Princesa (gxg)

13: The Beginning of the End

Time ages you.

It seems like such an obvious fact, a real fact, but nobody ever wants to believe it. Plenty try to stop time, freeze time, but they only end up making it worse for themselves in the end. It's hard to look at yourself in the mirror and see the lines and wrinkles that mark you. 

Time is a fickle thing. 

It gives you too much of itself or too little. It always complains, it never helps, and it always gets in the way. 

I hate time.

Every day, I wish for another day.

Every day, one is taken from me.

The one battle I cannot win.

Ꝟ

The time of the month has come for us to spend our days at our cottage in the Stones. One week out of every month we grant ourselves the luxury to escape the castle and duties of being Queens. We go back to our old home, the one we shared decades ago when I was first Commander of the Rebels, and we spend the days talking and fucking without the fear of prying eyes or ears. 

It's marvelous. And I look forward to it every month.

We lay in the bed, stiff from the weeks we haven't been here, and drag our fingers across the other's skin. Now dotted with sunspots and freckles, divots and hollows here and there, our bodies are aging swiftly with the years of wear we've used them in battle. They're still muscular - we haven't forgone all training in the event another war breaks out - but they are softer.

She's changed the most between the two of us.

Her face has grown rounder, less sharp and jaded like when she was younger. Eyelids have wrinkles and her cheeks have lines that stretch from her mouth to her jaw. The roots at her hairline have an inch of gray coming through, and her hands have acquired more veins with purple and blue tubing. 

She's getting old.

And she's showing it.

But she still moves swiftly, if not a little slower. She's still as graceful as ever, if not a little stiffer.

I've looked at myself in the mirror, seen my wrinkles and lines, and always grow disgusted with myself. She hates it when I do this. When I can't bear to look at myself any longer and force my gaze away. She tells me I'm beautiful. Tells me I'm capable of beautiful things. Makes me say I'm beautiful. Makes me say I'm capable of beautiful things. And it always works at that moment, but when she leaves me and I am left to my body, I hate myself.

I'm getting old.

And I'm despising it.

She reaches over and pulls me close to her, hugging my naked body to hers and running her hand through my thinning hair. 

"Do you ever wish you had a male partner?"

I furrow my brow, confused at the question. "Why would I ever wish that if I have you?"

"I mean, to procreate. Do you ever want children of your own? Your own blood?"

"If I could have you as a man, I would bear children. But the fact that you're not doesn't make me upset I can't have them. If I could have your seed, if they could carry your own blood, I would have them this instant. But there can be no more Evellgroves. The line must stop with me. The name carries so much death. So much heartache. I don't want an heir to be tainted with their family's past."

"If you could forget about the bloodline. If you could just have a child, without consequences to their future, would you have one?"

"Why are you asking?"