Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Seconds steadily ticked by, adding to the pool that formed the minutes marking how long Rarity had stood before the door, yet still not entered.
It was strange, really. For so long, this moment was all she wanted. She’d gone to sleep thinking of it, dreamt about it, and woken up weeping when she’d realized it had only been a dream. She’d waited for it, waited for so long in fact, that it almost seemed as if the waiting had become a part of her, as if the yearning had been engrained deeply into her bones because even hope as she might, part of her believed that she had and would continue to yearn in vain.
So when Celestia had come to her room at the castle and told her that he was awake, and when her friends had hugged her warmly and sent her off with comforting smiles to see him once more, she’d gone. She’d gone, but only as if in a dream where each step came through a haze and nothing seemed to exist beyond the here and now. Well, that now had brought her here to this door, beyond which the one thing she’d prayed for for so long lay waiting.
Or did it?
What if it wasn’t the same? What if he was no longer the man she remembered, or even worse, exactly as she remembered and thus not enough? Had those long nights of dreaming and hoping painted her memories into a fantasy that no living person could ever hope to fulfill? Was all that lay on the other side disappointment of expectations that could never be met? Or what if everything down to the very last detail was exactly as she hoped and she simply no longer cared? Along with those years of waiting and hoping had come much else as well. Pain at the loss, anger at the betrayal, and even madness as a hope that could not be extinguished taunted her with what reason knew she could never have. What if all of that, the hurt and fury and so much more, had warped her heart so much that her now twisted self could no longer care? What if when she actually opened the door, she found that the only thing she really wanted was to be done with it all?
All these thoughts and more milled about in her head as fear paralyzed her hands. Steadily, more seconds ticked by. Maybe she wasn’t ready. Maybe she should go back, gather her thoughts, and come back. Maybe she should just…
What, wait?
No. She’d done enough waiting. She’d waited far too long as it was. If the marshal was really beyond that door, it was high time she found out about it and laid the waiting to rest once and for all. So with a final trembling breath to calm her tingling nerves, Rarity raised her hand, wrapped slender fingers around the polished silver knob, and turned.
The room was white, bright and pristine as a cool, gentle breeze blew through open windows making up the entire far wall. In the center of the room, a shimmering dome of light gently rippled to distort the sight of whatever lay inside. Monitors, most likely. She could hear the beeping and the gentle whirring of magical machinery. She could hear–
“Hello?”
That voice. A low, gravelly rumble she remembered so well from so long ago.
Breath hitching in her chest, Rarity slowly stepped forward as heels clicked against the spotless tiles, bringing her closer to the shimmering wall of light. One more step forward, then a gentle ripple of soft light, and…
He was... a mess. An absolutely horrid mess.
His right arm and right leg lay encased in plaster, left leg hung suspended from a magical harness, pins and braces crisscrossed every which way to keep his mangled body from falling apart. Bandages wound tight over countless wounds, some fresh, some old yet never seeming to have ever really healed. Even his face, stubbled with growth she could never remember seeing before, was obscured as the entirety of the right side of his face lay encased under thick pads of gauze. The man was broken. His flesh was torn to tatters. His bones were ground to dust. He had been beaten and battered, shattered to pieces and left for dead with nary a friend in the world and no one to lay his bloodied head to rest.
And despite that, despite everything he had been through, there he was, one silvery eye looking up at her as that all too familiar face broke into an awkward smile.
“Um... hey,” Graves grinned. “I’m back.”
Rarity stood, frozen. She wanted to move, but couldn’t. She wanted to speak, but couldn’t. All she could do was stand there, as still as a marble statue as her sapphire eyes remained locked on his gunmetal grey.
“So… it’s not as bad as it looks,” he began once more as he wearily waved his left arm, the only limb that could truly move, over his person. “Doctors say I’m a mess now, but nothing they can’t sort out with plenty of magic and rest. Well, magic mostly. I said I could just start visiting the Lazarus Pools again, but the nurse looked ready to–”
Slap.
She didn’t know when she’d crossed the room, nor that she’d raised her hand at all. But once the stinging in her palms sank in and that stunned, stupid expression on his face registered, Rarity knew exactly what she wanted to say.
“How dare you,” she breathed, voice trembling as she raised her hand once more. “How. Dare! You!”
“Do you have any idea what I’ve been through?! What you put me through?” she cried as she struck him once more. “You were gone for two years. Two! Whole! Years! Do you have any idea what it’s like to wait for that long? I worried myself sick over you! I lost sleep, I cried my eyes red, and for a good long while, my complexion was simply shot to crinkled old parchment from the constant stress! I bounced between wanting to forget you and feeling guilty for the thought so many times that everyone began wondering not if, but when I'd just... snap! Snap like a cheap comb! And now, when you finally show up after so wretchedly long, after everything I've been through, you have the gall to open up with, ‘Hey’?!”
