and if I just stay awhile here staring at the sea

[gottaknockhard]

Who: Spike Spiegel (gottaknockhard) and Anne Boleyn (ensorceler)
What: A quiet moment
When: The evening before the attack
Where: The cliffs at Terre Haute
Rating: PG-13

To say that Spike was out of his element would have been a joke to anyone who heard it. Every new destination they reached seemed to pull him further away from any rational expectations he had about the world beyond the castle, and anything he was remotely comfortable with engaging. Thankfully, since they reached the land of talking giraffes, it at least seemed to scatter the camp and make it less obvious when he broke away for the sake of his sanity. That he spent that time trailing the woman who convinced him to go was only expected.

It was the job he'd agreed to, anyway.

All this time he hadn't been tempted to explore a world he never cared to understand, and she barely needed to give an order. (How long had it been since he'd actually taken one?) It had started out as an act that he could play for the chance that something might spark his interests, but even that was a stretch to get him to spend weeks out in the wilderness. Even now, he didn't really know why he was so willing to follow her. Maybe it made him feel not as lost as he had; or he just needed a change in scenery more than he knew.

Anne was at the cliffs again, and he watched her as he finished one of his last cigarettes. He walked up behind her then, but kept his eyes to the horizon, not willing to break her thoughts. If nothing else, they found a nice view.

Comments

[gottaknockhard]

It's a scene from a dream, exactly as she says and nearly impossible to argue. Spike is close enough to see tears in her eyes, and he stares for a painfully long moment as her words get lost in the sound of the waves. She's the picture of what he'd imagine a savior must look like.

He shakes his head in an attempt to clear it, and quietly admits to himself that he tends to get caught up in certain ideas too easily. If he were making the decision for himself, he's not sure that he would have been as conflicted as he stands right now. Does that make him afraid?

But the second that she loses his footing Spike snaps to attention, and he reflexively reaches out to grab her wrist to pull her right back to that Hell she's trying to escape. Strong hands keep her steady there, and he attempts to bring her away from the edge.

"Anne." His voice is soft, barely above her whisper, but grounded in what he reluctantly accepts as reality. That thought tugs lightly at the corner of his lips. "You didn't have to bring me all the way out here for that."

[ensorceler]

She almost struggles against the grip, eyes widening in desperate protest as she looks back over her shoulder to see the whale crash into the water below, and then it's out of sight as she's pulled back from the edge.

Looking back to Spike, eyes wide, Anne tries to get a handle on her shallow, rapid breaths, bordering on hiccups in her adrenaline rush. His surprising lack of panic seems to soothe her somewhat, though, at least enough to keep her from hyperventilating. There may be tears, but Anne refuses to cry.

Shutting her eyes hard at his words, she lowers her head and presses the heel of her palm against her forehead, as if that will smother the painful thoughts knocking around in her head. "But to die alone... I could not bear it. Or I suppose it should not matter, as I would be gone."

[gottaknockhard]

Once he has her in his grasp, Spike becomes acutely aware of the pounding of his heart. It's his luck that her eyes are closed when a flash of emotion passes over his tightly held features. No, he hasn't saved her for her sake.

"Or you'll wind up back where you started, with all of us." His hand moves from her wrist to her shoulder, pressing gently. He wants to pull her in his arms completely, but he won't force her. Like he's not forcing her against trying again. "And if not, you'd leave me with some pretty weird company."

Still attempting jokes, as depressing as they are. "I don't think I'd survive the trip back."

[ensorceler]

"I am to be selfless, then? To rescue you?"

Any small grasp she formerly had on her features completely crumbles, and it is with every inch of her iron will that Anne keeps in the keening wail she feels in her heart. She would have been named banshee over queen, except she isn't called queen at all. Not there, not here. Those who say it mock her, she knows. Even this man does, this stupid man who follows her around like his job means anything.

Both hands fly to cover her face, only to then move to his chest as if to push him away, but it's only with her left hand, and with little force. If Spike lets her go, then she really will fall, and now the bravery has abandoned her. "If I cannot be so for my daughter, then what makes you think you are worth more? You are not! And yet, she is not her. I am not even me. I am no daughter or sister, no wife, no mother, no queen. I cannot even call myself such! Lady Regent, why would I ever...?!" She laughs through her tears, looking back up finally.

"Almighty God himself has damned me, I know! I have suffered nightmares deep and dark, such torment that has shredded at my soul, and yet there is nothing I could dream that compares to this! I must be dead, my heart cut out in my sleep by an assassin. The Lord has stripped me of everything now, in His eyes my soul was already damned, and my punishment for pride and envy is to forever be mocked by my worst nightmares in isolation."

[gottaknockhard]

Spike allows her the outburst, and chooses not to interrupt until she stops to catch her breath. Despite her attempts to shove him away, he still holds her, watching with the fascination of a man who has never had the nerve to be honest. Maybe that's why he became attached to someone so far out of his character.

It's a shame she has to waste it on him. Spike doesn't have the capacity for knowing the answers to questions about life and death, let alone the pressures of royalty or religion. She's right that he's a poor substitute for the company she left behind, and he's sure that any one of her court would have thought of something better to say.

"Not everything," he starts, but he can't seem to finish the thought, hoping she would do it for him to save himself from admitting what he was doing out here or how much he wanted to pull her into his arms. The damned leading the damned. That's all he has to offer.

