Work Text:
If you're a lover, you should know
The lonely moments just get lonelier
The longer you're in love than if you were alone
Memories turn into daydreams, become a taboo
He touches the dragon sculpture, remembering it all and hating it all. He enters the abandoned house, one that once had been bustling with cruelty and viciousness. Had been filled with assassins draped in jewels. Now the haunting hallways reflected the truth of this house.
It was once his home, filled with so much pain. He moves further, reaching a window, and looking at the central corridor. The place he hates, yet cannot help but be drawn to.
It was the place she was last in. A place she whispered her goodbye to him.
He had thought they were mates. They would be together till the end of time.
She was his and he was hers.
And now?
What has become of the kind prince of autumn?
The male she remembered is now only alive in memories. He died, slowly and cruelly. Now that wildness she fell in love with is no more.
Perhaps that is why he is not hers anymore.
No.
He seemed to be mated with a female as broken as he was. A female that is nothing like his lost love. Elain is not brash and bold, she is not beauty bordering on pain. Elain is Elain. Elain is sweet, demure, kindness personified. He doesn’t want her any more than she wants him. Yet he’s forced to be connected to her.
All the while he wishes to be with Jesminda.
His Jesminda.
Looking at the place that held her burning wings, he supposes he does belong in this house of memories. It was death and revival. All the things he will always be now. All the thing she was.
It was his fate after all.
I don't want to be afraid
The deeper that I go
It takes my breath away
Soft hearts, electric souls
Heart to heart and eyes to eyes
Is this taboo?
Marriage has conditions. It has rules, traditions, and a duty she needs to adhere to.
She had not cared.
She knew it was a mistake the moment she saw him. It didn’t stop her. No duty, no cages would have stopped her.
He looked at her as if she was the sun, His sun. He claimed she was the brightness in his palace. With him, she felt wild. With him was the only time she was alive. He was her everything. The fire in her veins, the fresh air of Autumn breeze, the softness of the forest grass.
So she broke countless rules forced upon her. Broke from her husband's control, slowly and fully. She sneaked around, met him any chance she could, let him follow her around.
It was a mistake. One that she does not regret making.
Perhaps she was selfish, for she could not offer him what he truly desired, still she kept coming back. Came back and kept refusing all his offers.
He would spin tales of them in his palace, Lord and Lady. Their people celebrating her, worshiping her as their goddess. He would sing songs of Beron death, of death by the burning sun. She would laugh and imagine it was true. But she knew it would never be true.
Beron was a High Lord. He was still just an heir. She might have been selfish but not when her sons were concerned. She would not leave them at her husbands mercy whilst she lived the fantasy.
So she returned to her lover, time and again for she felt empty without him. Returned always until she couldn’t. Until she made too grave of a mistake.
She still does not regret it.
Doesn’t matter if it was wrong. Doesn’t matter what happens to her. Her soul was already lost. She lived in the memories of his arms... his love, his comfort. Everything that was his.
It didn’t matter that that’s how it would always be. She had Lucien, who was half him and half her. She had her son and it was all that matters now.
Even in this haunting house of memory.
Baby, we built this house on memories
Take my picture now, shake it 'til you see it
And when your fantasies become your legacy
Promise me a place in your house of memories
Eris remembers it all.
It is the gift and the curse of being the firstborn.
He remembers the foundation of this house. The blood that shredded. He remembered his young self, and how he had to kill him. Kill him brutally and slowly, until nothing was left of him. He remembered the birth of his brothers and the loss of his mother’s children.
Remembered all their deaths. And their rebirths.
Most of all he remembers her. Her pain, her anger, her fierceness.
The brightness of her soul.
Her death hurt him the most. He is still waiting for her to rise again. To be what she had been years and years ago. To come out of the memories and live.
He blames Lucien sometimes when he sees her too broken, so lost and afraid. He knows better. His younger brother is blameless. His younger brother is the reason she clings on still. Just as he knows his younger brother’s father is the reason there is still hope.
He knows, even if it hurts him to know.
Beron. He is the one to blame.
The history of the forest house is ruthless, full of rivers of red, orange, and gold. A history worthy of its crown. Eris will do as history demands. It is his legacy.
He is, after all, his father’s son, the heir of the house of memory.
I think of you from time to time
More than I thought I would
You were just too kind and I was too young to know
That's all that really matters
I was a fool
He should have known no son of his would remain as he had.
He had assumed he took after his mother, as she had once been. Too wild, too outspoken. It took time to remind her where she belong now, till forever.
He should have known better.
Lucien might have kept the company of the wild creatures, but he wasn’t as savage. Would never be what was demanded of a Vanserra.
His One oversight was all that was needed to cause his demise.
This was the house of memory. No one forgave and no one forgot.
History does repeat itself here.
Those thoughts of past lovers, they'll always haunt me
I wish I could believe you'd never wrong me
Then will you remember me in the same way as I remember you
Baby, we built this house on memories
Take my picture now, shake it 'til you see it
And when your fantasies become your legacy
Promise me a place
“Will you marry me”
He had blurted the question, fulling expecting a rejection. Jesminda was the epitome of the free spirit. She valued her freedom above everything else. She could not agree to be chained to someone. Let alone him.
He was what he was. Seventh Son of a High lord.
Both useless and useful.
He hadn’t expected her to say yes, or for her to scold him for taking too long to ask her in the first place. His heart had filled with so much joy. He felt he was at the top of the universe.
He should have known the only way next was the bottom.
And oh, how savagely he had fallen.
He only regretted taking her down too.
He hoped she was at peace, that she could not see him now. She wanted him to stay in her memory as he had once been. He wanted her to remember he belonged to her.
Just as he would always remember her as his. His forever.
He looks at the pools of blood adorning everything in the grand room, seeing it drip from his brother's mouth, the flaming crown atop his head.
It was in the merciless of his gaze. In the sight of Beron in pieces.
Always remember, for it was the House of Memory. Here history always repeated itself.