All through the tirade, blows rained down. Open handed, closed fist, on hardened plaster or bandaged flesh, she didn’t care. All Rarity cared about was hitting the man before her as hard as she could, as fast as she could, as long as she could.
“I should have forgotten you!” she shrieked. "I should have left you to rot where you were and moved on with my life! I should have taken any and every single thing that ever reminded me of your horrible person and burned them for the rubbish that they were! But I didn’t! Like the fool that I was, I kept my promise, unlike someone I know! I did exactly as I said I would because I’m not an inconsiderate ass like you! I… I… ...”
She couldn’t be sure when it had stopped either. One moment, she was hammering down on him, doing everything she could to draw what little blood he had left, and the next? She was clinging to him, holding on for dear life as tears rolled unbidden down her anguished face.
“I waited for you,” she sobbed as she held him as close as her slender arms could possibly hold. “I waited for you.”
“... I know.”
Raising his left arm, the only one of his limbs that he could move, Graves brought it over her shivering back and pulled her in a little closer. It was a weak motion, one barely fit to shift mist and fog, let alone a woman. It was a feeble gesture that lacked any semblance of the familiar strength and assurance she’d dreamed of for all those years.
But in that moment?
In that moment, it was all she could have ever wanted and more.
"Welcome home, Graves," Rarity sobbed, tears still streaming as they held each other close. "Welcome home."
*****
They weren’t sure how long they sat there. Hours surely, if the warm hues of the setting sun were any mark. Her eyes were still red from crying. She’d stopped, then started, then stopped and started some more. Yet no matter how distraught her appearance and no matter how many tissues she ran through, not once had Rarity strayed a single step from his side. Silently, the two remained there, not saying a word, often not even looking each other as the seconds ticked on. The only thing they did do was remain together. Rarity’s hand lay in his as her slender fingers held on to tough, calloused ones too weak to return the gesture for long.
Thus, time had passed and the sun began its descent.
“… Anyone ever tell you you’re amazing?”
“Some,” Rarity softly smiled. “Not as often as of late.”
“Yeah,” Graves grimaced. “Sorry about that.”
“You should be. A lady needs admirers to keep her spirits up.”
“Well, I’m sure you weren’t short on those.”
To some, it may have been aimless flattery. Rarity’s eyes were puffy, her makeup was ruined, her perfect white suit was soiled and stained, and her usually immaculate soft curls were a rumpled mess. Yet to Graves, he could honestly say that he had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.
“I suppose I wasn’t,” Rarity sighed. “Argent began renewing his passes at last year’s Gala, and Blueblood tried proposing once more, bless him. Then Lady Uptown, Countess Propriety, and a dozen others have been nothing but insistent on matching me up with every nephew, cousin, and other relation under the sun. And still, it just wasn’t enough.”
“No? Why not?”
“Because, my slow-witted marshal,” she smiled as she squeezed his calloused hand, “while the adoration of the crowd is nice, sometimes you really just want praise from one person who really matters.”
Once more, beeping reached a frentic tempo as the marshal’s heart swelled in his chest. Swelled, yet grew heavy at the same time.
“You didn’t have to, you know,” he said softly.
“Didn’t have to what?”
“Wait."
“I promised, didn’t I?”
"Must've expired.”
“I didn’t let it.”
“Well, maybe you should have.”
“… And why, pray tell, is that?”
Why? More like why not? Even with only one good eye, Graves could clearly see it. He’d hurt her, and badly. For him, the two years he’d been gone had passed by in a strange, chaotic blur, but he could feel how every passing second from his delay had cut her a little deeper. The marshal knew wounds, and those wounds, harsh, insidious cuts that hurt long and healed slow, were ones she’d chosen to take on for his sake. He didn’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve her.
“You could do so much better,” he smiled, a small and weary expression as he looked into her bright, sapphire eyes. “Like you said, I’m an inconsiderate ass. You need someone who will treat you right.”
Rarity didn’t respond right then. Instead, she looked down on him, her face that inscrutable mask of perfect compose that always signaled the advent of something truly unbelievable. What it would be, he couldn’t be sure, but fortunately, it didn’t seem like he’d have to wait to find out.
“Graves,” she began, her voice ringing out with the flawless notes of silver chimes. “Do you remember what I said to you when last we met?”
“As in the very last time?”
Rarity nodded, and Graves smiled.