[ensorceler]

She can't finish it, not even in her thoughts. There is nothing here she wants, not if that isn't her real daughter at the castle. But if she is to be surrounded by demons and ghosts, would that be better or worse than solitude?

"That is to be seen."

Sniffing as she tries to get a handle back on her tears, Anne lets go of him so that she can wipe furiously below her eyes, not stopping until her skin is pink but dry. The same can't be said for some of her hair and dress, dampened thanks to the whale's recent leap, but that doesn't stop her from stepping closer and resting her cheek against his chest. To hear someone else's heartbeat right now brings the smallest of comforts, even if his seems to be racing. She's surprised, as calm as he sounded.

"And you? What sin has brought you here?"

[gottaknockhard]

As she moves to rest her head on his chest, he finally lets his arms fit around her, more comforting than intimate. He has a picture in his mind, remembering her joyful face as she clapped at his skill at a simple parlor trick.

"I wanted to see you." His simple reply could have been less honest, focused on the supposed job he took on or how the alternative was too taxing for his sanity, but it's becoming harder to concentrate on what he should say. The most he can do is improvise.

Of course, she could be asking the broader question, which he pretends not to think of. His answers won't make an argument for Paradisa not residing in some far off Hell for lost souls, and she's had enough excitement for one day.

[ensorceler]

Anne's heartbeat picks up at the gentle embrace and his words. It makes her happy to hear, so much has she missed being doted on and touched, even if she wasn't speaking of the Dead Zone specifically. She's content enough with the answer to let him keep it, hand settling next to her head where she can feel something beneath his shirt, over his heart. Some sort of pendant?

Curious, not thinking she should have to ask permission, Anne simply slides her hand up until she can find the chain hidden beneath his collar, tugging the pendant out. She tilts her head back a bit to see, and finds herself transfixed with the beauty of the small crystal.

"Is it a sin to want to be near me, then? The me who is not me; Not Anne Boleyn nor Anne the Queen." Of course she can say it when it's in the negative. "Who am I to be?"

[gottaknockhard]

Spike tenses slightly when she finds the crystal and starts to play with it in her hand. At the same time, he can't tell her to be careful without having to explain what it is, which he'd rather delay if not avoid altogether. As long as she isn't compelled to pull it off his neck and run off, he has nothing to worry about.

"If you wanted to be someone else, you couldn't have picked a better place." Talking for the sake of it now, just gliding over the more telling questions. He's not wrong though. Without her loyal subjects here, she could change everything she wanted except for the name on her door. "It's your choice to decide."

[ensorceler]

She looks from the crystal up to his eyes, then, unique in their own right, though of a different nature. Anne has to be close to see the slightly different shade of brown in one eye, or maybe it just seems as if one is brighter than the other. She has noticed before, though she doesn't necessarily remembering commenting on them when drunk.

"Is it so easy? I have already lived so many different lives, I feel I do not know how to take on another role. Have you? Are you not the same man you were before?"

[gottaknockhard]

He can't decide if this is a welcome shift in conversation. Sometimes it catches him off guard how she can find just the right way to phrase something to filter in past his defenses.

"That wasn't by choice." Having Julia here made him realize how much her memory must have changed him. Part of the reason they had so many problems was because of how difficult it was for her to cope with what she had left.

Thinking of Julia is enough of a sign that he's into dangerous territory, so he's quick to add on. "Not everyone is used to living in a castle."

[ensorceler]

There is much she could say in response to that. How living in a large building of stone does not a true castle make. Living here is nothing like living as a queen, not even like living like the maid she was before.

"I know so little of you. And you...know so little of me, and where I have come from. Do you see me only as a queen? I ought be thankful deep in my heart for someone to. And then I also ought not care one fig."

Her hand settles against his chest, feeling the heartbeat for a long moment, letting it trail down the buttons curiously before she turns and pulls away, walking back to the edge of the cliff. He may not stop her, but she will not jump. Cannot bring herself to brave that step now, her will having all but abandoned her.

She still stares down, though, ever downward towards the black waters bursting against the rocks.

"Do you know of Psyche and Eros? She sought him out after he fled from her, though he was her husband. She requested the goddess Aphrodite's help in order to find him. The third task set forth was to fetch a cup of water from the dark river Styx, which cascades down from heights beyond imagination. It was an impossible task for a lone woman."

[gottaknockhard]

Spike listens carefully, attentive in that way that can only really occur after a near suicide attempt -- although he seems to have successfully spoiled that moment, and the next when she moves away. There's still a possibility that she'll be inspired again as she returns to the edge, but with her odd change in subject, he trusts that her mind must have moved onto other things.

"I can't remember that one," he replies slowly, encouraging her to tell the rest. This is a more comfortable approach for him, and a common way to get around telling too much about yourself, so he'll do his best to follow.

[ensorceler]

She rocks back onto her heels, then forward nearly to her toes in a precarious second...and then she's rocking back, and forth, and back, and forth. "An eagle helped her fetch the water from Hades.

Aphrodite was angry, proclaiming there was no chance a lone woman could have accomplished that test. But Psyche was still permitted to ascend to the second test."

[gottaknockhard]

Anne is apparently very good at making men nervous. He's not above pulling her back a second time, but at some point it starts to look like he's tempting fate.

"Do you think you're being tested?"