Rebirth

Life slowly ebbs with every single breath he took. His skin tingled with anticipation and agony, the leaves cracking and crunching against his back as he raised his hand to her face. 

So, so beautiful.

His beautiful wife, his beautiful Queen, so stunning and enchanting, even with her despair clear in her features. Her skin was blotchy, tears streaming down the very same skin his lips had traced over not an hour previous.

He recalled his mothers' words, alive with fright and fear, her hand gripping his. Nostradamus, she had recanted. The visions he held about your demise, they were incomplete. He tells me this is more symbolic than literal. He tells me that this started before Mary even returned from convent. A glowing tree, droplets of blood on flowers.

He was right, and he was wrong.

The only magic is the one we built for ourselves, yet, he has another fate, predicted long ago.

He realised this, far, far too late. He did not heed his wife's or his mother's fear imbedded into the prophets' words. That, he acknowledged, he could do nothing to change his fate, but it would not harm her.

She let out small cries, their tears combining on his cheeks, sliding down slowly, dying on his lips.

Mary held his hand, bringing it to her own lips, kissed him goodbye, before she watched as he ever, ever so slowly took the breath that would be his last.