#pontrose

[renaudb]

#Etaples

#Canche

# PontRose

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[gerardbillet]

Le Paris de Dufy : Le Parc de Saint-Cloud, Bords de Marne, les canotiers, Nogent, pont rose et chemin de fer, La Fée électricité, Guerriers africains, Les Astres, Livre d’or du restaurant chez Marianne. #museedemontmartre #leparisdedufy #montmartre #raouldufy #parcdesaintcloud #bordsdemarne #lescanotiers #nogentsurmarne #pontrose #chemindefer #feeelectricite #guerriersafricains #lesastres #livredor #restaurantchezmarianne #instapic #photooftheday #parismaville (à Musée de Montmartre) https://www.instagram.com/p/CYFYqKVM8oI/?utm_medium=tumblr

[dingerjoe]

#courantdecontis #pontrose #coucherdesoleil #saintjulienenborn #contisplage #leslandes #sudouest https://www.instagram.com/p/B9Kql9SoXPx/?igshid=wivde1l97uju

[incandescent-eden]

Claire [Part 9]

Desc: Claire says goodbye. (Featuring Cecil, the OC of the lovely @sinnabon-cosplay who has been so incredibly patient with me for the past two years <3)

Word Count: 496

TW/CW: My French is a bit rusty, I’m sorry for butchering that, illness (consumption/tuberculosis)

“What do you say, Claire?” Cecil asked. “Should we head out back to the hotel? Or do you want a little more time here?”

“Why don’t you and Anthony go ahead?” she suggested. “I have decent battery on my phone, and I can get back by myself. Besides, it’s not like I can die,” she snorted.

“Are you sure?” Anthony asked. Claire nodded, giggling a bit at his worried look.

“I’ll be fine, Anthony,” she assured him.

Anthony crossed his arms. “We could wait for you,” he said, but Cecil put his hand on Anthony’s shoulder.

“I think Claire will be okay,” he said, gently leading Anthony away. “I have the feeling she’s leaving soon, too, but she just needs a bit more time.”

A bit more time. It always came down to that, that little bit of time that always seemed to run out.

Anthony looked over his shoulder as Cecil led him away. Claire flashed him a peace sign and a small smile. She needed time.

Turning back to the diary once Cecil and Anthony left the room, Claire sighed. She examined it, frowning. Even after all these years of immortality, she still felt like everything was moving too fast sometimes. There were days when she woke up and realized over two hundred years had passed since she had last seen Thomas, and she would blink and wonder what had happened to the days in between.

She shook her head, trying to breathe. At first, she wondered if the breathing difficulty was a side effect of dying from consumption, this tightness in her breath. Or the tension headaches that eventually settled. The days when her head and heart felt so heavy it was hard to stand up straight, and her organs twisted inside her constantly. She had long since learned the passage of time, going too fast like she had entered a tunnel where time slowed and everyone rushed by her in a blur of color, was actually a side effect of immortality, that the tightness and the nerves were sadness as she faced another day turning her back on another past life.

Claire couldn’t recognize the handwriting on the diary page anymore. It certainly didn’t look like hers. Even the coherent entries, the ones where the letters were smaller and looped prettily, had handwriting that was far too round and fat, whereas the letter she drew now had gentle slopes and came to crisp points.

She gently touched the glass case with her fingertips.

“Mademoiselle, s’il vous plaît, ne mettez pas les doigts sur la glace,” an anxious security guard nearby warned her.

Claire turned around, nodded, took her hand away. It wasn’t her diary anymore, after all.

Cecil and Anthony would be waiting for her at the hotel, and it was getting late. She shouldn’t keep them waiting long.

With one last glance at the last page of her first life, long past, Claire turned away and walked out the door.

