Intelligence

It seemed to Rowena as though Helga had always known, to some measure, what was going to happen. She had been binding that knowledge in her heart, holding it close, a secret, either afraid or unwilling to show them what she saw. Not even Salazar--no, not even he, not yet--knew what was to come. And Rowena...Rowena, least of all. That was a certainty.

But Helga knew, beyond a doubt, and that was what irked her. Not because the other woman had been keeping a secret from her--they all did, at least now, didn't they?--but because of the sheer audacity of the thought. Because on some level Rowena could admit: had Helga confessed her fears, Rowena would have been filled with hatred. With disbelief, and disgust. She would never, not in a thousand years, never, she would say, never have believed her.

His ambition lies here. Those would have been her words.

And she was wrong. So, terribly, wrong. The concept was foreign to her. Not because she was flawlessly correct in all her predictions, but because the occurance was such a rare one, and because the exact details of her mistake were laden with so much pain.

It was like a nightmare. Cliches aside...it was a nightmare. A living terror. A breathing, pulsing, rattling, hissing betrayal of trust.

Where is your intelligence, now? The voice in her mind seemed to come from nowhere, and fade into the same nothingness from which it had appeared...but the thought haunted her. Now, in retrospect, what did intelligence, what did wit matter? Her naïvete was painful to recollect. She should have chosen something pragmatic, something that would have been useful in future years. Bravery, loyalty, cunning ambition.

Instead she chose the quality that was most familiar to her, the one that seemed safe, comfortable. Intelligence, and intelligent children--these were no strangers to her. It was values, it was semantics, it was morality that she lacked.

The castle seemed dry, with him gone. The cold of winter had faded into spring warmth. That cold which had kept her alert, kept her wary, sending shivers down her spine and spiking her senses. Spring, summer...those seasons were heavy and poisoned with lethargy.

The colours had faded into a never ending gradient of gray. Her skin had gone to paper, wispy and fragile beneath the touch of the men and women she allowed into her bed, to aid in her forgetfulness. Their fingers were thick and hot, rough, compared to the cool silk of bone-thin hands caressing her sides, turning her skin to honey and her hips to liquid motion. To the words, Parseltongue whispers, venom in her ears, sparking with Dark magic and the exhilaration of the unknown.

Wine tasted stale without the accompanying conversation and the mild, jesting insults thrown across a small room, peppered with quotes from the lips of poets and philosophers. The dizzy dance of their minds around the most delicate topics, plunging deep into the most taboo controversy and battering all possible arguments into the ground until they were left standing at an impasse, breathless but stubborn and proud.

Godric seemed determined to think that Salazar's absence was his fault. He had seized the burden with an almost maniacal determination, bearing it up as an example of the tension that had covered the castle for years. Making a scapegoat of himself, sure-footed, brave, and rash. As always. Typical Godric, to be sure....

But it wasn't his fault. Not really. He and Salazar had argued, they'd had their harsh words and shattered glasses and anger hurled against the floor. Mostly about ethics, and Salazar's ever-zealous racism. Salazar had claimed this as his initiative for leaving.

Rowena didn't believe him.

The last few days had been blood-splattered with fights and rage between the two of them, lion and snake. But was it really those final hours that swayed Salazar's mind from one end of the spectrum to another? Or was it a buildup, a conglomerate, of several years...?

His eyes had become sharper, over the course of the months. Sometimes Rowena felt as though he were glaring at her, transfixed with an emotion that so closely resembled hatred that she often wondered.... But that would disappear soon enough, beneath kisses stolen in the dungeons, her back pressed up against the uneven wall as his lips explored her neck and crossed the ridge of her collarbone, hips and chest flat against her own, fingers clasped over one shoulder and her heart stuttering behind her ribs. Then books, and essays, and oratory, and debates. Just for amusement, never cruel, never accusatory. Letters sent back and forth and back again, letters that took four days to write because neither of them was ever quite satisfied--stuffed into envelopes straining at the creases from an excess of ink-soaked parchment.

But she could remember...Godric's hoarse tone, a wry comment, echoed quickly by Helga's bell-like laugh and a swift rebuttal on Rowena's part. From Salazar, only silence. The loudest, most deafening silence that Rowena had ever heard. The sharp look in his eyes would be back.

It was like they had begun living in a fairy tale, a construct of velvet and lace, built from fantasy and cobweb. All it took was one word gone astray, one alteration of tone, and the glass castle came tumbling from the clouds.

On the last night, Salazar appeared in her rooms, stiff of limb and undoubtedly already hardened in his decision. Still, Rowena had no idea. He had behaved as usual, he was only returning a book he had borrowed, after all, and that could lead into a glass of wine, which could lead to....

Rowena had almost forgotten how good Salazar was at acting. Or maybe she just didn't want to remember.

It was safer, sweeter, to remember that last night in its original virgin form. Untainted by what would follow, by harsh words and stoically unshed tears. His breath had felt like fire on her skin. The only heat that Rowena could stand. Then he left, not bothering to stay the night--he never did, after all, that was far from unusual...but then the following day, leaving for good.

No warning. Not in her mind, at least, though God knew what she might have repressed or ignored in her determination to preserve normalcy. She had been utterly, completely shocked...rendered speechless, motionless in her hurt and incredulity. For years, she wondered what would have happened, had she said something, asked him to stay. But it was no use editing and revising the past. She had been silent. He had left.

And Helga had turned to her, taking her into her embrace without question or comforting word. Just lips pressed against her cheek and, as the blond woman drew back, a glimmer of knowledge in her eyes.

Yes. For Rowena had been blind. Intelligence. She had closed her mind from intelligence. Closed her thoughts away from knowledge. Not because she didn't know, but because she didn't want to.

She had walked quickly back to her room and closed the door behind herself, arranging and rearranging the books on her shelf, straightening the bedsheets still mussed from before breakfast, coughing blood blossoms into her handkerchief--a forewarning of her death, which would come silently over the next three months--another warning which she had ignored--and she thought about her quill for a bit, she needed a new one, the old was beginning to fray....

Fin.