la belle dame sans merci | carlisle cullen

03

When Carlisle Cullen came into Little Leaf for the first time, Minerva didn't think too much about it. Slightly transfixed while he was in her little shop, she didn't think too much about it after he left.

Handsome wasn't the word to attribute to the man, not even close. Beautiful was more apt. Still, she got on with her day after that. Only once or twice did she think about him again, only to marvel at the fact that in almost two hundred years— that was the most beautiful person she had ever laid eyes on. There was no contest.

Their second meeting afforded them none of the same luxury. It was just as brief, really. Total happenstance. Hell, she didn't even see him come in right away. Totally absorbed in a silly little sketch, only realizing they were there when the whole place fell deadly silent. In all honesty, she was glad to be there if for no other reason than to break the silence.

The town of Forks had been extremely weird about the Cullens ever since they arrived two years ago. Treating them like mythical creatures instead of people, outsiders in every sense of the word. Minerva understood, it was a small town thing. As a doctor, Carlisle did extremely well for himself. The mixture of beauty and wealth made the family extremely hard to like and their antisocial tendencies did them no favours.

The place probably would have stayed silent until they left if she hadn't broken the silence and forced everyone back to their own conversations.

Talking to Carlisle was easy. Remarkably easy. When Alice disappeared to find her wallet, she had a feeling it was to give them some time to talk but she certainly wasn't going to complain. Again, it was a brief interaction. It could have been more than ten minutes.

Leaning into one another, flipping through her sketches, laughing at the more ridiculous ones, deflecting his compliments at the ones she was proud of. His shoulder against hers, shaking every-time he laughed.

His golden eyes crinkled when he did, trying to keep his voice down. When he turned his face away from the sketchpad and back to her face, the proximity made her heart thunder in her chest. It would be so easy to reach out and trace her fingertips across his perfect cheekbone. The urge took her off guard and she tried to bring his attention back to the notepad.

Ten minutes of closeness and he was gone. It left her feeling odd, vacant. She could hardly stand another few minutes in the meaningless white noise of the diner before she had to get her ass out of there.

No distraction was enough. It kept bringing her back to that hollow, empty feeling in her chest. His eyes were unnatural, a golden colour. Maybe a genetic thing, a mutated shade of brown. Somewhere between molten gold and butterscotch.

Washing the dishes, tending to her plants, taking a shower, she couldn't shake Carlisle Cullen from her thoughts. Least of all while trying to fall asleep. She'd been laying there for fucking ever, it was edging closer and closer to three AM.

Minerva Amata had lived a long time. Much longer than most. Never in her life could she remember an attraction of the calibre she felt toward Carlisle. It was agonizing, embarrassing even. Everytime she closed her eyes she saw his face, perfect smile on his face.

Finally, she rolled out of bed with an annoyed grumble to track down her sketchpad. Sinking back into the comfort of her bed, she began to furiously sketch. Minerva remembered his face as if she'd  stared at it all her life, as if it were her own.

His eyes took shape first naturally, though she furiously erased several times when they weren't quite right. Dark around the edges, lighter in the middle. The eyelashes came easy, long and thick. Men always had nice eyelashes, it was infuriating.

Next was his nose, straight and noble. His whole face seemed to be carved from marble as if Michelangelo himself had taken a crack at designing this godly man. She sculpted his face shape then, carefully shading his cheekbones and lightly adding those little smile lines before starting on his lips. It was a careful process with lots of erasing. Anything short of perfect was unacceptable. His Cupid's bow was giving her hell.

It was a manic scene. The woman curled up in her bed in the middle of the night, frantically drawing a man she'd just met cause she couldn't get him out of her head. Minerva wondered if she should skip town to escape it.

The more she focused on his mouth, the more she thought about how nice it would be to kiss him, which she felt was an absolute affront to her senses.

She hadn't kissed anyone in at least a decade, she couldn't even remember who her last kiss was at this point. Romance and intimacy was no where near the top of her priorities now of days. That was, anyway, until Carlisle Cullen showed his stupid face. His stupid, beautiful face.

The grey sun of Forks was beginning to light the sky outside her window by the time she finished. It was probably her best work. That same stupid fluttering feeling made her heart stutter in her chest as if Carlisle were really smiling at her when she looked at it. "I'm going crazy." She whispered to herself, tangling her hands in her hair before rolling over to press her face in the pillow. Sleep enveloped her quickly then, as if she just needed to get him out of her system.