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[incandescent-eden]

Claire [Part 1]

Desc: Claire and friends Cecil ( @sinnabon-cosplay ‘s OC) and Anthony visit the Pontrose Manor in the south of France (part 1)

Word Count: 861

TW/CW: N/A

In the present day, at a historical manor in the southern French countryside, there was a trio of travelers. As the manor was one of those former mansions owned by the nobility turned into a tourist destination by the government in an attempt to both preserve history and raise revenue, travelers were not uncommon. This trio blended seamlessly into the crowd at first glance, just another group of tourists - students, perhaps, taking a trip after a semester, or looking for primary sources for some sort of project. If one were to look more closely at them, however, one would notice the just barely perceptible oddities about them. They were pale - too pale to have been traveling long  in the sun that beat down on them without turning either light brown or bright red - and yet pale they were. The tallest one, a slender, handsome man with aquiline features and a sleek black low ponytail, chatted happily with another man, shorter, with a boyish face, who kept running his hand through his tightly curled black hair.

The last member of the trio was a woman, paler by far than the other two, with a complexion as fair as a swan’s wing, almost translucent in the bright sunlight, shorter by far than the other two, as well, and light blond hair tied in two low pigtails.

“Merci, Monsieur,” Claire, the blond woman, thanked the man at the ticket booth, tossing one blond pigtail over her shoulder.

She made her way back over to Cecil, the taller man, and Anthony, the boy with the curly hair, interrupting their conversation to hand them each a ticket. “Don't lose these,” she warned. “You'll get kicked out if you do,” she added more pressingly, looking pointedly at Anthony.

He scowled. “Why are you looking at me? Cecil lost the aquarium passes, not me.”

“I wasn’t the one who got locked out of our Louvre trip last week because I lost the ticket before we even got off the train,” Cecil quipped, tucking his newly acquired pass in his wallet and unfolding a map of highlights of the estate.

Anthony pouted, but soon slipped into his usual enthusiasm, pointing at various places on Cecil’s map. “Let’s go to the bedrooms - or, or the underground corridors! Or hey! Let’s go to the gardens!” He pointed to a rose icon on the map. “It says here the Pontrose gardens are world renowned and date back to the 1600s,” he excitedly quoted. Grinning, but slightly confused, Anthony looked up at Claire. “Hey Claire, isn’t your last name Pontrose?”

Claire looked away. “Yeah,” she said softly.

Noting Claire’s reticence, Anthony opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, but feeling a gentle pressure on his shoulder, he paused. He looked back to the source of the pressure, and his eyes met Cecil’s. Cecil smiled sadly and shook his head softly, grey eyes remorseful for some reason that Anthony did not know.

They walked the next few minutes in silence, not quite hearing the din of the tourists all around them as they pushed and shuffled through the crowd. Although the air was already quite humid, and the jostling crowds only contributed to the stifling heat, the weight of Anthony’s blunder only increased the tenseness of the atmosphere. The sun beat down upon them, painfully bright. Anthony looked up at the sky, squinting. The rays of the sun seemed to lengthen and shorten as they walked, as though laughing mirthfully in mockery. Anthony, whose mood had changed several times quite drastically in the past few minutes, scowled once more. “I hate the heat,” he muttered, which was greeted by Cecil’s light chuckle.

Even Claire, feared by the other two for her ability to bottle up her emotions and remain calm under absolute rage, cracked a small smile.

Both Cecil and Anthony sighed in relief. Anthony remained tentative, as the tension around them had not yet fully dissolved, but upon entering the topiary archway into the gardens, he stopped abruptly and gasped.

The gardens were expansive, stretching back to the horizon, so it seemed, with flowers grouped by color. It seemed like a gradient of flowers from one end, with white flowers, to another, with dark violet blossoms. In the middle of the garden, there was a large lake, overlooked by emerald green willows and whispering wisteria trees. Over the lake was a bridge, with wooden planks and ornate green copper rails and supports. The rails were covered with roses of all shades of white and pink and red, obscuring the patterns of the rails with their fat blossoms. Anthony, delighted, ran toward the bridge, forgetting his earlier comment about the heat.

