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may it be the midday sun
IP: 95.148.69.245
Posted on March 14, 2013 at 00:33:02 AM by n i m u e h

Nimueh sunk down slowly into the chair in front of her dressing table and reached out towards the ornate mirror that stood upon its surface. It had been a gift from Arthur when she had first moved into the Castle. It had taken some time to adapt. She had grown up the daughter of a chieftain in a small coastal community where everyone’s lives revolved around the sea. She had not however, lived in anything so grand as a castle before. Her Father’s longhouse had simply been a slightly larger versions of the ones that surrounded it. They might have slept on thicker furs than the rest of the village, and the cloth that she had been given to make her dresses had probably been a little finer, and had come from traders a little further away than those given to the daughters of her neighbours. When she had seated herself at the water’s edge, and looked out to sea waiting to see the sails of her father’s ship upon the horizon, she would never have imagined that her life would have turned out the way it had. Perhaps if she had known, when they had returned her father’s body, then she might not have made the decision to flee. She could have taken her chances and stayed with what was left of her family. The horrors she had run from, she had found in Shaman.

The woman leaned forwards a little and surveyed her reflection. Age had been kind to her, but it had brushed against her nonetheless. Smile lines had begun to form in the corners of her wide eyes, and her jet-black hair had begun to host the odd strand of grey. She had never been beautiful, not classically so, but the years had made her handsome, her Celtic bone structure adding a keen distinction to her features. She had not grown used to that reflection, to the woman who blinked back at her from the looking glass. She was a stranger, a stranger blessed with a strange kind of gentle wisdom, and a poise that was both strong and mournful. It was as if she had begun to look not at herself, but as an illustration. Had the Gods, her Gods, the Gods of her island home, always intended for her to end up looking that way? She had seen women in books, drawn sitting by windows looking out into the distance who looked much the same as she did, waiting for their husbands and their sons to come home from wars, worried that they had not come back. The thought was enough to send her front teeth pinching into the gentle pinkness of her bottom lip as she fought back the wave of emotion that threatened to spill out. It was the knocking on the door that saved her.

Nimueh reached hurriedly for the lace handkerchief that sat on the table before her and patted at the skin beneath her eyes. She had to tend it with pastes now to hide the darkness that had begun to form there, bolder upon her milk-whiteness than it would have been upon someone with skin that held a tan. Time had not withered the elf-like elegance of her movements, even if it had thickened her once-tiny waistline a little, her corsets had a harder job to do than they had done even five years ago. As her fingers curled around the door handle, Nimueh gave a sharp tug and the door swung open with a creaking of hinges. Her gaze, expecting to find Arthur or Dred waiting on the other side flicked first to their eye height, but found the space empty. She looked a little lower, seeking Tristan, but the boy she found was not her Grandson. Her fingers fluttered to her mouth as she tried to use them to press back a breathless little “oh.”

Thoth stood in the doorway, looking skinny, exhausted and half-starved, and as if he were about prepared to turn and run away again. Her mind, that might have reached for memories of his contempt for her, his refusals to allow her to give him the love she had once hoped to offer him, was frozen by the site of him, and impulse became the only driver behind her actions. She pushed the door a little wider and, bending her knees, pulled him into a tight embrace. The tears that had threatened to claim her minutes previously came charging to the surface again, and Nimueh did her best to push them back. Nights of worry had made the idea of seeing his face again seem ever more remote, but as she felt his heart beat, and the warmth of his skin through his damp mud-covered clothes, it was like finding dry land again after being adrift at sea. “I was so worried,” Nimueh managed at last, holding him at arm’s length, unwilling to release him completely else he fade away like a ghost. Uncertainly founds its way back into her consciousness however, and with a touch of timidity she voiced her final words, “would you like to come inside?”
photography by Stuart Herbert | dragontoller at flickr.com






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