golden

nine: shoulders and their burdens: Atlas, can you hear me?

As a musician, Harry surrounded himself with noises and sounds that spun his stomach into cyclones and sent his heart into a gallop. They were all beautiful in their own mysterious ways. Daunting melodies from a piano, side-sweeping riffs on the guitar, a staccato rhythm from a trumpet could easily put a smile on his face. And yet, none of them affected him quite the way her laugh did.

It was a strange combination of all his treasured notes. Coalesced and stitched together to create a tune so vividly canorous not even Tchaikovsky could have written it. No other sound could ever rival it in his opinion. He only needed to hear it once for the waves to be forever etched into his heart's memory and to place the midnight sound above all else.

Especially when he was the cause for it.

"No! You must be joking!"

The force of her nature had her doubled over on the brown leather couch, arms clutched around her sides. She looked so beautiful in this state, face alive with cheer and her hair loose around her face.

"I assure you, I'm not!" He grinned at her. "They all thought no harm in visiting that sort of place, especially on New Year's Eve. Naturally, as soon as I arrived to drag them back to camp, our Major-General arrived and had all our arses. It was a nightmare."

"Did you at least tell him that you weren't there to partake in the...festivities?"

He shook his head. He remembered the night clear as it had happened yesterday. Arriving at the courtesan house in a mad hurry to try and pull his fellow soldiers out before the Major-General arrived and found them out. Endeavor too late, the Major-General arrived just in time to see a courtesan proposition Harry rather heavily. Their commander had been so right pissed he couldn't even speak properly. They had all been in the trenches for a week after that as punishment.

"He wouldn't hear it." Harry told her. "Called us all a pack of debauched degenerates and a whole list of other things that no one should ever say in front of their mums."

In the way he was growing to love, her brows slanted down to signal her confusion at his statement. Her eyes squinted, "What insults are so terrible they cannot be said in front of flowers?"

Flowers...?

Mums. Dear baby Jesus, she was something else. Hardly ever did their vernacular barrier get in the way of their conversations. For the most part, they understood one another and very rarely did a time occur that they referred to an item in a completely different manner.

"No, no." Harry waved his hands at her. He took her hand in his, urged by the basic desire to hold her in any way she would allow. "Mum, like my mother. That's the term we use in England."

"Heavens, am I a cold fish or what?" She shook her head, using her free hand to hide her face. "You must think me so embarrassing sometimes, I'm sure."

Who could ever be embarrassed by a goddess?

Harry said that was not the case, never had it or would it be so. No one could ever dare be ashamed of her, only immensely proud, blessed to even be of her acquaintance. He stretched his grasp and clasped on to her wrist. With the utmost gentility, he lowered her hand. She shifted, ever so slightly, to meet his gaze.

Her eyes searched over his face as she murmured, "The courtesans, did they tempt your primal inhibitions?"

That, he could admit, was something he never much thought of in consideration of that night. There'd been only one thing on his mind and that was saving his fellow soldiers. He'd never given a second look or thought to the women of the establishment, only to express his regard of not sharing a bed with one of them.