Warning: UN-BETA'D; there will be quite a few grammar errors. A little rushed. Set in an earlier time period-- not specifically dated.


She reaches into the water, the tips of her fingers barely sinking through the surface when small hands wrap around hers, pulling her back. When she looks into the child’s eyes, there is unspoken worry—an expression close to a mixture of fear and pensive acclamation.

“Leave.” He tells her, voice even.

Victoria averts her eyes to the two guards following behind the child, nodding at her. “Yes, sire.”

As she steps away, the child watches her. He then turns to the men behind him, chin pointed upwards. “Who is that?”

“A maiden,” one man tells him. “She’s one of your potential prospects, Kris.”

Standing tall, the child nods in understanding. From the distance, he can still see the young girl dancing along the grass, towards the palace. Kris says not a word more, but ponders much in his mind.

It is only when the guards urge him to advance forward that he tears his eyes away from her and continue on their journey into the small forest behind their castle.

Today’s lesson is hunting—bow and arrow, dagger and rocks—yet, Kris learns not a single thing from the experience.

His mind is still on the girl and her white, white hands that stretched towards the water, as though asking for a cleansing through the purity of the liquid—quenched and savored by the light of the sun and its versatile rays.

As though asking for his affection, heart effortlessly sealed away into the darkest corner of the midnight skies.






They meet, again and again, and the more he sees her, the more eccentric she becomes in his eyes.

“How did you end up here, Victoria?” He asks, long robes hanging off of his small, worn out shoulders.

She runs the tip of her finger along the petal of a blood red rose, soft and silky against her damp hands. “By chance,” She tells him. “Fate, maybe.”

And then Kris thinks, while watching her, that maybe fate isn’t as cruel to him as he’s always believed it to be. From the day he was born, he was born an heir to powerful fortune—that, though, did not make him a fortunate child.

“Move into the main corridor with me,” Kris tells her. His voice is more demanding than it is requesting. “That way, you can tell me more about your story when I want to hear it.”

Victoria glances at the butler in their company; he nods at her, but she is hesitant. “Give me some time to think about it.”

“Why?” Kris wonders.

At his age, there is a lot he still has to learn about human relations and the impact voices have on their coordination.

The butler clears his throat. “There is much to consider in such a decision, Kris.” He says, not understanding why he’s siding with Victoria—a quiet, unresponsive prospect of his young master’s. “Let her judge for herself where is best for her to stay.”

Kris frowns, clearly unhappy that he has been defied. “Suit yourself, then.”

She breathes a sigh of relief, plucking the rose from the bush and smoothing out the thorns with a small knife she has in hand. When she hands it over to him, expression soft and gentle, the flower is crisp, elegant, and everything that is beautiful. “Thank you, Kris.”

The young boy stares into her eyes, a smile finding residence on his prudent lips. He says not a single word, but his expression says it all.

Anything you want, I’d give it to you.





Now standing at six feet tall, and still growing, Kris absorbs much of what the skies has to offer him. When he walks to ground of the garden, there are petals in his steps. As he paces past the fountain, specks of water darken the dry grounds for him.

He grew up with many women.

First are his mother, and his many stepmothers. Then there are his sisters, and the many sisters that they have come to accept. Lastly there are his prospects, the dozens of them that are sheltered beside their castle, in the place his father likes to call his pension.

Kris speaks to few of them, apprehensive of their nature.

There is only one that he doesn’t question in the least, because she wears the daylight on her skin in the deepest of nights; her mind an open book, always ready for him to read and interpret, yet, so uncertain at the same time.

Over the years, Kris has come to know Victoria well.

Victoria, though, knows nothing about him.

She intends to keep it that way.





“I’m out of water, Kris.”

The younger boy looks at her briefly before placing himself beside her, leaning over her shoulder to look out into her field of roses in the garden below them. “Ask the servants for more,” he says, his breath warm against her ear.

Victoria turns to meet eyes with him, face only inches away from his. “I’m out of water.”

He then realizes what she means and straightens up his back, a hand extended towards her.

Without taking his hand, she stands and walks past him. If it were anyone else, perhaps Kris would have gotten angry and stormed away, but it was Victoria and he couldn’t bring himself to be upset with her—with a girl who lives off of the thorns on a rose.