Claire, meanwhile, sat down on a white bench on the side of the lake. Cecil sat down beside her.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked. “The pont de roses from where the name Pontrose comes.”

Claire nodded, eyeing the bridge sadly. She traced her hand over the grooves of the bench, stopping in the middle of the space between her and Cecil. She blinked, looking up expectantly at Cecil. He did not move his hand from his lap, but regarded her curiously.

Part I

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[incandescent-eden]

Claire [Part 5]

Desc: Claire and Anthony ponder the nature of immortality and death with Cecil (who belongs to @sinnabon-cosplay)

Word Count: 1106

TW/CW: death

Claire closed her eyes and breathed in, opening them as she inhaled shakily. “You would have enjoyed it, Anthony,” she said, turning to her friend. “I can imagine you in the jackets and the fashion of the time. You would’ve looked cute,” she teased, feinting forward to pinch his cheek.

Anthony jumped back playfully. “Hey, shut up!” he laughed. “I forgot that you’re an old lady, too,” he stuck his tongue out.

Clutching her chest in mock offense, Claire gasped. How easy it was now to breathe, she thought, how different from back then on that night. “How dare you comment on a lady’s age!” She turned her nose up, barely able to conceal the grin on her face.

“I’m serious! You and Cecil are geezers!”

Claire rolled her eyes. “Anthony, you’re at least ninety years old.”

“You’re over two hundred,” Anthony countered. “And Cecil is… How old are you, again?”

“I’d rather not say,” Cecil muttered, the corners of his mouth tugged upward in a small smile.

“Yeah, so Cecil’s, like, way older than that, anyway, so compared to you guys, I’m…” he stopped.

“No, go on,” Claire smirked. “If you can find a cool way to convey your message without proving that you’re basically a big baby or an old man, I’ll give you fifty euros.”

Anthony scowled. “I can’t say youngster, can I?”

“Have you ever heard a young person refer to themselves as youngster?” Claire retorted.

Cecil shook his head at the two of them. “You two act like children sometimes,” he chuckled.

At this, Claire raised an eyebrow. “You, Cecil Barnes, are truly an old man.”

Cecil shrugged. “Hey, respect your elders, you whippersnappers!” He shook his fist at them, pretending to be an old, bent, crotchety man.

And for a moment, Claire was shocked. Not because she could see him as an old man living alone, but because she couldn’t. Because he never would be, and nor would she, nor would Anthony.  Cecil? Withered and wrinkled? Pale skin stained in liver spots, perhaps? Would his long black hair be gray as his eyes or white like the weathered limestone walls of the Pontrose mansion? Neither seemed plausible. It seemed Anthony, as well, could not fathom the idea, for he exchanged a bewildered glance with Claire.

Cecil, noticing their expressions, grimaced. “Hey, it could be worse! I mean, stuck looking like I’m twenty-eight forever? Still better than looking like I’m eighty-two, right?”

“Easy for you to say,” Anthony recovered quickly. “You look like you’re twenty-eight. I get carded every single time I want to get a drink.”

“That’s probably just your baby face,” Cecil joked, waving his hand dismissively.

“Uhhh I’m over ninety! Besides, Claire doesn’t get carded either!” He turned to Claire with a pleading expression, his freckles spreading out over his cheeks as he tried to laugh it off, as if to tell her to back him up.

But Claire could see from his face that he was still shaken at the thought of Cecil, bent and bitter and alone. His eyes were wide, wider than they should have been if he was truly joking, and his smile was forced.

“I’m sure your face will thin out eventually,” Claire tried to reassure him, but they all knew it never would.

