my soul is awry
A tableau:
The red-headed prince, politely regretful, who stands like cold stone on a soft black sand beach.
The black vestal, cheeks scandalously bare in the night-salt air, who kneels sobbing at her feet.
--
Prince Kiriona Gaia gently unhooks the dark-haired girl's clenched hands from her cape, sidestepping entirely a passionate confession meant for <-me-> someone long dead.
"I'm not her, you know." A measured, almost gentle rebuke.
Despair blackens the ninth house scion's eyes as hers meet cool, remote gold.
Distant music and cries of celebration echo down to them from Canaan House, a dignified white ruin above them.
Harrowhark looks down first, scrubs her face briskly with a sleeve, takes a measured breath. "My apologies, your highness. A momentary lapse."
She startles badly at the neatly manicured hand extended down to help her up.
"Care to dance?" It's offered with perfect chivalry, and perhaps no small undercurrent of pity, by the prince, who has not <-cannot-> let go of her hand.
They dance near the shore, waves splashing through their gritty footprints pressed into the sand. The prince's muscled arms are wrapped gingerly around her shoulders, and if she closes her eyes, it's - it's almost like-
<-salt water, the shocking warmth of an unexpected embrace, fierce devotion, undeserved loyalty, unbearable loss->
Harrow leans close, and she hears nothing, no heartbeat in that sharply smiling chest. Her own heart collapses in on itself, the black hole abyss of a dematerialized star.