From: morgaine@att.net To: FKarchiver@fkfanfic.com Subject: For A Dead Lady Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 08:04:50 +0000 Permission gleefully given to Mel to archive at www.fkfanfic.com. All others, please ask. This is my second piece of "Forever Knight" fanfiction, and my first attempt to be serious about it. It came to me while I was reading one of my favorite poems, which is quoted in its chronological entirety in the story, and shares this story's name. Warning! If you have not seen the episode "Be My Valentine", this will make no sense to you and it is a spoiler. This story could take place pretty much any time after "BMV". Disclaimers - "Forever Knight" and the characters of Nick, LaCroix, etc. were created by James Parriott and Barney Cohen (all hail them!) and are owned by people who are not me. If I owned them they'd have their own channel, but I don't and that sucks. The poem "For A Dead Lady" was written by Edwin Arlington Robinson, though I wish I'd written it 'cause it rocks. Anyway, it isn't mine. Special thanks to my mom and sister Elbereth and Anastasia for their help with the KtK campaign. Dedication - this one's for the Faithfuls. Here goes... "For A Dead Lady" by Morgaine "The same wind snuffs candles yet kindles fires, so where absence kills a little love, it fans a great one." - La Rochefoucauld "Welcome once again, Children of the Night. Tonight's topic is lost love. Lost to another, to time, to circumstance...'tis all the same, is it not?" Nick frowned at LaCroix's words, and reached across the couch. He picked up the remote control and raised the radio's volume. "There are those who say that, in each lifetime, we are allowed one great, true love, one chance to intimately connect with one who seems to share our very soul. What, then, of that opportunity lost? How does one forgive the Fates for such a betrayl? How does one go on, knowing that her gentle hands have been pulled away, placed far beyond reach? Knowing that her eyes, once so full of hope and youth, have closed forever, and shine only in a place to where I cannot follow?" Lucien LaCroix, a.k.a. the Nightcrawler, leaned back in his chair at CERK radio station and closed his eyes against a long pause. Finally, he opened his eyes and spoke softly, curling his pale fingers around a single white rose. "'No more with overflowing light Shall fill the eyes that now are faded, Nor shall another's fringe with night Their woman-hidden world as they did. No more shall quiver down the days The flowing wonder of her ways, Whereof no language may requite The shifting and the many-shaded.'" Nick turned off the radio, LaCroix's behavior explained to him by a sudden flash of memory...an innocent girl in the full flush of youth and beauty, begging for the curse that so haunted her brother. Fleur. Nick grabbed his jacket and hurried towards the elevator. Meanwhile, the Nightcrawler continued... "And just where is that place, gentle listeners, to which I cannot go? I do not know." He thought of Nicholas, and smiled. "Some would have me believe that there is a place of rest, a heaven, to which the righteous go when they pass. And the guilty? The cruel? The wrathful sinners? Do they go to a hell befitting their crimes? Or are they instead damned, as I am, to remain in a life in which spring does not come, in which no flower that blooms is equal to the one that was lost?" His grip on the rose tightened. "It doesn't really matter, does it? She cannot hear me where she is. No frost, no trace of winter may enter the garden where such a radiant heart must bloom now. Death withered this breath of springtime, this flower that neither life nor love could lay claim to. Cruel, isn't it, that life is so ephemeral and love so ever-lasting? How can I forget, when every flower bears her face? 'The grace, divine, definitive, Clings only as a faint forestalling; The laugh that love could not forgive Is hushed, and answers to no calling; The forehead and the little ears Have gone where Saturn keeps the years; The breast where roses could not live Has done with rising and with falling.'" LaCroix glanced up to see Nick enter the room and take a seat opposite him. "A moment, gentle listeners." LaCroix pressed a button and ceased to broadcast. He then calmly, expectantly looked at Nicholas. Nick glanced at LaCroix in uncertainty, not sure of what exactly to say. Finally, he spoke. "I know you were talking about Fleur just now." A pause. Nick sighed. "I don't regret stopping you from bringing her across, but I want you to know that I...I'm sorry for your loss. I know now how much you loved her." LaCroix kept his gaze emotionless as he responded to the words of his favorite child. "Is it at all similar, I wonder, to the way you feel about Doctor Lambert?" Nick shifted uncomfortably, but answered quickly. "Natalie and I are just friends. I don't love her." LaCroix shook his head, and his voice took on a tone that he often used in speaking with Nicholas, one that parents reserve for dealing with their children's most foolish misconceptions. "You cannot lie to me, Nicholas, you know that. I know very well what you are feeling, I always have, just as I did that Valentine's Day at Azure." A look of confusion crossed Nick's face. "You knew, even then? But why then..." "Why then did I not rip out her throat as you watched? Quite simply, I realized then what I know now." "Which is?" LaCroix's eyes met Nick's and, to Nick's surprise, did not shine with condescension or mockery. "Which is that you would never forgive me the loss of your Natalie. Which is that the memory of one I loved and lost is not worth the loss of one I love and still have." Nick sat in silence, and surprise that LaCroix had spoken to him so openly. LaCroix continued... "I release you from the bargain we made nearly 800 years ago. I...I will not have you suffer as I have." Nick smiled. "Thank you, LaCroix. Does this mean also that you'll allow me to be cured?" "Of course not. Don't push your luck." Nick laughed softly. "I had to try. I have to go." He rose and walked slowly to the door, where he hesitated and looked back. "I truly am sorry, LaCroix." The ancient vampire gazed at Nick calmly. He looks so much like her, LaCroix thought. Or was it that she had looked so much like him? "Thank you, Nicholas." Nick smiled again, and left. LaCroix sat in thought for a moment, then pressed the button and continued his radio broadcast. "You may ask then, gentle listeners, why do I still speak of flowers and springtime, when the memory brings such pain? Because, mes amis, pain is part of love. Any of the broken-hearted will tell you that. It's been said that it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. Do you find this to be true? After all, love weakens us. It leaves us vulnerable where once we were strong. It distracts and controls us, drains us of power. Love dominates our lives, and when it is done, mercilessly fades away. In its place grows an irrepressible longing, an inconsolable despair. But what sweet distraction it is, while it is still in our hands! And even now, when it is gone, the memories that cuse pain also soothe. They carry to me on the wind her sweet scent, her musical voice, her gentle laughter." LaCroix held the rose to his face, and pressed it against his lips. He did not crumple it, not this time. "For me, the anguish of loss and regret is worth the memories. Indeed, the memories are all that remain. She has gone. She has gone. Rest well, my precious flower. My beautiful Fleur. 'The beauty, shattered by the laws That have creation in their keeping, No longer trembles at applause, Or over children that are sleeping; And we who delve in beauty's lore Know all that we have known before Of what inexorable cause Makes time so vicious in his reaping.'" FIN Questions, comments and Butterfingers to Morgaine at morgaine@worldnet.att.net.