| no quarter : part three | | The Endless Forest

It was the hardest moment of his life, watching her leave. More difficult to accept than when he realised he was bound to a single tiny building for the rest of his life. More crushing than her refusal to marry him. More frightening than the notion of having a child.

A soft, broken groan slid from the man's mouth, hands gripping at carrot-coloured hair, fingers curled around the greasy strands. They tried to slide from his grasp; he held them still tighter. He gave a shudder and sucked in a breath, trying so very hard to think.

His once-love was a woman of her word, and this tension had been building for a long time now. It had only been a matter of waiting for it, the last straw to break the camel's back, the one thing that would finally make her go. Love, if she even felt it for him, if she ever really had, would not bring her back.

Crippling, to think that the woman carrying his first and now only child, might never have loved him in the first place. But she had been good, once. She had been...someone. But since she'd bound him to that place, she'd changed. Become someone else. Guilt? No. Never. She didn't feel it. What drove her was determination; power; the knowledge that she could do as she wished.

And she would not let her failed, trapped, weak 'lover' stop her from becoming what she wished to become. He knew that. He'd known that from the start, and not once had he tried to get in her way. Perhaps he'd been afraid. Did that make him a coward?

Ven was no average woman. She was cruel; she was distant; she was twisted and she was no-one else's, owned by none but herself. And he, silly and naive, had thought that she could love him. He'd sacrificed everything he had to bring her to their new home, to support them. And she repayed him by binding him to one building for eternity, and leaving him childless.

Auburn eyes watched the long blade in his hand. It was not a sword, nor a dagger; nothing so meaningful as that. It was simply a knife, a crude kitchen knife, deadly sharp and long and thin. And if this building was his prison, he was not going to starve, he was not going to decay. He would be the one to take his life - not her.

But then he looked towards the door, and realised something. Had he ever tried to get out? No. For the past year he had done nothing about his predicament; just let his partner come and go as she pleased. The child had been concieved on a broken, rainy night, with an admittedly beautiful stretch of stars visible in the night sky, but neither parent-to-be had been focusing on the sky.

He rose, new determination flaring up in him, and he opened the door. He stared at the gap between his prison and freedom, and felt his soul stir somewhere within him. This was it. The last gasp, the final push. This was it. He reached a hand forwards and to his own surprise felt it enter a gel-like substance - but there was nothing there to be seen. He pushed farther - and was shoved back by an invisible force.

A laugh sprang from him, and he ran, leaping forwards like a young gazelle, smiling despite it all, confident now that he could break this curse and be free once more. The man was sent sprawling backwards, skidding along the floor and hitting his head off of the coffee table - but he merely laughed again, stood up, and looked at the empty space with new determination.

Again he ran, and this time when he was forced back, he felt a hot wave burst through him. It was painful, as if someone had doused him in water that was slightly too hot. His heart leapt joyously; he was getting there, he was breaking it!

For a third time, he ran - his swan song.

And all that was left was ash.