Oh, Anthony, she thought. Claire had long since come to terms with her own immortality, never to age, never to die, never to stay in one place for long enough to call it hers. After decades, she thought Anthony had, too, but then, here, at the Pontrose Manor, remembering Friedrich and her family and her life, she realized Anthony never had a chance to come to terms with his immortality: Anthony, whose gangly height and skinny frame didn’t quite match his chubby cheeks and boyish smile. He spent hours at the mirror, pouting over acne that would disappear and reappear. His voice still cracked when he was outraged, not quite as deep as a man’s, still often called “ma’am” over the phone. Anthony, who was losing too much blood when Claire had begged Cecil to save him the way only he knew how to.

In her time, Claire had been a woman - she had all the skills to be a proper noble wife, she had a fiance for whom she was grateful to know and love, and when the consumption came… well, she had time to get past the denial and to say goodbye, at least internally, to everyone and everything she loved.

It never occurred to her that Anthony never had this luxury, and that, perhaps, somewhere in his mind, he held out the hope that he could return home, maybe, someday.

“I sure hope so,” Anthony said gravely, quietly, as if to confirm Claire’s suspicions.

Cecil looked between the two hopelessly. He clapped his hands together. “Alright guys, where do we want to go next?” His smile, too, was forced, but he strode over to Anthony and coaxed him, asking about places on the map until, eventually, the tension was forgotten, and they were able to walk, once more, like three normal friends just enjoying a day of their fleeting lives like everyone else.

It was easy to forget.

So many things were easy to forget, Claire realized, when they passed into the bedrooms. Here and now, where the historical society had cleared a lot of the spaces and rearranged so many things and put plaques on everything, plaques that Anthony excitedly read aloud once more, it was easy to forget that she knew this place once.

There were little things, though, that she could always remember: the draping where she had once hidden while playing cache-cache with Thomas was here, and there! - the book of poems the tutor made her read that she had argued with him about until Maman scolded her for talking back to the tutor. The stormy night when she had lit a candle with Thomas and made their way over to their parents’ bedchambers and all sat together as a family. The chair on which Maman sat when Claire could not stop fidgeting, to the portrait painter’s chagrin.

Her diary, now in a glass case with a plaque below it.

It was opened to its last entry. Claire felt her breath hitch as she read the date: le 12 juin, 1754.

She didn’t need to read the plaque about how it was seventeen year old Claire de Pontrose’s diary and last words, how it was believed she died of consumption. The words were loopy and scribbled, the handwriting disorganized. She already knew what it said: “J’ai prié à Dieu la dernière fois.”

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[incandescent-eden]

Claire [Part 3]

Desc: Claire reminisces with Cecil ( @sinnabon-cosplay ‘s OC) and meets up with Anthony, who has romantic notions of the 1700s.

Word Count: 1281

TW/CW: N/A

“I was with Friedrich there,” Claire reminisced, pointing at the point on the bridge where Anthony was excitedly snapping pictures. She waved halfheartedly as Anthony waved his arm at them excitedly. “We were just walking. But then Maman came to get me. And I met you.”

“Do you miss Friedrich?” Cecil asked, almost like he was afraid to know the answer.

“Oh god no,” Claire smiled slightly. “It was over two hundred years ago. I honestly haven’t thought about him in a while. Just… being back here. Reminds me that he’s gone. And Maman and Thomas and Papa… it’s weird to think about, to be honest.”

“Did you regret meeting me?”

Claire did not look at Cecil. “My life ended that day,” she finally replied, deliberately ignoring his question. “Not literally. That took a few more months. But you diagnosed me with consumption. That… that was like a death sentence.”

“It was a death sentence.” Cecil clasped his hands together, staring at his slender, interlocked fingers. “I -”

“Don’t!” Claire interjected quickly. “It was the 1700s. There was no vaccine, no medicine. Nothing you could do.”

Cecil opened his mouth to protest but quickly shut it again.

Claire giggled, feeling the tense moment pass. “Even you can’t argue with that, Cecil.”

Cecil harrumphed, crossing his arms over his chest, but the smirk that tugged at the corners of his mouth betrayed his amusement.

