roleplay for ibringlife, <lj site="livejournal.com" user="the_cor

[rude_not_ginger]

The Doctor flipped a few final switches on the TARDIS console, adding the information he'd just recieved about Aislinn into the systems, should he ever run across another muse like her again. Well, he doubted it would be exactly like her, but...the same genus at least.

He turned, picking up the teacups that were left behind. Funny, he would've thought Rose would've been back by now. The sound of a familiar key in the lock made him look up. Speak of the devil...

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[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

He managed a smile that did not quite reach his eyes.

"I was done. More than once. But the world was not done with me, perhaps. I thought..." There was a pained admission, that he bit back. "But no."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

"Then you were not done," she argued. "You were merely resting, a respite from the world, and a time to reguard it with much quieter eyes. Too see that which we never make time for, to take stock of what we will change when we get back up, to enjoys the memroes of that we would never change at all.." There was a delicate shrug of her shoulders. "After a while, the time to rest passes, and we stand again."

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

He couldn't tell her about the bullet. Or the sword. To try and explain how he was alive, with his head attached. How he had lived far beyond the years he should have.

Time travel was one thing, but even he could not begin to explain himself. The admission that hovered on his lips, that somehow he had foolishly thought he had found a reason to smile, certainly one to travel, he bit back, letting his eyes fall.

"Perhaps, then, I simply need reason to find my feet."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

It occured to Reinette once more just how free her discussion was with this newest stranger into her life. A certain ease came from court life, from the constant whirl of fabric and bodies and desire. Reinette was very pragmatic about discovering what people wanted. Not only was it useful, most often she merely wanted to know.

Yet there were certain aspects of this that felt different. Reinette wondered briefly why the communication always felt so different when they came from furthest away. It felt like more than mere different horizons.

Making a decision, Reinette stood up from the bench and offered Lord Byron her hand, not her arm. She knew quite a bit about finding her feet again.

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

It was such a little thing in his new time, the offering of a hand, and yet something far more intimate than an arm. People were more wont to hold hands casually in the future, but it was something Byron remained accutely aware of. One did not hold a lady's hand for an inappropriate length of time. Flesh pressed against flesh in any fashion was frowned upon outside of bedroom doors.

He smiled a little as he stood, avoiding the general awkwardness of moving to his feet somehow, or perhaps just not noticing, then took her hand.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

"I find I am tired of others' visions of the world," Reinette's gaze drifted through the dozens of painting that lined the hall. "Shall we retire to the garden, and view it for ourselves?"

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

"As you wish, Madame." Byron smiled a little. "I will admit to never having the chance to visit here in my time, so you shall have to show me the way."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Reinette laughed, not bothering to restrain the sound. "Oh, you need not know very much. Walk outside through nearly any door, and you shall find a garden. They are everywhere." She lead him through nearby doors that swept outside to a terrance, and then some of the less formal gardens. As much as that could be said. "They are all beautiful, however."

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

"I would expect no less," he murmured, thinking for a moment of the beautiful gardens while peasants starved in the streets and the price that would be extracted in a few decades.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Reinette nodded, aware of the sun and its touch on her uncovered skin. She very rarely walked so.

"How long will you stay?" Will, not what was intended. They were, at heart, very different things. And a question to be asked of all travelers.

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

"As long as I may. As long as you will allow."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Reinette considered that as they walked hand in hand.

"Those do not sound as if they are the same."

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

"I would stay forever, if I could," he said impulsively, fingers tightening around hers.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Reinette laughed again, though not at him. And the sound was clearly softer as she turned to face Byron.

"An answer, at least." Reinette studied the words in full, within her head. "...and at most."

It was another that could not stay.

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

"He'll come for me, eventually, if I don't return." Bitterness laced Byron's words. "He has rules and believes history is written. That things may not be changed. That I may not change them. Even this, here, now. He does not approve."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Reinette's breath stopped, and since she refused to consider the real sorce she did a poor job of placing the blame on her stays, her free hand reaching up to press on her abdomen.

He was here.

The Doctor was here, seemingly without any desire to see her. Reinette's eyes went to Byron, lingering over his features. How quickly she had stumbled into speaking with them both. Reinette counted each and every one of her foolish ways for not sensing the connection right away, and she rediscovered her voice.

How very lucky she was so schooled in composure.

"Sometimes I think the world has more rules than space for them to occupy," she said softly. So the Doctor had no wish to see her? It really was true. He would not come, unless the Monsters were here as well. Well. Far be it for her to lay bare just how much that hurt.

Reinette smiled brightly at Byron.

"And remember? We are sworn to not care for others approval."

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

Byron laughed at that. "His approval means nothing to me, nor could anything I do ever win it, so, care or not, it matters not." Except for the physical reality.

He had a moment of questioning even that. How, exactly, could the Doctor force him to leave?

"The rules are only there to be broken, anyway..." His grin turned wicked.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Reinette's hand tightened within Byron's, as on many levels she agreed with him.