In all honesty, Victoria no longer needs to ask Kris of his consent to do as she desires. She very well could have directly made her way to the fountain, not having said a word to him, and he would follow behind her willingly.

She isn’t used to it, though. She doesn’t want to be.

As they walk to the fountain, where they had met all those years ago, he holds her elbow as she picks up the ends of her dress and sits down on the bricks of the fountain walls. He asks where she had picked up such an odd habit when she trickles her fingers against the surface of the water.

Victoria simply smiles.

Although they sit there together, Kris feels as though he has never been so alone before. With his larger hands, he holds his palms side by side to cup them full of the cold liquid, pouring it over Victoria’s pale hands.

She continues smiling, but doesn’t say a word.

In this castle, in the large pension, she has always been one lone rose of many.

To Kris, she has become his one and only.






In the wind, her hair is long and wavy.

When Kris wants to, he reaches out and wanes his fingers through the threads of her hair, feeling the softness of them against his skin. Victoria does not protest, not does she flinch away; she merely acts as though it hasn’t happened—isn’t happening—and continues on with whatever it is she was doing.

“I want to marry you.” Kris tells her.

Victoria doesn’t respond.

He presses forward, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her back into his chest. She sits there, still, and feels his heart beating against her spine—a rush of feelings ripping through the pit of her stomach, nauseous.

“You know I don’t have an option in the matter.” Victoria says.

Mouth dry, Kris nods against her shoulder.

Victoria leans forward, carefully picking a rose out of the vase that Kris had made for her years ago, under the false impression that all ladies enjoyed vases from his ceramics skill master.

She holds the flower by its sepal. Kris takes it by the stem.

When Kris jerks back from the sharp pain of the thorns gauging his skin, Victoria is not surprised.

She says, “You don’t know how to handle a rose by its thorns.”

He looks at her from the back, squeezing his finger where it’s bleeding, the pain searing through his skin and flesh. “I can learn.”

“You’ve had twelve years to learn, Kris. In the past twelve years, you’ve learned nothing.”

Kris scoffs. “Then what have you learned about me, Victoria?”

She pauses, and then turns around to gaze into his eyes. His heart skips a beat, breath hitched in the bottom of his throat, coarse and dry. “That you will marry me regardless of my intentions and willingness, and you will not regret it, but you will not be happy.”

“Because you won’t be happy, either.” Kris finishes for her.

With eyes firmly locked with his, Victoria shrugs her shoulders and leans her hands towards the flower that was thrown to the ground. Kris takes hold of her wrists and forcefully pulls her back, luring her into his arms.

Her cheek is against his chest.

He wonders if she can hear the way its breaking.

“We’ll marry the time my father returns home next.” He whispers gently, lips on the bangs of her hair.

Victoria looks at the dying rose on the cement floor. “Yes,” she nods, “we will.”

His finger bleeds into the shoulder of her garment, staining the cloth that covers her cream coated skin.

His heart bleeds through his veins, leaving behind violent streaks of red from his collar to his cheeks. It’s a color called crimson—the hue closest to weariness, withered and haggard, pining away at the only surviving source of his life at that very moment: passion.





“Sleep.” Kris urged, whispering softly against Victoria’s ear.

The young maiden turns on her side so that she faces him, his arm resting on the curve of her waist. Kris props his head up, elbow supporting him on the pillow.

“What’s wrong?” He asks.

Victoria takes a staggering breath. “It’s our wedding night.”

The young lord laughs. “It is.”

“We can’t just sleep,” Victoria continues. “We have other… duties.”

His laugh comes to a halt, eyes staring hard into hers. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, Victoria.”

“I’m obligated to give you an heir.”

“You’re not obligated to do anything,” Kris emphasizes. “If you wish to stay untouched, then I will respect your hopes.”

Victoria furrows her brows. “But—“

“It’s not about what you must or must not do, Victoria.” He smiles gently. “It’s about what you want.”

The smile triggers much more than just pain in her chest. How she wished Kris would take her into his hands, crush her beneath him and shatter her soul. If only he had that little integrity, then maybe she could have tricked herself into hating him.

Yet, he did not.

“One day, I will give you children.” Kris searches into her eyes, noticing the small layer of tears forming at the edges. She wills them away before he can see them trickle down her cheeks. “Not today, though.”

