Work Text:
You are telling me, “Let's go to Quebec! At least once we will meet winter fully armed ”, you say a lot of things, and, of course, some part of me agrees with your arguments. You smirk and disappear in your labs. You order everyone and promise to pamper me with your attention tonight. And I take Honorine and disappear into the forest for brushwood. I'm leaving to think over your words.
Let's go to Quebec. You've told me that…. And how, Joffrey, tell me, how can I leave Vapassu, when I only just learned to love it with all my heart? How can we leave here all those who cannot live without us? Leaving these places for me means leaving a piece of my heart behind.
How can I leave Vapassu and forget about the heavy blizzards of winter, the howling of the wind, the warmth of the fireplace, and the fairy tales that we told to the children? How can I forget our pre-Christmas dreams and the first flowers of spring?
How can I erase from my memory the shores washed by azure water, the moon admiring itself in the transparent surface of the Silver Lake, the mighty pine trees, where I once found a stream filled with the smells of wild mint and my childhood.
Vapassu is dear to me. Dear to me for many reasons. And not only because it has become a bridge that connects our lives, heals our hearts, tormented by the cold of separation and abysses of mistrust. Where, tell me, Joffrey, where could we rejoice so carelessly, forgetting about the problems and troubles? Where else could we be ourselves, dress up in peasant clothes, not care about titles, and just be us? Rejoice with nature, life, and each other.
Vapassu appeared to me as a whisper from my childhood, with those memories that I always wanted to share with you. The memories of happiness to live under one roof, to meet the twilight by the fireplace, not bothering with worries about anything. Happiness to just live, to know that we have us and that we will remain there for each other at least until the morning, and then the evening dawn will gather us all in a large hall with warm walls, dried mushrooms, and delicious stew.
We lived a hundred lives before we reconnected, we knew palaces built by the best architects and we ate food prepared by the royal chefs, we gave sumptuous receptions, but never before were we so happy as on Christmas Eve in a large hall, in the wilderness on the edge of the world.
Just as Toulouse once opened the veil of secrecy over your life to me, over what you loved and what you would not have refused under any circumstances, so Vapassu showed you my world. You will always be a noble lord, I will be a barefoot swamp fairy from Poitou. A fairy who never wanted all these titles.
Yes, I admit that I love beautiful dresses, delicate linen, jewelry, and envious sighs, but it was you, my dear, who instilled in me the love for all this, that's why I want to please you, to be grateful for everything. If our meeting had not happened in my life, I would have gone into the woods and become an all-knowing sorceress who can hear nature, I think I could. And Vapassu and Niel only contributed to this.
That is why cities are alien to me. Vanity, overdressed gloss, and bright tinsel, all this will take you away from me. And I will wait in someone else's house, which we will call ours for just one winter, I will smile tightly and fight at night for the right to spend a couple of hours with you. But…. You love this life more than you love me, and I am following you again. Only before that, before that, I am going to tell you about Vapassu, and who knows….
Perhaps we will leave to stay.
The end.