She agreed with a good deal of him actually. She agreed with his look, and humor. His intelligence challanged hers, and there was a definite sense of certain journies shared, despite the they had only on this day first met.

He tempted her, in two very distinct ways. The very was as simple as these things never were, an attraction felt, because she appreciated much. Reinette was accustomed to showing her apprecation, and she was sure of herself enough to know that it would be mutually enjoyable.

But it was the second way it which she was tempted that gave Reinette pause. She could use him, quite completely, and there would be nothing mutual about the event at all. She sensed that Lord Byron was correct. If he lingered, if they lingered over one another, if they threatened time? Then he could come. The Doctor would finally come, because the Monsters would be back.

And this time it would be her.

No. Reinette would not do that to Byron. Nor would she do as much to herself.

And Reinette understood enough of men, and the world, and tone, to know that it was the very last explination she could give.

Her smiled lingered, before she leaned in to kiss Byron briefly. The touch lingered, but not long.

"Most rules, yes," Reinette agreed quietly. "But Kings have a way of making their own." It was the easiest path, and for once Reinette took it. "I am his."

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

The words didn't make sense immediately in the lingering warmth of her kiss. He opened his eyes, staring at her for a long moment until they sank in.

The change was infinitesimal, but immediate. A tightening of his features. A shuttered look in his eyes. A darkening.

He kept her hand in his, though his fingers clenched around hers tighter.

"Of course." His throat was tight and he felt like he was falling even as he stayed up straight. It shouldn't hurt like this. He'd known her moments. Spoken to her once before. And yet he felt like a perfect fool. An idiot of the rarest form.

"How foolish of me not to recognize that fact." He wanted to scream at the injustice of it, of arriving now, too early and too late. Everything he'd thought just fell away. None of it mattered. He'd come here for nothing.

He let her hand go.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Reinette was so horrified at watching this part of the world, the ease between them break before her, that at first she was completely unaware at how Byron's hand cut into hers. And it occured to her then, just what a coward she was. This was why she never faced them when she walked away. Her father. Her husband. Her own child. Reinette slipped from their life in a swirl of skirts and the hope that they would be happy for her, as she continued to move through life. What pretty stories she spun for herself. She used them to occupy her mind, to delay the consequences of truly severing those links to her life. She merely waited. Waited for time to do her work for her.

And yet this once. This one time for reasons she did not even fullt understood, Reinette had attempted to face down the results of her own work. On an aquaintance of mere hours.

She did not know why she was shocked at how unrewarded that action was. After all, there could be no reward in watching that invisble link, the one that connected one person to another -- some over all others -- crumble before her eyes. There was no sense to it.

There should be no sense to it.

There was nothing to say.

Reinette looked down as their hands seperated.

There was nothing to be done. She made her choice. She had her reasons.

And ever as Reinette faced down her own destruction, there was still understanding.

I am sorry.

"How could you know," she spoke with surprising calm. "You are not of here, after all."

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

The last slapped as hard as the first. It had all been in his head. A connection, an understanding, a kindred spirit. It was all his, falling under everything else. Something he wanted more than he should and he believed it. He'd believed.

He was just an amusing traveler sliding through her world. His face flushed, then paled. Perhaps not even amusing.

"No. No matter...No." He bowed, perfectly correct, if mildly mocking. "I am sorry to have troubled you, Madame."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Reinette's lips pressed together tightly, the only indication of her distress. In some thing, she was simply too well schooled. And there was nothing to be gained by hysterics on her part. No outcome that would be changed.

She left. And they, in turn, left her.

It was simply the way of things.

"There is nothing to apologize for."

Reinette was hightly aware of her own double speak.

You need not apologize to me. It is my behaivot I am shamed of.

It was not what was heard, of course.

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

"Only my own romantic foolishness, to think that such a gesture would have meaning." He shrugged slightly.

"I did not mean to impose on your good will. You've been very patient, Madame."

The formality of the exchange cut deeper, and he felt like part of him was trying to remember how to breathe. He'd come all this way, through time itself, solely for her.

And he had ruined it with his own...

Not hope. It was a foolish emotion and one he ought not to have entertained.

"I wish you well." He needed to go, before he broke down or lashed out.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Reinette caught herself trying to find a point on the horizon just past Byron's shoulder, and she stiffened slightly. You always meet another person's gaze. Always.

Not matter how it cut.

He had bowed at he not? Reinette had felt his anger in that, too. Her own curtsey was deep, and genuine, even deferential to his emotion. It was there, that one place. But as she had discussed with her visitor earlier. People so rarely gave attention to such things.

"And you my lord," Reinette stood, her features still firm. "I also bid you well."

[the-corsair.livejournal.com]

Byron's eyes were haunted when they met hers, stark and for a moment naked with centuries of anguished searching. Then the mask fell again.

"I'm sorry to have taken your valuable time."

He bowed again, searching her eyes for something that wasn't there, then he turned and left. His limp was a touch more pronounced, a physical sign of the internal, and he hated it more than ever. The twisted body and soul...how could he have thought there was anything there to save hm?