Drag Collab •One Shots•

Highwayman •Pearlet•

AN: Sorry for all the fan fiction about robbery, I promise I'm not a kleptomaniac. Based on a Noyes poem. Set in 18th Century England, Violet has fallen in love with Liaison, the mysterious and notorious highwayman. Thinking of another poem inspired fic next but not 100% sure. Give me some feedback? ANGST + BLOODSHED WARNING.

Darkness enveloped the air. Rough winds threw themselves into the trees like kamikazes on the verge – rain lashed on the purple moors, diminishing any light and brooding darkness all around. The only light was from the moon. Immense in size, the feminine orb tossed through the sky like a boat through a storm, embodying the dark side of nature that cursed the skies that night. The night that the highwayman rode up to the old town inn.

Liaison. The man with no face. The thief of the night. The illicit figure on horseback, with an eye for crime and jewels. A large hat was cocked on his head, a bunch of lace around his chin, only piercing eyes could be seen in the darkness. Blue, like the colour of ice. His deep wine jacket fitted with not a wrinkle to be seen, the smooth velvet contrasting with his brown breeches – a loo signature for his trade, ready to commit a crime. A twinkle shone from his belt as he rode, the twinkle of a pistol under the jewelled sky. An iron dagger was sheathed at his side, the symbol of all his desires.

Through the inn yard he clattered, his horse's hooves rattling on the cobbles. He tapped his whip gently on the window, but they were locked tight. Then he whistled a note to the window, ready to see her waiting. Because not all Liaison's desires were material. Because no worlds jewels or gold could match the prize of Violet, the landlord's daughter. She was ready, waiting, twiddling her fingers in her long ebony hair. Like a princess of snow, her face was the palest ghost. Her eyes the blackest night. Her lips the deepest blood. Her heart the fastest pace.

He climbed with agility and longing. "A kiss for good luck," he grinned, leaning towards his love and embracing her. Despite having committed the darkest deeds, he held her like she was an angel, fragile and delicate. She pulled down his disguise, taking in his golden face. The face that none but she knew. She kissed him with energy – their passion was never destroyed or created, it was always there, ready to resurface whenever they touched. She was his constant and he was her one shot of adrenaline.

Once they parted he spoke again. "I'll be back for you at midnight tomorrow. I'm after a prize tonight. I heard a tale of the yellowest gold of all the country. I will bring it back to you by midnight. Remember my love, that hell may come between us, but I will always be back by midnight."

She kissed him once more before he climbed back down to leave. His face flushed a deep red as she loosened her hair for him, a waterfall of black cascading down the window ledge. He kissed its waves in the darkness, the perfumes of Paris and Arabia washing over him. "I'll watch for you at midnight," she spoke softly, knowing that the highwayman would always be back by midnight.

Casting her one last glace, he yanked at his horse's rain and galloped away to the west.

But Violet and Liaison did not know that they we're not alone that night. In the dark corner of the yard sat at figure. The inns young stable boy, Daniel. Daniel, the subject of unrequited love. Daniel who spent his nights trying to impress Violet. Daniel with his shaggy hair, listening in on the robbers every word. His eyes were wide with madness and his face was pale with shock as he listened to the intoxicated rasp of Violet's voice, declaring love for the infamous Highway. Declaring love to a crook, a robber, a thief, a criminal. A criminal that was wanted by the King of England himself.

***

Violet waited for her love. He did not come in the morning and he did not come at noon. So there she waited, ready for the rise of the ivory moon. She watched yellow sunset, ready for her moon. She watched the long road to the inn, twisting and turning like a silky ribbon, circling the craggy, brambled moor. She waited for her Liaison to come cantering. But instead the red troops of King George's police came marching, marching towards the inn with a look of determination in their faces that sent chills down her spine. At first they did not enter her room, they made calm in the inn below. They did not speak to her father of why they were there, instead drinking his ale and buying his food. She watched desperately at her window, praying he would come trot down the twisted road so she could send him away, send him out of harms-way. But the night was still early when the red-coated men entered her room. She begged them to let go of her, but they only sniggered in her direction. They grabbed Violet's pale body, and bound her to the end of the bed. A gag in her mouth to her protesting. They pointed their muskets towards her. Death lay right in front of her, bouncing from every wall and window, seeping through the air, dripping down her wrists in the form of dark blood that shed from the tight knots. Bile rose in her throat as one of them pecked her cheek. The feeling lingering there like poison. They pressed the gun hard into her breast.

"Keep watch," one of them demanded, pointing to the window where she had spent night after night waiting for her love to return. Only now she hoped he wouldn't, that he'd stay away instead. He was doomed. She remembered his warm voice say, "hell may come between us, but I will always be back by midnight," as the men stood at the window waiting for him to return, his death on their wish list.

She pictured his face. The face hidden to the rest of the world. A face of beauty scarred by years of pain. A face she knew better than her own. Liaison, the man with no face. She feared he'd die with no one but herself knowing his true colours. She saw him as she yanked her hands. She twisted and turned her wrists till they dripped with blood and sweat. The time passed in slow motion, the hours becoming days, weeks, years. Eventually her cold finger touched it, the trigger was hers.

Then the church bells rang midnight. She twisted her neck to the window, waiting for the familiar sound.

It was distant, so distant that the red-coats must not have heard it, but a sound that Violet always longed to hear, to her it sounded clear as day.

Tlot-tlot. The horse cantering down the ribbon of darkness, over the jagged hill.

"Turn back," she prayed in her head, but he continued towards the inn, where the red-coats lay in wait for him. She saw his piercing eyes in the distance, ice on dark cold night. She knew he needed a warning, she couldn't bare to see him in pain. Her black eyes grew wide for a moment as she inhaled her last gulp of air. "Listen to this warning," she prayed. And her finger moved so slightly. The gun-shot cried loud. Screeching straight into her chest with a bang. She died there in the darkness. Her death was a siren's call, a warning to her one true love.

***

Tlot, tlot, he came closer and made his way to then inn. But then he saw her head hanging over the musket from the window, her dark hair stained with blood. The sound of the shot was still ringing in his ears – the sound of Violet, the young and beautiful landlord's daughter, had waited for him till midnight, and died with her lips on a prayer.

He felt the veins that carried his blood snap. A huge jolt rush through him. Because without his desire, he was no longer a man. He was broken. Snap the string of a violin, and the melody will play no longer.

He raced to where the red-coats sat like a madman. He reached towards his Violet. Yelling a cry to the sky. The gold fell from his coat as they shot him down on the highway. His spurs were red and his eyes were wild as he lay like a dog on the high way, deep in a pool of his own blood.

***

Years later, when the moors make chit-chat to the dancing trees, when the moon sings its deep love ballad and the road is cold with rain, people swear that they can see him. The hidden Liaison riding to the inn, whistling a tune to his black-eyed Violet. People say that they see her, swaying in the purple moors, her hair is the sea but he is her world, their lives forever eternal in the form of a tale.