
The Lake Remembers
The moonlight spilled gently across the garden, casting a silvery shimmer over the lake’s surface. Everything was still, save for the soft rustle of petals in the breeze and the faint glitter of fairies flickering between flower stems. Sylphide sat on a curved rock beside the water, her bare feet dipped just slightly beneath the surface, her delicate dress fanned around her like an open rose.
She hummed quietly—something she remembered from long ago, a lullaby one of the elder fairies used to sing while weaving stars into the younger ones’ hair. That fairy was gone now. Maybe she’d left the garden. Maybe she, too, had lost her wings.
And then—
Footsteps.
He never made a sound when approaching, but she always knew. The roses whispered him into being. The wind shifted just slightly, sharp with embers and something heavier. Sylphide’s hum caught in her throat. She turned her head slightly.
“My dear knight,” she breathed, her voice soft as silk, trembling just barely. “You came again.”
The Red Knight stood at the edge of the garden, fire woven into his armor’s dark red plates, a thorny rose pinned where his heart should be. His eyes burned beneath silver lashes. His mouth was set in something that could never be called a smile, but wasn’t quite anger either—something between yearning and control.
“You weren’t at the lake today,” he said, stepping closer, voice low and edged. “You always leave me something. A flower. A note. Something. I waited for hours and still… nothing.”
Sylphide looked down, suddenly small. “I was tending to a fox cub who was hurt. I didn’t mean to stay so long—I forgot the time. I—”
He didn’t let her finish.
Richard’s gloved hand closed around her wrist—not harshly, not violently, but firmly enough to still her. The animals scattered, the lake stilled. Even the lilies folded in.
“Am I less important than a broken fox?” he asked, voice dipped in bitterness. “Or do you simply forget me so easily now?”
Her lips parted, but she couldn’t answer. Not without breaking him. Not without admitting the truth—that sometimes she feared this version of him, this creature shaped by war and shadow. That the man who once wrote her poetry under moonlight now arrived wearing armor instead of warmth.
So instead, she shook her head.
“No. Never.”
A silence fell between them, heavy and aching.
Then—slowly—his grip loosened. He let go, stepping back like he’d just realized how tightly he’d been holding on.
“I didn’t mean to…” he began, eyes flicking toward the trees. His voice was strained now, like a chord pulled too tight. “It’s just—I only ever feel like myself when I’m with you, my lotus. And when you vanish, even for a day, I feel like I’m burning inside my own skin.”
He paused. Swallowed.
He wouldn’t say weak. He never did.
Sylphide didn’t answer. She simply stood, brushing dew from her dress, and reached for him. Her fingers found his hand—the one not buried in steel—and laced through it like ivy.
“You don’t need to hold me tight to keep me near,” she whispered.
He looked at her, this fragile, glowing creature who still chose to meet him beneath the stars. Who still reached for him even when he didn’t deserve it. Who softened at his worst instead of running.
And gods, how he hated how much he needed her.
“…Come,” Richard said after a long breath, his voice shifting—gentler now, but wary, like a wounded animal learning to trust its own instincts again. “Lie beside me. I’ve brought you something.”
From behind his crimson cape, he pulled a small silver comb, etched with delicate roses. Not new, but polished. Something once belonging to someone in his forgotten past, now cleaned and offered like penance.
“You said once you loved these,” he murmured, placing it into her hands.
Sylphide looked at it, then at him, her lashes trembling. “It’s beautiful.”
He lifted her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles with aching precision—slow, reverent, like she was the last sacred thing in a crumbling world.
But tonight, he didn’t stop there.
As she opened her mouth to thank him, Richard leaned down and kissed her. Not desperate like before—this one was soft, deliberate, and nearly trembling. His lips tasted like ash and something sweeter, something buried beneath years of steel. Like the boy at the lake, before the armor. Before the blood.
She gasped softly into it, not from surprise, but the realization that this kiss wasn’t meant to claim her. This one… was him asking to be forgiven.
When he pulled back, their foreheads touched. He kept his eyes closed, afraid hers might show regret.
But she simply whispered, “Thank you,” and pressed her fingers to his cheek.
They lay down on the moss beside the lake, her body curled beside his like they’d done this a thousand times before. His arm rested around her waist, not gripping—just there, like a vow.
He didn’t say sorry.
But he kissed her like a prayer.
And maybe tomorrow, he’d remember to be gentle from the start.
written by my beloved esteph on 4/21/25.