with Cathy’s wan, drawn face.

‘A woman like that is not ashamed to die. I have been her kind.’

It’s only as she finishes that she realises Cathy’s eyes are glistening with tears- and although it’s not as if she’s never seen Cathy cry over a poem before, this doesn’t feel like last time.

(She’d thought Cathy had been joking.

‘How can this be the saddest poem in the world?’

Cathy had blinked at her, brushing at her eyes. ‘Because it IS. Doesn’t it make YOU feeling like crying?’

‘Not...really.’ She had wondered if there was some hidden meaning to it that had affected Cathy so, but she wasn’t sure how there COULD be. ‘It’s a children’s poem.’

‘That doesn’t mean it isn’t TRAGIC!’ Cathy looked genuinely sad. ‘Jane, the dormouse has to live FOREVER in the wrong sort of flowerbed, just because the doctor wouldn’t listen to what he actually wanted!’

Jane had shrugged. ‘Yes but- Cathy, love, it’s a children’s poem. It’s not meant to make you get this upset.’

‘Ugh, you sound just like Catalina.’ Cathy had picked up her copy of When We Were Very Young and left the room in a huff.)

This isn’t the same though- because rather than trying to explain herself, Cathy just looks wearily resigned.

‘Are you alright love?’

‘Fine.’ Cathy blinks a couple of times but the tears spill over, rather than disappearing like she’d obviously hoped they would.

‘No you’re not.’

Cathy sniffs and doesn’t respond; Jane edges closer and wraps an arm around her shoulders, hoping that she won’t pull away.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘It’s nothing, it’s silly.’

‘More silly than crying because a dormouse had to sleep in a bed of daffodils?’

Despite the tears still sliding down her cheeks, Cathy gives a short laugh. ‘They were chrysanthemums, actually. And yes.’

‘Well then’ She tightens her hold and Cathy rests her head against her shoulder. ‘Now you really do need to tell me love, because I’m fascinated.’

‘That's the thing. It really is nothing. I just feel really-’ Cathy searches for the word.’ You know like the opposite of rose tinted glasses?’

‘Yes.’

‘Like that. Just- tired and flat and pointless. And I don’t know why. The poem was just the last straw- it reminded me of, of how much I ruined by dying when I did….how many things could have been fixed if I hadn’t-’ Cathy’s face crumples and Jane feels it like an ache. ‘I’m sorry, I said it was stupid.’

‘Cathy love, no, no, no. Oh you poor thing-’ Cathy leans into her, sniffing and Jane rocks her gently back and forth. ‘It isn’t stupid in the slightest but that doesn’t mean it’s true-’ She isn’t quite sure where she should start. ‘You can’t blame yourself for dying, that isn’t fair.’

‘But if I hadn’t-’

‘But you couldn’t help it- and goodness, even if you had-’ Jane pulls back enough to cup Cathy’s damp cheek. ‘If you had been able to control it...I hate to say it, but there’s so, so many other things that could have gone wrong, even if you had been alive to see them.’

Cathy shakes her head. ‘I left Mary all alone- you know, some historians think she could even have died of neglect because they can’t be sure she ended up somewhere safe? And Jane- she had to go back to that awful house, those terrible people, because she couldn’t be part of my household without a proper chaperone, she might not have died if I’d been there to oversee things….I never had a chance to explain to Elizabeth, I always meant for her to know that I only sent her away to keep her safe and I meant to be explain one day when we were together but I never saw her again, there wasn’t TIME….and Edward and Mary might have reconciled, perhaps they wouldn’t have been so opposed, I made them all a family when I was alive and then when I was gone, it just fell apart….’ Cathy breaks off, sobbing too hard to speak and Jane shakes her head.

‘Oh Cathy. Oh love. It’s alright, let it out.’ She waits until the tears have slowed a bit before passing over a handful of tissues.

‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome. Now. Can I say what I think?’

Cathy nods, dabbing her swollen eyes.

‘Cathy. You are a wonderful, intelligent, kind, caring young woman and we are all love you and count ourselves very, very lucky to know you and have you with us, ok?’

Another tentative nod.

‘But love, you are not God. You’re not magic. You cannot possibly think that you would be able to have solved all of those problems, all of those issues, if you’d been alive. Honestly, even if you had a hundred years to try, I don’t think you’d have managed.’

