[Sept 15th] [Original Short Story] [As You Sleep]

[principessar.livejournal.com]

Title: As You Sleep

Day/Theme: September 15/Your eyes closed

Series: Original

Character/Pairing: Ina Lathay narrating. She's speaking to her husband, Takeo Tsukuto

Rating: PG-13

 

As You Sleep

 

    Your eyes closed so quickly tonight; your breaths deepened and your body relaxed so soon after. It seemed like barely a second after you lay down that you slept. I know it was longer than that, but it doesn't seem that way!

 

    You were tired, of course. You'd been working all day, poring over the architectural drawings, surveying the defenses with the soldiers, walking the foundations of the new houses that are going up, writing letters to all of the people in Ohlone and Mathiry... working so hard, the way you do every day. So of course you would be exhausted.

 

    People say that I work hard, too, but I don't think it's true. If it were, why would I have so many free hours to wander the hills above this village with Le-iytha? And now I am not tired at all, as I lie beside you.

 

    You look so peaceful when you sleep, as if you were only a child. As if you were innocent and carefree, as if you knew none of the petty problems you deal with each day, of course as if you'd never known the hard times we lived through until so recently. It makes me wonder about myself; when I sleep and you are awake, what do you see in my face?

 

    Do you see love? I want you to. If I can't show it while awake, I want you to see it when I'm sleeping. I do think I love you. I want to love you. But I don't even know what love is! I trust you, and you know that my trust is hard to come by, and I respect you and am very fond of you, and perhaps these are all precursors to love, but... do I love you?

 

    So strange, our marriage was! My mother was simply demanding that I marry, though I was only seventeen. My father thought you'd be the best for me. And what about love? I'd asked. 'You'll come to love him,' my father said sadly. 'And if you don't, you respect him.' Perhaps a marriage like this won't be so bad, I thought. My parents married for love, but that didn't last. Maybe I'll come to love Takeo. If not, we will be good partners. And if Rayella never gets her grandbabies? Well, it will be her punishment for forcing her daughter to marry.

 

    You want children, don't you? Of course you do. Your sisters, married so long before you, already have so many. Tomaku's eldest, Mikata, is almost my own age!

 

    Will you want to name the baby, should he come to be, something in Japanese? If you do, you'll be the one picking, because I don't speak it! But neither do you, do you? And your sister says you mispronounce your own name, that it's properly TAK-eo, rather than your Tak-E-o. Well, it's your own name, after all. You can pronounce it as you wish.

 

    One day I'll give you the babies you so wish. One day, when I'm sure that I love you; one day, when I'm convinced that I'd be an able parent. I don't know when that will be, and it may yet be for a long while, but I want to be a good parent. I do not want to be like my own mother. Rayella, and I call her so because I cannot call her Mama, she did none of us any favors. I firmly believe that Tery would not have died if it had not been for her. I can say all I want that I'm not like her, but how do I know in truth?

 

    Someday I will be unafraid. Someday I will stand beside you as the wife you deserve. For now, though, I will be your partner in rebuilding Eltaite-Lath, your friend and confidante. Someday we will lie together properly as man and wife. But for now, I will watch you as you sleep and hope that someday comes soon.

 

-END-