Sighing deeply, Claire looked back at the bridge, fondly this time.

Suddenly, Anthony popped up in front of them, prompting Claire to scream in surprise. “Don’t! Do that!” she angrily hissed at Anthony, still trying to catch her breath and regain her composure.

Anthony stuck out his tongue. “Sorry, I didn’t think you were off in Claire-land,” he grinned, waving his hand in circles near his temple. He looked over and noticed the somber expression that had not quite faded from Cecil’s face. “Whoa, what are you two so mopey about?” he asked, interest clear on his face. There was concern in his voice, though, in his defense.

“It’s nothing, Anthony,” Claire reassured him in the same soothing tone she had often used with her mother and younger brother. “If you’re done, why don’t we go back inside? We can escape the heat a bit,” she fanned herself with one hand as she purposefully lead Anthony away from the topic of her conversation with Cecil. It really was hot, the kind of heat where even a light cotton shirt was plastered to one’s back, and the sun was so blindingly bright that the world seemed to shimmer and wave in front of one’s sight.

Well meaning but easily distracted Anthony delightedly agreed. “Yeah! I wanna see the ballroom!” He did not wait for his companions, but rather grabbed Cecil’s and Claire’s hands and tugged until they got up. “Last one there has to buy the others ice cream!” he challenged.

Claire and Cecil exchanged a glance.

Claire dashed off. “Sorry, Cece!” she called out behind her. Cecil cursed as he ran to catch up.

Anthony was waiting for both Claire and Cecil, his hands on his hips, at the entrance of the ballroom. Behind him, other tourists were milling about, examining the plaques on the walls that told the history of the ballroom. Some bought souvenirs from the little kiosks set up in the corners of the ballroom while others marveled at the crystal chandelier, or the intricate wallpaper. A little blond girl with lopsided pigtails chased an even smaller boy with a red toy truck - presumably her brother - around the room, the two having broken free from their mother’s grip as the young woman watched them in exasperation.

“Can’t you just imagine it?” Anthony asked, doing a slow turn with his arms out in a mock waltz. “The music! And the ballgowns!”

“And the stench,” Claire muttered, her eyes fixed on the center of the ballroom where the little boy she had previously seen was now struggling to reclaim his truck from his older sister’s hands. She thought she could vaguely smell the heavy perfume and powders the ladies would use to cover up the smell of all the rarely washed bodies of even the nobles mingling with the wine that they served, and the harsh scent of charred meat.

“I can,” Cecil replied, smiling at Anthony. “Although, your form is… horribly wrong,” he teased.

Anthony rolled his eyes. “Not all of us have lived through the eighteenth century and can remember a ball from three hundred years ago, right, Claire?” he joked.

But Claire shook her head sadly and whispered, “I can, too.”

Realizing his blunder, Anthony rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. “Gee, Claire, I forgot, I’m sorry, I - ”

Claire shook her head again. “It’s okay,” she reassured him. “It was a long time ago.”

It seemed even to herself that she was lying. In truth, it was a long time ago - over two centuries, in fact. Yet something about being here, back at the manor, made her ache with longing, not knowing quite for what she was longing. She paused at every door they opened; she swore she could feel her family on the other side - perhaps Maman would be dressing, or Thomas would be reciting verses as Papa quizzed him.

Perhaps if she waited long enough before entering, if she closed her eyes and waited, then when she opened them again, when she finally entered, it would be 1753 and she would run into the room in her gown with its heavy petticoats and her hair freshly curled and her hands perfumed, and Maman would scold her for running, her stern brow furrowed, because running in with her skirts and limbs flapping about did not befit a lady of Claire’s station, and Papa would be going over his accounts, squinting as his sight had slowly been leaving him in the past few years, but would look up and smile as she gave him a kiss on the cheek, and Thomas would crinkle his nose and puff out his pink cheeks as she ruffled his long blond hair and teased him about the way he smelled although he really did not smell at all, and she would think to herself oh how sad it was that Matthieu and Henriette were not still alive to enjoy this moment on such a lovely day with her, but they would be a mere passing thought in her head because they had passed away over five years ago, and it was a long time ago, and it truly would have been a long time ago in her heart.

