She turns and walks away, pacing like a tiger, and when she returns to stare him in the eye, still so much like a tiger, she seems a complete stranger. Maybe he had been wrong to ever think he knew her, even a little bit.
"Then you are a fool..."
He stands there and lets her speak words that should ruin him. " When it tears you to pieces, when it shreds who you are..." His lungs struggle for breath beneath the weight of her words.
"And even you become a stranger in your own skin... Tell me then what it is to love and watch everything slip away. Tell me then how it makes you better."
She is so angry he thinks the parchment around them might catch fire, and he wants to ask why are you so angry except it's in his blood, too, and the only words that long to escape him are you are wrong.
You are wrong, you are wrong, his blood chants. It wants to tear the books from the shelves, upend the tables, rip the tapestries from the walls. He knows no point would be proven by violence--
but violence has never been about proving anything. Violence is about expression, and when words aren't getting through... he listens to his heart race and wonders at the difference between now and yesterday. Yesterday how it hammered with love's trepidation! What a marvel that the same frenzied rhythm, the exact same pulse, should ring with anger and confusion where it once chimed wedding bells.
(what else beats the same as anger and love? Sorrow and fear and hate and joy? Are they all just different sides of the same strange thing? Is that what we call soul?
you are wrong, his blood still chants.)
The heat leaves her almost as suddenly as it has come, although there is a haggard look in her eyes as she continues to warn him. He's heard enough.
"You're wrong, Moira Tonnerre. Good night." He dips his head cordially and leaves on light feet, despite the heaviness of his heart.
Later, his only misgiving would be that he left on the note that he did, instead of asking the question that begged to be asked-- why are you so angry? This conversation would open wounds that would fester without closure. He knows this. He knows this, but he leaves anyway.
Rarely is a man ever angry and wise at the same time.
the biggest ache was mine
@
Time makes fools of us all