Cathy looks wrong-footed. ‘But all of it- when I was alive, things were alright, they weren’t-’

‘Were they? Were they really alright? Or was it just that the problems didn’t exist yet?’

‘Well-’

‘Love, you did a wonderful job bringing the family together. But that’s so much easier when the children are- well, children. Do you see how much harder it would have been when they were adults? Edward was….seven, when you met him?’

‘Six.’ Cathy blows her nose.

‘See? He was a child. And Mary was a young woman but- well, with her father alive, even with a definite King in place….well, it would have been madness for her to double down with her beliefs the way she did. It was different when you were gone.’

‘Yes. When I was gone-’

‘No.’ She shakes her head decisively. ‘When you were gone, I said. Not because you were gone.’

Cathy contemplates for a moment and Jane pulls her closer, so that Cathy can lean against her comfortably. ‘Think love, for a minute. Did everything go to plan when you were alive? Did everything go just how you tried to make it turn out?’

Reluctantly Cathy shakes her head. ‘No. Hardly ever.’

‘So.’ Jane presses a kiss to the top of her head. ‘What makes you think it would have been any different if you’d lived longer?’ She pauses. ‘You need to let go of the blame. You need to stop torturing yourself with thinking how things could have been different- trust me, it’ll be easier when you do.’

She can see by Cathy’s expression that she understands what she means.

‘You make it sound so easy.’

‘Oh it won’t be. It isn’t. It’s always hard.’ She can say it lightly but honestly, it’s something that she doesn’t even think she’ll stop struggling with. ‘But you’ve taken the first couple of steps today….so that’s a start at least.’

‘I suppose.’ She’d be more bothered by the non-committal response if it wasn’t for the fact that she can tell by Cathy’s expression that she is actually thinking about it- only passingly now, perhaps, but later, when her tears have dried, tomorrow or the day after, she will think on it again, think about it seriously and examine the idea, and turn it over and over in her mind until she’s made peace with it.

She knows how Cathy does things after all, which is why she doesn’t push it too hard. She might not be able to read well but she knows about people.

Nestled up against her, Cathy looks even wearier and more wrung out than before but it doesn’t worry her so much as it did when she first noticed it. She smooths Cathy’s hair away from her damp face and smiles when she hums in response.

They sit in silence for a minute or two, and Jane imagines dust settling around them after a storm, normalcy returning slowly. She isn’t planning on going back to the poetry- she imaginges Cathy has probably had enough of it for one day, and then she remembers something and jerks up, dislodging Cathy from her arms and making her squeak in surprise.

‘Jane?’

‘Sorry, sorry- I just- I remembered something, something I meant to show you and I thought...it might help. You, I mean.’

Cathy looks slightly skeptical, and then she shrugs. ‘Ok. What is it?’

‘I’ll fetch it. Get comfortable while I look though because it might take a minute.’

She waits until Cathy has re-arranged the pillows and lain down properly on the the bedspread, half smiling despite herself.

‘I’m curious now-’

‘I knew you would be. Just- Oh!’ She unearths the book from under her bed, where she remembers putting it for ‘safe-keeping’ and climbs back onto the bed with it.

And begins to read.

‘I fling the past behind me, like a robe, worn threadbare at the seams, and out of date…’

Cathy curls back up into her side again and she smiles. ‘I have outgrown it. Where- where-’

‘Wherefore.’ Cathy’s voice is quiet; she goes on.

‘Wherefore should I weep and dwell upon its beauty-’

As she reads, she feels the tension leaving the girl next to her as she sinks into the cadence of the words.

‘-starred with gems made out of ch-ch-’

‘Chrystalled-’ Cathy’s voice is nearly a whisper now, but she can still hear it.

‘Chrystalled tears. My new robe shall be richer than the old.’ She finishes, flushed with the glow of hearing how much more confident her voice is than when they’d begun these sessions, all those months ago.

‘That’s you, Cathy. And all of us.’ She leans closer to the curly hair- Cathy’s face is buried in Jane’s cardigan but she knows she is still listening. ‘All of us, stronger than we were. You can put the past down, you don’t have to carry it with you, if it’s hurting.’

Cathy gives a tremulous nod, her face still buried and Jane kisses the top of her head..

She isn’t concerned, they can talk about it more later.

For now, she’s happy to wait until then.

#six #six the musical #six the musical fanfiction #sixfic #six fanfiction

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