winces: (Default)
olivia. ([personal profile] winces) wrote2015-12-01 09:27 pm

Iɴʙᴏx.

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olivia
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heelies: (Default)

( audio ) before perdition's rest

[personal profile] heelies 2016-09-22 01:47 am (UTC)(link)
[The siege of the insects having been ceased, those dreadful beasts at last laid to rest and the wrinkles in time thus smoothed, Achilles expects to settle into the rhythm of ordinary life in the grand halls of Oska: sharing meals with Olivia, working his spear and running laps around the lake, unwinding in the hot springs at the day's close, and plucking idle melodies from his lyre. However he is quick to find a mislaid note in this steady rhythm, which diverts his day from its course as a stone would jar a chariot when over it the sturdy wheels try to fly. Olivia, whose sweet and gentle company he has grown so accustomed to, slips away for long hours, and when she is near she feels far still. Thus it is as the hours creep into the afternoon that he sends her this message.]

Lovely-haired Olivia, to where have you gone? It is your husband who inquires and wishes that you listen. How you presently seem to me like a ripple upon the water which ever eludes my grasp. What ill treatment have I inflicted upon you? What hard words have I spoken? Tell me, for I know not.

[He is a man who often is so deeply engrossed in his own cares that he sees not the cares which weigh upon the hearts of others, but the tenderness of love does broaden his gaze and he learns to listen to the rhythms of those whom he holds dear.]
heelies: (( peripeteia ))

[personal profile] heelies 2016-09-23 12:58 pm (UTC)(link)
[With her voice so small he cannot help but think of flowers wilted beneath the harsh gaze of the sun. Although he cannot see her, he imagines the huddled shape of her shoulders, her hands perhaps wrung together and her eyes downcast.]

I sit now in our bed chamber, which lately seems more mine alone rather than ours together.

[Nor can he help but speak these words which he knows must pain her soft heart, for the plain truth is something he cannot keep caged within his thoughts for long.]
heelies: (( of the glinting helmet ))

[personal profile] heelies 2016-09-28 01:52 am (UTC)(link)
[He sits at the small table which stands at one corner of the room, the table upon which they have so often shared in food and drink, and when she enters his gaze greets her, alerted as he was by the quiet creak of the door. He does not stand to welcome her, for although she has lately made herself scarce she is not a guest of his quarters, but his lover, his wife who belongs close by his side. Thus he remains in his seat with his eyes heavy upon her, beckoning for her to come closer not through words but through the force of his body language. His words, however, fall softly and through them his hurt is plain, as is the bend of a blade of grass through transparent beads of dew.]

Know you not that what cares weigh upon your heart you may share with me, that the burden might be halved? As you have granted me such reprieve, so too do I wish to grant you, dear Olivia.

[It has always been he who pours out his grievances and she who opens her heart to accept this weight, yet now he wishes to be the one who listens, as he has listened to so few before.]
heelies: (( of the glinting helmet ))

[personal profile] heelies 2016-10-01 08:26 pm (UTC)(link)
[So too does his heart seem to split in twain to see her so wretched there upon the ground, knelt before him and clutching his knee as if in supplication. He finds, far from the first time, that he is drawn into her gravity in the way that a willow's boughs cannot help but reach for the ground in which the tree is rooted. His hand brushes first over hers, then his fingers flutter along one of the braids that sway against his calf. There in the curtain formed of her hair, he finds her cheek damp with tears and he urges her to lift her head.]

For what do you shed these tears? What are these cares which lie so heavily upon your tender heart? Speak, and I shall listen.

[Although it is she who kneels before him, his words sound as a plea more so than a command.]
heelies: (( of the glinting helmet ))

[personal profile] heelies 2016-10-07 11:00 pm (UTC)(link)
[As when a stone is dropped into a pool and across the water's surface it lets loose ripples that grow ever wider ere they jostle the banks, so too does Olivia's question ripple through his heart as the context for her tears sinks in. His fingers, which before stroked her tear-stained cheek, now fall still as slowly he must reach for his words.]

Indeed I remember, although these memories come to me as if through fog - as if the time I passed here were no less a part of my youth than the years I spent upon Mount Pelion with Patroclus by my side, while the two of us were in wise Chiron's care.