But each time, when Claire opened her eyes, there, in the beloved rooms she had known since her birth, were strangers walking around, dressed in modern clothes from the twenty first century and examining everything like it was new and foreign and not just part of their usual lives because for them, unlike for Claire, this place was a vacation, a tourist stop to check off the list and from which to remember a few facts and take a few pictures and then return home and gush about it to their friends before promptly forgetting the Pontrose Manor as they returned to their daily lives.

Claire had no such luxury of forgetting. Every room she passed, she could not help but remember. She was a ghost, trapped on the wrong side of death, haunting the dead instead of the living.

The little boy had reclaimed his truck. The girl had undone one of her braids and was now placidly walking alongside her mother who tethered one child on each hand.

Can you imagine it? Anthony had asked.

Claire could.

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[incandescent-eden]

Claire [Part 2]

Desc: Claire recalls her fiance, Friedrich, and her first encounter with the mysterious Doctor Cecil Barnes (who belongs to @sinnabon-cosplay​)

Word Count: 1329

TW/CW: illness (consumption/tuberculosis), French

In the summer of 1753, seventeen year old Lady Claire de Pontrose giggled delightedly as she stopped at the height of her namesake, the rose bridge, to catch her breath, gripping the rail to ignore the stabbing pain in her chest, but careful so as not to scrape her pale, perfumed hand on any of the hidden thorns. In front of her, twenty year old Baron Friedrich von Glockenturm, chuckled good naturedly, the corners of his light green eyes wrinkled with mirth, framed by his dark brown waves of hair.

“You are ever so slow, my pretty eclair,” Friedrich teased as Claire huffed, holding up her heavy skirts with one hand.

“Try running with this many skirts on,” Claire replied, playfully indignant. “I envy your trousers, Friedrich. They seem much more comfortable. Not that I mind skirts, of course, as a woman should be comely! But oh, how free trousers would be! I wager I could even beat you in a race, my dear.”

Friedrich put a gloved hand in front of his pretend shocked expression. “And here I was just thinking I envied your frock, darling. On a hot day like this, tis a pity that I should not be able to bare my bosom,” he sighed woefully as he gave his jacket a good shake.

Claire paused, looking at him, but Friedrich, noticing the concern written across her face, quickly took her free right hand in his left hand. “My intentions are pure, Claire. My apologies, it was a jest, but I can see it was not a fitting one to make toward a lady.” He raised her hand to his face, kissed it. Raising his right hand and pulling away, he looked Claire in the eyes, only honesty to be found within them. “I swear, I would never use you like that. I want to marry you because I love you. I promise, I have no… distasteful intentions.” His eyes pleaded with Claire to believe him. She did.

Flustered, Claire took her hand from Friedrich’s and fanned herself. “Well. I think that should be obvious!” She grinned. “I’ve known you since we were children, Friedrich. I agreed to marry you last year, didn’t I? Even should your schema be unsavory, there would be nothing I could do. But - I do truly love you, as you love me, rest assured.”

She took Friedrich’s face in her hands as he leaned in, touching her nose with his. Despite the heat, the objective unsettling feeling of another person’s sweat against one’s nose, both Friedrich and Claire started laughing. The heat each emanated only contributed to the humidity surrounding them, but neither seemed to mind, so giddy were they simply to be in each other’s presence.

Claire was the first to pull away, abruptly turning from Friedrich to cough - a deep wracking cough that almost left her bent over.

All traces of joy vanished from Friedrich’s face, replaced by concern. He held her, rubbing her back and shoulders. “Are you alright, Claire?” he asked. She waved him off.

