Sail Away

A woman wishes desperately for a way out. Something looms on the horizon, could it be a means to her freedom.

She read the letter twice before refolding it and smiling sadly as the little girls dream in her heart shattered.

“Delia? My dear are you alright?” her father asked, reaching over to touch her shoulder.

“Yes, I’m quite fine, although I’m a bit disheartened that nearly fifteen years hasn’t seen the improvement of his handwriting.” she said dryly, tenderly running the pads of her fingers over the parchment.

“Cordelia, that’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“ I know.” she said quietly, looking down and away lest he notice the welling tears in her eyes.

“Jacob mentioned that I was to be particularly gentile with his news to you. Any idea what that was about?”

“It’s nothing! Nothing, just an oath rung out of him by a five year old. Practically forgotten actually” She said, blinking quickly and waving the matter away as if it was indeed nothing. She cleared her throat and smiled wanly, “So!” she said over brightly “Jacob is coming home, surely we will be throwing him and-” her heart broke as she said the words “and his Lady a welcoming party?”

“Yes, but are you-”

“I’m fine, now then, we should begin preparations we’ve only got a week till they get here. We need to start getting invitations and such.”

“Yes,” Her father said slowly, “Shall I write him in return and tell him of your plans?”

“If you wish.” she said softly, laying the letter on his desk. She turned before he could answer and fled the room.

“I’ll see you at dinner?” Her father called to her, but received no answer.

~~**~~

Alone in her chambers she sat on her bed and wondered if she should cry. After all, the promise he’d made her had been so long ago; he’d been naught but a boy of fifteen and she only five.

How could he even have been bother to remember?

With a shake of her head as she pulled the pins out of her hair, she decided that this melancholy would not do, and there was only one way to be rid of it.

She needed Helios.

A swish of her skirts ad she was out her bedroom door and running down the corridor. She ran barefoot on the cold stones, as fast and as hard as she could. Later she would realize that she had been sobbing with every step. But until then she ran.

“Helios?!” she half yelled half screamed, as she flung open the heavy and ornate wooden doors to her private chapel, latching them behind her.

“Helios?” she called again, despair settling in her chest as she came to the realization that he might, indeed, not be there. He did have his own life, and he was no slave to be at her beck and call. She barely resisted the urge to scream her frustration as she gripped the back of one of the beautifully carved pews. Her knees threatened to give way as she hung her head and resigned herself to dealing with her emotional mess herself.

“Delia?”

Her head snapped up she dared not even breathe as she listened for that thick sleepy call to come again from behind the heavy wall hangings.

“Delia?”

A sob and her knees finally gave way, she hit the polished marble floor with a thud, skirts billowing out to make a crimson lake of sumptuous fabric around her.

Helios pulled back the curtain separating his rooms from the chapel and rubbed at his eyes blearily. He could hear someone crying, and he wasn’t sure if it was his Delia, or one of the maids that daily came to him thinking him a true priest.

He blinked, and tugged the bed sheet tighter around his waist, and searched the small room for an occupant. There near the doors, he knew those dark gold curls.

“Delia! What’s wrong? What’s happened?” He asked, rushing to her and almost sliding to his knees in his makeshift toga.

 

 

~~**~~

She’d woken him, but then again considering the hours he kept because of her, it wasn’t unusual for him to sleep well past noon. That and he did love to sleep

“Darling what’s happened?” Helios asked, gathering her into his arms and rocking her gently.

“It’s so stupid! I don’t even know why I’m upset!” she sobbed out wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face against is bare chest.

“tell me sweet, what’s distressed you so?” he crooned, sliding his hands into her hair at the base of her neck, and kneading.

“It’s Jacob!” she moaned, “he intends to wed!” even to her own ears it sounded ridiculous.

“Tell me everything,” Helios said, tipping her chin up and dabbing at her tears with his improvised toga. The gesture made her smile slightly.

“He once made a promise to me, that when I came of age he would petition my father for my hand. He said that he would obliterate all the competition and whisk me away and we would live happily ever after… It was an oath made to long ago, and we were both so young, it shouldn’t mean a thing, but reading that letter that he sent to father….the news, that he intends to wed another…it hurts. And I don’t evn know this woman and already I hate her! ” her breath has coming in short gasps and there was a fire in her eyes, Helios smiled to himself, it was a step in the right direction.

“That sounds more like a fairy tale than a promise to be kept.” he said gravely.

“I know, that’s why I don’t understand why I’m so upset!” she said, pushing at her curls impatiently, they simply fell softly back around her face. She looked as though she wanted to rip them out a moment before Helios collected both her hands in one of his and placed the other on her cheek with his thumb over her lips.

“What bothers you more? That he weds a woman that isn’t you or that he broke his word?”

“That’s not the point, is it!” She said tearing away from him and leaping to her feet to pace in a tight circle. “The point is that I’ve never once in fifteen years given that promise a second though, and now, now, it’s all I can think about!”

He watched her pace, listening to the angry rustling of silk and velvet, and cat back on his heels. He knew it was bad timing but he had to goad her a little, “And yet here you are sobbing into me arms, surely it matters some. If not to you than to the child of your heart?” he stood and walked up behind where she had suddenly stopped mid stride.

“I don’t know but it feels like my heart is breaking,” she said softly turning and gazing up into his whiskey colored eyes.

“I see, and why come to me?” he asked, keeping that line of heat, that artificial distance between them.

She knew what she would say, and she knew that saying it would at least rid her of this unwanted pain for a while. It wasn’t forever, she knew that, but looking into those eyes, and feeling the heat from his body pushing against hers, she knew that it would be long enough and it was what she wanted.

“Forgive me Father,” she said as her voice dropped low “for I have sinned.”

Author's Note

uh, once again. i know it needs work....