[The fluidity with which the passage of time had been imbued is far too unwieldy for him to comprehend. He doubts that even the gods can make a plaything of the years and cause time to turn back upon itself, and thus he is left thoroughly bewildered in the wake of the past week.]

And you, dear Olivia - you were no less radiant for your age. Even then I thought you akin to a goddess who had spared me from the savage maw of that beast. Yet you had married another man - you were another man's widow.

[Here his words grind to a halt like heels that dig into the dirt to slow a man's momentum. Although it may be unreasonable, he cannot help the jealousy that flares inside him like a flame irritated by a gust that inspires it ever hotter.]

Is it this that causes you to shy now from my touch?
heelies: (( sacker of cities ))

[personal profile] heelies 2016-10-08 06:34 pm (UTC)(link)
[Upon her confession his heart aches as if bound by ropes within his chest, trapped there like the wild game out of which men might make their supper. Anger he knows well and anguish too, but how strange it is to be seized by these passions without having a target toward which to point them, for he knows not even the face of this man with whom Olivia has not yet committed any transgression against him.]

I must confess that it pains me sharply to think that you might one day be another man's wife - how I despair to think of you in his embrace, when you fit so perfectly in mine own! How I loathe to wonder at the joy you shall bring him as you now bring me, for what man would not rejoice to have you for his bride?

[His fingers tremble now upon her cheek, the soft curve of which he has held steady and caressed countless times, and it may be anger and anguish that string him so tightly yet it is confusion that binds these two tempers.]

I know not what I ought to think in so strange a matter as this. Lately I have tried to hold you all the more closely, and yet you seem to pull away from me. Thus I have but one question that I command you answer truthfully: do you, as you kneel before me at present, harbor love still for this other prince?
heelies: (( of the glinting helmet ))

[personal profile] heelies 2016-10-08 10:54 pm (UTC)(link)
[He tries to interpret her bowed countenance as a seer might seek to decipher the signs of birds in flight, and when at last she makes her answer he can see that she has sincerely weighed its worth and gravity. For this he trusts her as he might not have trusted an answer made in haste. Thus when he exhales he can feel his heart swell to fill his chest as if its fetters have been loosened. His hand is steady now against her cheek and his fingers stroke the shell of her ear, curving down her jaw.]

Then you have not broken your fidelity with me, Olivia, pleasure of my heart. How can I disdain you for what you shall do years from now? The woman I met in my youth - you are not yet she. Perhaps you shall become her someday, and you shall indeed be wed to this other man and bear his children...

[Years from now, after all, he shall no longer walk through the world of the living, and his shade shall dwell in the House of Hades where he hopes to be reunited with the son of Menoetius. He wonders if Olivia, should she ever return to her home, shall remember him. If indeed those of ALASTAIR can place them in the precise moment from which they departed, then does that mean it shall be as if all the time passed in service to their house never happened at all? He knows not if he can believe such wild claims, yet he knows Olivia has faith in their truth, and he has beheld all manner of impossibilities in his time here.]

But it is not for a mortal man like myself to know all that Fate decrees. I know not where to lay my trust while still all I behold is so strange to me, so difficult to comprehend. I can trust, however, that in this moment you love me as strongly as ever woman has loved man, and I cherish you in equal measure.

[His hands have now fallen to find hers and claim them gently.]
Edited 2016-10-08 22:55 (UTC)
heelies: (( mythos ))

[personal profile] heelies 2016-10-16 02:52 pm (UTC)(link)
[When she purposes to rise, he tugs her upward that he might better support her balance. He expects that she shall join him by taking her proper seat in the open chair, as they have so often enjoyed one another's company, but then she settles there upon his lap as would a child. As his arms wreathe her a grin warms his countenance for this parcel of intimacy she grants, and for the smile that radiates from her lips where before pressed a solemn line.]

As have I missed you. Yet we need not miss one another any longer.

[He cannot say for how long they both shall remain here, but is that not all the reason more to cherish this time that they share? He cannot help but think, however, that the more cherished the treasure, the harder it becomes to give up.]