After a few minutes, Claire wiped her mouth and straightened up. “It’s nothing,” she smiled weakly. “A cough. I’ve been recovering from a cough for a while now.”

Friedrich frowned. “Since when?”

“Perhaps the last winter or so. Certainly it was after the last time we were together.”

The frown on Friedrich’s face deepened. “You don’t suppose it’s consumption, do you?”

Claire had, of course, considered it, but she shook her head. “Don’t be silly, darling. It must just be a cough.”

Friedrich opened his mouth to voice his worry, but a sharp female voice cut him off.

“Claire!” The pair turned around to see a small blond woman with a stern face approaching them, the corners of her mouth turned down in an annoyed frown.

“Maman,” Claire gasped, shooting Friedrich an apologetic glance as she rushed down the rest of the bridge to greet her mother, the Countess Hélѐne de Pontrose.

She was shorter than her daughter. Her blond curls, perfectly coiffed, were already graying from the stress of being a countess. But for the color of her hair and the way Claire lovingly held her arm, one would think that she and Claire had no relation whatsoever. Yet it never failed to amaze Friedrich, the striking similarities between the two. Although the countess’s eyes were grey whereas her daughter’s were blue, while her wrinkled skin and scowling mien indicated years of sorrow and worry whereas Claire’s smooth complexion and sweet smile exuded youth, and despite even the contrast between the countess’s cold voice and her daughter’s loving tone, there was a sort of fire within them that Hélѐne and Claire shared. The fire within the both of them was clear to even the most unobservant viewer, the way it danced and flared, the fierce pride in the way each woman held herself - it dazzled Friedrich.

“Do forgive us, Baron,” the countess apologized, patting her daughter’s hand, “but we must be going.”

“Of course,” Friedrich replied, smiling sympathetically at his fiancée. Claire smiled back.

With one final courtesy, the Countess and Lady de Pontrose turned their backs and walked away.

“What do you think you were doing?” Hélѐne hissed as soon as Friedrich was out of earshot.

Claire sighed, annoyed. “Oh maman, Friedrich and I have been promised for over a year now, it is of no consequence should we decide to take a simple walk together!”

“It is not about whether or not you are promised, Claire,” Hélѐne replied in exasperation. “You are a lady, and you are expected to behave as such! That means you do not walk unescorted with young men anywhere. Suppose word got out you were flirting with a dashing young gentleman? Can you imagine the -the scandal of it all?”

“Alright, maman, I’m sorry,” Claire conceded to alleviate her mother’s concerns. “Now, what did you come to say? Surely, you did not come all the way out here to the gardens simply to follow Friedrich and me? You certainly always remind me how you have no time to do such ridiculous things,” she teased.

Hélѐne shook her head. “To be honest, it was to discuss the new doctor. He still has not met you, and he would like to consult on your… illness.” Seeing Claire’s betrayed expression, Hélѐne continued, “It is for your own good, Claire. Please…” she entreated. “Claire, please, after losing Matthieu and Henriette… I cannot lose you, too, my youngest daughter.” She smiled sadly at Claire, pride or tears shining behind her eyes, as she tucked a strand of Claire’s hair behind her ear, regarding her face. “You have grown into such a fine young woman.”

Claire ducked her head humbly. “Thank you, maman,” she whispered, unable to truly convey the pride welling within her.

“So you will see the doctor, then?” Hélѐne asked hopefully. Claire nodded.

“Yes, maman. For your sake.”

Hélѐne frowned, but nodded nonetheless as they came up the steps of the main house. She fussed over Claire’s hair as they approached the parlor, which Claire shrugged off as she pushed her way in.

There, standing in the middle of the room, was a tall man with silver eyes and pale, pale skin. His black hair seemed to reflect the sunlight streaming in from the windows, and, despite the current style, was tied back in a low ponytail at the base of his neck. Noticing Claire, he strode over quickly, gracefully taking her hand as he bowed and kissed it gently.

“Enchanté,” he murmured.

