When The Heart Falls

Love Will Be Lost

In the darkness of the coast, Agatha could hear the splashing of the ocean long before she could see its giant waves rising like a great whale mounting over it. She was about to step out of her black slippers, longing to walk into the water, when she caught her breath at the sight of the sea foam, slithering over her feet and ebbing back into the black waters, glistening only by the moon's reflection. It was the only thing she could see of it: the whiteness in the dark.

Though there wouldn't be a need to see the ocean to know this: The Savage Sea will be relentless and unforgiving. Before she had the chance to ask why he'd brought her here in the first place, Tedros caught her hand and pointed her arm to a thin veil of a cloud past the dark horizon. She shivered against him, feeling for his warmth.

"It's just over there," Said Tedros softly into her ear.

"What are we looking for exactly?" asked Agatha, looking at him.

He nudged her chin back to the open waters.

Past an empty wisp of clouds, Agatha saw nothing.

"I found a Seer," he started, pulling himself closer to her as though he too, was feeling for her warmth. "He told me just over the waves there would be a magical jewel that would protect my reign from all evil,"

A loud crash of a wave split their voices. And if Tedros hadn't been looking at her, he would've never known that Agatha had laughed. He watched her, bowed over, black hair over her face and couldn't help but crack a smile.

It was only when she looked up that he'd mustered a most solemn expression.

"I'm serious," he yelled over the loud roars of the wind.

Agatha stopped smiling.

"A talisman that appears once a year where the moon met the sea," explained Tedros, holding Agatha in his embrace, her nightgown sullied from sand, cheeks pink and bright from the cold. "Tonight is that night," he pointed to the ocean once again. The fog opened up, revealing a spotlit rock glistening beneath the moon.

Just a few moments ago, Agatha was almost asleep.

Sleep would've come easily to her, Agatha thought, ankles tangled into silk ivory sheets, hair a wild nest over cotton-soft pillows. If it wasn't for that nark shuffling in the hall. Here at Camelot she was royalty, dressed in only the finest of fabrics, bathed in pools of cedarwood and hyssop. She even slept in the Queen's chambers as though she were Tedros' queen. Only she wasn't.

She sighed, turning over, the moon a soft glow in her face. There was a heavy feeling settling deep in her heart, as though her soul realized something she didn't want to hear. Here she was blaming servants and flunkeys for her trouble when it was her own mind stirring, brewing, its uneasiness looming over her too.

Indeed, even the light buzz of a moth would've kept her awake. Agatha tossed onto her back, droopy eyes to an embossed ceiling as she listened to a soft totter haver to a stop—

Someplace where the door should be, a creak sounded.

Agatha stuttered in place and as she contemplated her next move, the door to her chamber clicked into place.

A few moments ago, Agatha rolled over in her bed, struggling to knock herself to sleep. Whatever progress she had made might as well be thrown out a window.

Now she laid over her bed, listening to a stranger's footsteps grow louder, she gripped her mattress hard, louder, Agatha stiffened beneath Reaper's long stretch... Closer now... She could see his head, masked in shadow.. Closer.. He was lording over her now.

She sprung up, about to leap–

"Agatha."

In the moonlight a boy's blue eyes shone.