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Hello, my old heart
How have you been?
Are you still there inside my chest?
I've been so worried, you've been so still
Barely beating at all
Vernon Roche’s first love had been the miller’s daughter, Jeannie. She’d been sweet and she enjoyed kissing his cheek in the back of the barn house after the morning pick up. He’d never had a chance with her and he knew that in the back of his mind- she was pretty and her prospects for marriage were good. Too good for a scrappy whoreson who enjoyed a draught of vodka since he was old enough to understand how it dulled the pain. Jeannie stopped talking to him after the other local boys beat him to a pulp on the steps of the bakery, dragging him up by the hair to look at her tear stained face.
He resolved to let it go; that fantasy of feeling.
He didn’t feel it again until he was sober, stronger, and sitting on his knees at the feet of a man too good for him. A man who brushed away courtiers and knelt for Roche, for a man who his advisors thought hardly good enough to lick his boots.
Oh, don't leave me here alone
Don't tell me that we've grown
For having loved a little while
Oh, I don't wanna be alone
I wanna find a home
And I wanna share it with you
Iorveth’s first love was full of rage and sweet whispers. The first love that had swirled in his chest since he had embraced the blood beneath his nails and the idea that he would never be looked upon with more than scorn or misplaced worship. Isengrim hadn’t cared about his scars beyond the way that they hurt him. Isengrim hadn’t lied and called him beautiful, he had praised his strength and kissed his hands, and called him ‘beloved’.
It had been good while it lasted, until the Vrihedd Brigade was betrayed and Iorveth ran. He ran and kept running until that hole in his chest was filled with rage again and no time or memory or ghost from the past made flesh again in his shoddy tent could dig it out that time.
He didn’t do well alone. But he had no choice.
Hello, my old heart
It's been so long
Since I've given you away
And every day, I add another stone
To the walls I built around you
To keep you safe
‘It isn’t safe! You’re going to get yourself killed and for what? The last word over a dh’oine?’ Ciaran had finally yelled in furious anguish, as though his anger was not at Iorveth’s betrayal of the fragile offer laid at his feet but born of concern for his well being. Ciaran who had waited for Iorveth to one day offer him what he had seen from Cedric. To give him that which Iorveth no longer possessed.
“You don’t speak for me, nor for my command. Not in this. Should I remind you of that or do you understand your position?”
He couldn’t give him what he wanted. It would do nothing but break them both.
Oh, don't leave me here alone
Don't tell me that we've grown
For having loved a little while
Oh, I don't wanna be alone
I wanna find a home
And I wanna share it with you
Roche took solace in his pursuit for there was none to be found in the embrace of a man he’d let die. The man he’d been so foolish as to give his all to and let out of his sight. Then there was nothing else to chase and everyone who cared to see him alive was dead save for the one he’d failed to protect more than any of them.
Then there was a familiar voice in an unfamiliar world, one where there was no higher calling, and Roche let himself follow. Let himself seek company that may not scorn his beaten and battered shell.
Hello, my old heart
How have you been?
How is it being locked away?
Don't you worry, in there you're safe
And it's true, you'll never beat
But you'll never break
Stone hearted. They had both been called. Statues. Monuments to terror and terrible things, to duty and honor and freedom, to a life never lived but half remembered all the same. Unbending and unbreakable , without weakness for weakness - all knew - came from the heart.
They had rid themselves of such a fickle thing.
So went the sayings.
Nothing lasts forever
Some things aren't meant to be
But you'll never find the answers
Until you set your old heart free
“We shouldn’t do this.” Roche said, hands shaking as he dared to touch and be touched in turn. His stone heart beat hard in his chest and he wanted to melt into the embrace he was offered.
“Says who?” Iorveth was clumsy with his affections, it all fit wrong but like a riddle he would keep at until solved. Until he could hold in his hands the fragile thing laid before him and show him the affection they had both been denied.
It couldn’t last. They would find nothing but ruin in the end of this, for how could they not?
But their souls were old and their feet so tired.
Perhaps it was time to listen to fickle things.
Hello, my old heart
Hello, my old heart
Hello, my old heart
Hello, my old heart