Alex and Brooke had returned
to Alex’s bar and Brooke was letting the normalcy of the afternoon wash over
her, listening to the petty simplicity that made up the other customers lives. She
had become immune to the eternity of the passage of time. It had taken a majority
of that first year to stop spinning out into blind rages when she would think
of Trent or her brother. Those first years she hated time more than she hated
her brother. Eventually she realized that time was the prison warden she would
never be able to defeat. The cold executioner that mercilessly made each day an
eternity while simultaneously etching the perfection of each moment it was taking
from her. Time was the enemy she could only tolerate, never defeat. Every now and then Brooke would look at her
left hand and sadly stare at the place where a wedding ring had never been. The
lack of ring began to pull her towards facing the reality of how much time she
had lost to her brother’s insane concept of what a leader needed to be.
She looked at her hands
again. She had everything a person needed to kill someone with the ir bare
hands. She knew that even with the guards in his room he would be able to end
his life before they ended hers. She also knew this was the exact reason she
had been spending less and less life at the castle. Her reaction over what had
been taken from her was slowly getting less tolerant and more violent, and now
that Trent had returned she knew she would never again step foot into the
castle as even as a princess. Truthfully she had made her decision had been
made the second she had been told the love of her life had not only been
banished but forcibly given to the military. While she had been furious for
thirteen years and becoming even more so with each passing day, there was a
part of her soul that would never be able to physically harm her brother.
Alex was more than content to
let Brooke quietly investigate her hands as she served her customers. She made
she sure had drinks and checked on her from time to time until it was time to
close the bar and Brooke was still lost in thought. She finished out her work
day, clearing the last of the tables and finally walking the last customer out
of the bar, closing and locking the door behind them. She turned back to Brooke
who was still sitting at the far corner of the bar.
Brooke had lowered her hood
now that the bar was closed and they had the freedom of privacy. “When they
leave to find these sigils I’m going with them.” She said with complete seriousness.
Alex nodded as she headed
back behind the bar. “Sounds fair, but what arguments are you going to use to
convince the love of your life to let you join him in harm’s way?” She asked.
Brooke shrugged her
shoulders. “I was thinking I’d start with. ‘if you think you can stop me feel
free to try soldier boy, I promise not to scar you permanently.” She was still
dead serious.
Alex shook her head. “You
flirt weird.” She said with a tiny smirk.
Brooke smiled. “Alex I’m
being serious. I’ve never been good at being royalty and I lost him for half a
lifetime already so I’ll be damned and rather walk through fire barefoot for an
eternity before I lose him again. Is he going to be super excited about letting
me go along? No, but ring or no ring, I love him, I know he still loves me and
from here on out, his trials are my trials. If he has to walk the earth begging
God’s for mercy, then I will be right there with him, every step of the way.”
The fragments of thoughts that had been bouncing around her mind all afternoon
fell out of her mouth in a solidified chunk. She looked at her friend who was
smiling from ear to ear. “What?” She asked. Alex pointed behind her and Brooke
turned toward the back door of the bar where Trent was waiting on one knee. A cheaply
forged, plain looking, unpolished band of metal offered in his fingers. Lisa
was standing a few feet behind him trying not to cry. Brooke got up and moved forward.
She could feel her mouth moving but couldn’t hear herself saying “yes” over and
over again. She took the ring without looking at it and slid it onto the ring
finger of her left hand. And then they were kissing.
Even years later she didn’t
know how long they kissed there in the bar, all she knew was that time had
voluntarily switched tactics. There were no eternities any more, only fleeting
seconds trying desperately to construct precious memories. And as much as she
would cherish this moment forever, a part of her realized that time had not
ended her sentence, it had merely changed the nature of her punishment. The
life that would never end, could now never last long enough.
