This is May for me. I have been weaving clover crowns while my life changes. Last May I moved here.

little things die, great things blossom, and I find a very painful peace...

"Oh Charles." Madame keeps saying with that sympathetically affectionate look on her face. I do adore that woman, though I am not as old as I used to be. This is relief-- not to be a dying man.

Okay, so it's relief not to be a man. I miss it sometimes, but I won't have to rely on some woman I mistrust to bear my children. And subsequently, the blame.

I think maybe that is what it is about May. Charles can see some things so very clearly... the blossoms were on the trees the day his wife went into labor. He had very nearly loved her for all of eight and a half months. Or was it seven? Not enough time.

It amazed him, that an act so disagreeable could transform even the most repugnant human being into the source of one's greatest joy. And she... with the swollen belly and all-over ripeness, she was even beautiful. He told her that she looked like the May Queen, That she looked like Demeter; he brought her small gifts and kissed her hand in public.

I don't know what she made of these attentions, to tell the truth. In all probability, she thought it too little, too late. And I am certain that she knew that she was only loved for the babe in her belly, not for herself. But she knew what kind of man it was she had married; usually so very cruel.

It is all very well to say that she was vile, mean, petty and stupid; but Charles, mon meme vieux, you hardly tried. You wanted to hate her. You and she are probably the source of much of our karmic debt. You treated her terribly, but I do not think she was actually cruel enough to take such revenge on you a purpose. How could she know that you would have continued to dote on her for the sake of the baby girl?

I don't know why you wanted a daughter, Charles, but maybe for the same reason I do. A daughter is a familiar spirit, a son is a rival. I think that i inherited that from you.

You crushed a fallen blossom under your boot heel on your way home and it stuck in your mind as ominous. But you couldn't think on that, not on this beautiful day with everything perfect. If the child was early, it was because she could not wait to come forth and see her new papa. Because she knew that you longed to see her and hold her and dote upon her.

But when you arrived, the babe -- a girl, like you knew she would be -- was dead, stillborn. We-Shall-Call-Her-Rebeque -- the Wife -- she was bleeding, badly, but not terminally. She was quickly sewn up, and would live.

And it was May, wasn't it? The flowers were pink. It could have been later... they are not early spring flowers. A black curtain for you. You couldn't keep out of colors for more than a month or two-- not with your coloring, my lovely ancien, with the fondness for mirrors -- but wines, scarlets, dark blues and purples. Uriel began to suit you better than Raphael. Oh, oh, my poor poor Charles. You thought that nothing could be blacker than the City of Brass in flames, and you cried more for that than any lover you ever knew.

But you made a grave for her, your little-girl-who-wasn't, and you mourned her the more for having never known her. How could death claim Victoire and your little one, in the same circumstance and leave only Rebeque?

You shouldn't have said that to Honoré. He felt bad enough, resenting the little one who could not know, for she had only known Victoire from the inside. But your friends are good ones, and they gladly knock you unconcious before you can say anything worse.

But just remember, my Charles -- your memory served to create and protect gay rights in France, particularily in military men. Honore and Jacques-Gervais do not forget. That is worth something. That life was /not/ worthless, no matter how young, or how childish you were.

I thank you for the memories, painful or not. I need them; and the pain is lessons learnt.

I needed you to tell me it was good too...

Damn. I had meant to type up the very odd thing Marone and Vanyel wrote while i was out tonight, save for Charles Pierre's distraction. Well, it's Here. Yes. Marone plays the violin.

Some things don't need a point. You just do them.

Like the weaving of crowns of clover flowers. Even if they do wind up on your altar.

Oh, oh, how I do love.

<<agé chose>>

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