Kris nods. “Another day then.”

The wind was hollowed from her that night, her words like a masked promised. It must have given him anticipation, she thinks to herself, because Kris was always the type that had hope. The pressure overwhelmed her and she coughed late into the night, a fist over her heart.

Unbearable was the pain that scorched through the tissue of and the indents of her finger nails on her own skin, but the affection that came from Kris was even more so.

‘Till the day she dies, she thinks she will still be wondering what ever has she done to deserve this; this cold landmine that explodes not with danger, but with warmth.

What had she done to deserve Kris, when she was a woman who wanted anything but him.

Of all things, she wonders what she has done to be here, in the comfort of his hold, when all she wanted was to wander free on the terse cement of the village grounds—hard and unwelcoming, but she would be liberated, her future boundless with choices she could make of her own. She could be a woman, free from the shackles of a man. She could be the only, and not one of many.

Foremost, she could be herself, and not the spitting image of what others wanted.

If only Kris understood that it wasn’t him she had not wanted, but his background.

Gradually, she fell asleep to the soft hushing of the wind against the branches of the tall trees standing outside their bedroom door. When she wakes the next day, Kris is still lying beside her, but it all still feels like a dream.

A nightmare, to be exact.





He was perfect, in every way and form. Her eyes soften only for him; time being the healing factor to the repetitively cracking wounds between them.

Even though months have passed since their marriage, she is still apprehensive towards him.

Kris understands why, but chooses not to rush things.

“After my meeting with the council tonight, I’d like to take you out for a walk.” He tells her before leaving in the late morning. She nods at him, arms hugging her own torso.

Pressing a chaste kiss to her forehead, he smiles and turns to leave.

Something in her chest flutters, and acid spews from her lips. The servants shout for a doctor soon after, when they discover her doubled over the bathroom sink, heaving for oxygen as her small frame trembles and shakes uncontrollably.

Rumors began spreading; news of the new lady finally bearing a child for the lord-to-be quickly manifested throughout the castle. When Kris returned that night, it was with news that Victoria was with his child.

When he reached his room, Victoria had her back to him, eyes closed in the darkness of the room.

They did not walk together that evening, and Kris felt something sink in his chest.

His wife was not with his child, that much he knew.

How much there was that he wasn’t aware of, though, was the real question.





Many nights later, Kris dreams of Victoria holding the hand of a child’s.

The child looks up at her and smiles; his lips are small, plump and red, much like his own, but his eyes are large, light and round, like Victoria’s. When Victoria bends forward for a closer listen to the child’s words, the child stands on the tips of his toes and plants a kiss on her ivory lips.

When Kris wakes up, Victoria is no longer by his side.

His chest feels empty; deprived of emotion.





“Why can’t you be like every other man and take more than one wife?” Victoria asks, exasperatedly. “I’m not asking much of you, Kris. All I request is for you to invest your time into someone that will matter to you.”

He doesn’t raise his eyes from the papers in his hands. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not.” His wife tells him. “You’re a man—every man has his needs and you’re not sating them because you have an incapable wife—“

“You aren’t incapable.” Kris tells her. “You are hesitant.”

Victoria sighs. “The problem is I don’t love you.”

Those words finally forced him to meet eyes with her. “Am I still just a child in your eyes, Victoria? After all these years—after all I’ve done?”

“I watched you grow.” She furrows her pretty eyebrows. “All you’ve ever been to me is nothing more than a younger brother.”

Kris reaches out a hand to her, raising his chin arrogantly into the air. For a moment, he watches as she hesitates to take his hand, but then he narrows his eyes darkly in demand.

Her footsteps are light when she approaches him, pale hands outstretched in his own.

“If I am just a brother to you, why do your hands tremble when I grasp them? Why does your heart shake when I hug you close in bed? If I am just a child in your eyes, why are you so afraid of me—of being close to me?” He asks.

No answer graces her in her fear.

“Many years ago, before we were married to each other, if you told me the same words you speak tonight, I might have believed you.” Kris tells her gently. Then he tugs on her hand, Victoria landing easily on his lap, and hugs her around the waist.

Victoria wills her heart not to quiver when she feels his forehead on the blade of her shoulders, his warm breath sending tremors down her spine.