Did he remember? How could he forget? Those words had been engraved onto his heart and anchored soul to body time after time it had tried to leech out along with his dripping lifeblood. It had been the mantra he’d chanted to himself when his mind wanted to tear itself apart from the pain of his travels.
“You belong to me,” he recalled. “Till death do us part and beyond. Now and forever more.”
“Precisely,” Rarity smiled. “I didn’t say till things got hard, or when you started being exceptionally thick. I said forever, because that was exactly how long I was willing to wait. When I said those things to you, I meant every word I said.”
“But–”
“But nothing, Marshal Graves,” she interjected with a dangerous flash in her sapphire eyes. “Every word I said. Every. Single. One. That means that you sir, belong to me and me alone, and if you think for a second that you’ll weasel out of that arrangement with some hair-brained soliloquy on heroism and guilt, then I’ll thump you so hard you’ll think back fondly to the Savage Lands and wish you’d never left. Are. We. Clear?”
Graves had nothing to say in response. For one thing, he was a fool, not a complete idiot, and only a complete idiot would have argued with Rarity when she had that look in her eyes. For another thing, those words actually went along rather well with what he had in mind. He hoped. He wasn’t quite sure it would work as he wanted, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?
“Well, if that’s how you really feel…”
Releasing Rarity’s hand – a shocking, but necessary gesture – Graves grunted as he turned his mummified body over and reached for his box. The monitors beeped and chittered away at the undue stress put on his body, but for the moment, that suited him just fine. They would mask the move that was to come next.
“So, ah… while I was away,” he began, fumbling with both words and container as he worked to undo the clasp, “I, um… got to thinking.”
“About what?” Rarity asked as sapphire eyes now sparkled with confusion and curiosity.
“ ‘Bout that last bit you said. ‘Bout me belonging to you.”
There. Done.
“So you know it, and I know it, and Luna knows I ain’t gonna argue with that–”
“You’d better not,” Rarity laughed in that half joking, half serious manner women like her did so well.
“Oh, I’m not,” Graves nodded fervently. “I was just thinking that, well… it’s awfully inconvenient to have to say it all the time, right? I’m not big on chatting, and you’ve got better things to chat about, right? So…”
Opening the lid, Graves reached in and rummaged around. He felt the worn and battered silver star, now broken beyond repair, that had stayed pinned to his coat for so long. He felt the smooth stone that glowed with an otherworldly light, a memento of a promise made and an obligation he had yet to fulfill. But those weren’t what he was after. Instead, he reached into the box and pulled out the third item while leaving the fourth behind.
“I’m a simple man, and I like simple things,” he said as he held the prize aloft. “So if you really want me to belong to you, now and forever more, well…”
**********
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YEAH! Loving this ending!
And the rest of it too, but that ending!
Hmm... four items, out of what was ... seven that were there before? I still don't remember what they're referencing...
Typos to follow...:
"awkward smile(d)"
"bodied" -> "body"
"... can you repair this watch for me? I hate not knowing what time it is."
"..."
**********
"We are gathered here today to lay to rest Marshall Graves... at least what we could find of him..."
6089632 He might be clueless when it comes to Rarity at times, but even he's not that clueless. I think.
Graves wishes he couldve gone to hell and back for that gift. After all, for him, Tarterus is a normal tour of duty.
Mhmmmmm. Please continue.
Gentlemen do not keep other Gentlemen waiting!
Mother trucker, you know I expect the cliffhangers at this point but they haven't got any easier. Anyways good chapter, it seemed fitting, I jus can't wait for the words that'll be said next chapter.
is he gonna give her dicord's tooth? that would fit so well.
A broken medal? She waited 2 years for you, Graves! That is some serious dedication. I think its time for something more serious. Beyonce says it better than me though (click to 0:31 and watch to 0:33)
Better do it man, she has earned it!
Careful, Rarity! You just got him back, don't kill him just yet!
longer the man
What if she when she actually opened the door, found that the only thing she really wanted was to be done with it all?
The room was white, bright and pristine as a cool, a gentle breeze blew through open windows making up the entire far wall.
She could hear–
leg hung suspended from a magical harness,
"I should have left you to rot where you were
Fourth item? Hmmm....
Heh... I knew she was gonna do that.
If that isn't a ring... Gentleman J, I'll be coming for you.
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He isnt....!
“So… it’s not as bad as it looks,” he began once more as he wearily waved his left arm, the only limb that could truly move, over his person. “Doctors say I’m a mess now, but nothing they can’t sort out with plenty of magic and rest.
Graves phhhhhh
Ya done ****** yourself up beyond repair.