“I’m holding back, not because I think you are repulsive of the idea of becoming mine—body and soul—but because I respect you enough to hope that when we do become one, you are entirely sure of yourself and fully believe in me.”

She doesn’t utter a sound.

Kris smiles coarsely, tired but persistent with his words. “I am confident that you feel the same way for me, Victoria. I know that you do. Yet, whatever it is that is keeping you so far away from me, it is also what I want to confront and conquer before I lay a finger on your innocence.”

Slowly, he brushes the length of her hair over one shoulder, his lips finding solace with the tiniest exposure of the skin of her neck. She shivers, hands immediately clutching the ones Kris have around her waist.

He tightens his hold when she tries to pry his arms away.

“Do you really think that I’m holding back because I have no other choice? That’s not it, Victoria. If I wanted, I could have taken you at any time I wished to, but I want to wait. I want you when you’re ready, knowing that you are aware how much you want me, too.”





Rumors tell that a party of political individuals have gathered, planning a rebel against the lord because he is too young and too brash.

As Victoria catches wind, she humors the thought from day to night—so late into the night that she doesn’t realize she hasn’t seen her husband for the longest of hours until the servants prepare her slumber.

The rumors must be true, she thinks, when the stars blare too brightly and there is still no shadow of Kris in sight, and so she sneaks out of her room and rushes herself to the kitchen, preparing a most comforting meal that will ease the stomach as well as the mind.

When the sun rises over the mountain ridge, Kris still has not returned.

Slowly, the steam from the soup dissipates into nothing and the waters of the tea are still. The food is cold and stale, and her every breath is bitter to the core.

Hours later, she falls asleep against the table.

Kris enters into their room, darkness weighing down his eyes, but his heart is warmed at the sight of his wife awaiting him, the scent of diligently cooked food gracing his eyes.

He sits down across from her and smiles, lips tugging from ear to ear.

Reaching across, he pats her on the head, smoothing out her curls. Victoria awakes, large eyes blinking slowly. “You’re back,” she groans.

“Did you worry?” He wonders.

Victoria clears , gathering the plates back onto the tray in the seat beside her. “I’ll make them over.”

“Don’t bother.” Kris tells her. “I like my food cold.”

“It was done in a rush, anyhow.” Victoria insists. “I’ll prepare something better.”

Kris takes her wrist and holds her still, eyes unwavering as they stare into her own. “Please, just stay with me.”

“Haven’t I always?” Victoria smiles weakly. “I’ve nowhere else to go.”





“What right does he have as a lord if he cannot even provide the people with a sense of security?!”

Kris rubs his temple, listening to his politicians shouting at each other over the discussion hall. Insults thrown left and right, skillful words used to mask vile language and sadistic thoughts.

“What man has ever been known to fully assure all his people of the safety of a nation?” A loyal general questions. “There will always be suspicions and there will always be doubts!”

“He cannot even assure us of his capabilities!” Another argues. “And our future! The future of the nation! Who is to be his successor if he has not even one born heir in line?!”

“That’s enough!” Kris scowls. “I understand there is much to consider as a lord. I have done my best to give you all a job, to keep your places, but the latter of you only care for an heir! Where do you place this lord, still alive and healthy, if you insist on worrying about the next successor after my death or retirement?”

The politicians widen their eyes, hands quaking in fear. “My lord, that’s not—“

“I’ve had enough of this nonsense. You are all dismissed.”

No one dares to say a word.

After they all leave, Kris sighs deeply into his own hands. He is well aware that they are right—no matter how great a lord may be, there is always the risk of him losing his life any second of the day. Their worries are not without reason, but what is he to do when he cannot provide an heir to his people?

Without a successor in line, chaos would ensue if anything were to happen to him.

Disruption of peace, debates over who has the power to become the next lord—so many arguments and so many interventions could plague his nation, only because he has no child.

The people have been patient with him, having waited until now, several years after his marriage, to bring up the issue. Kris, though, has no more patience for the building tension between him and his men—a fort can only be held up against wind and for so long until something must be done to hold it down permanently.

Something must be done, and it must be done quickly.

 

-A/N: This pairing is one of the most gorgeous ones I have ever seen and will be the death of me.