“Enchantée,” Claire responded in an equally soft tone, surprised by the charisma of the young man, and yet… slightly unnerved by him. She internally assured herself it was simply because she was nervous of what his diagnosis would be. After all, she had never much liked physicians.

“You must be the Lady Claire,” the man said smoothly as he pulled away. “I am Doctor Cecil Barnes, and I will be your physician from now on.”

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[incandescent-eden]

Claire [Part 8]

Desc: Claire returns from the grave to find @sinnabon-cosplay‘s Cecil waiting for her.

Word Count: 1025

TW/CW: death, necromancy, grave robbing???

Claire sat up, gasping. Her head felt light, and her chest hurt as she grasped for breath, coughing desperately. That part wasn’t new.

The pain was intense, a sharp burst that burned and stabbed and left her heart beating rapidly as it faded, not like the persistent, dull ache of consumption. That part was new.

“It’s alright,” a familiar voice murmured. “Let it out, you’re alright. You’re going to be fine.”

After a while, Claire stopped coughing. She took a deep breath, surprised at how easy it was. Her chest didn’t hurt anymore.

“Perks to coming back, eh?” the voice asked as Claire’s hand fluttered to her chest in surprise when she felt no pain. It was dark wherever they were; the sun was rising at the edge of the horizon like an egg leaking out of its shell. She could just make out the edge of the voice’s owner’s cheekbone, his pale lips - a face she knew well.

“Doctor Barnes?” she said hesitantly.

“Please, call me Cecil,” he said warmly, helping her up off the ground. “We’re of the same situation now. Well, more or less.”

Claire wiped her mouth slowly, manners be damned. She paused, staring at her sleeve when she took her hand away. If she squinted, she could just barely see the floral pattern on her favorite sage green dress. As she examined the rest of herself, she saw the dirt on her skirt, and she could feel makeup on her face.

“I - I was buried?” she asked, suddenly noticing the grave next to them.

Doctor Barnes - Cecil - nodded. “I know it’s a lot to think about right now.”

“I don’t understand, I was…” Claire trailed off, staring at the grave once more, at the cherrywood coffin inside, the dirt edge of the rectangle hole on which Doctor Barnes - no! She chided herself, Cecil - was sitting upon.

“You were dead,” Cecil confirmed. Even in this dim lighting, Claire could tell his expression was grim.

“But if I’m dead, how am I…?” Claire pointed at herself. She could still taste dirt in her mouth, a gritty film in her mouth. She swiped at her tongue.

“Sorry about the dirt,” Cecil said with a grimace. “Unfortunately, it couldn’t be avoided. I couldn’t pull the entire coffin up, so I had to open it up to pull you up. Some of it got in your mouth, though,” he said. “Sorry about that.”

“How…?” Claire asked. “You’re avoiding my question, how did you…? If I’m dead… If I was dead, how am I…?” Claire stammered.

“Well,” Cecil said drily. “That would be the ancient and powerful art of necromancy.”

“Necromancy?” Claire asked. Her head was spinning.

“It’s a long story,” Cecil said, rubbing the back of his neck. “But, I guess, I’ll have a lot of time to get you caught up. You don’t have to come with me, of course.”

“Come with you?” Claire asked. It was annoying that she kept repeating his words, but it was the only thing she could manage to say right then.

Cecil looked amused. “As my friend, of course,” he said. “Traveling alone the past seventy years has been… well, lonely.”

“Excuse me, you hardly look seventy years old,” Claire said.

Cecil sighed, putting his hands on his knees. “Remember when you said I have many years to come in my life? Well, you were right. Something happened the first time I tried necromancy for real, and I really screwed up.” He looked away, but even in the darkness, Claire could see the sadness in his eyes. “Long story short, I’m immortal and unaging, and here I am. And so are you.”

Claire’s mouth fell open.

“You get used to it,” Cecil shrugged. He chuckled at her astounded expression. His expression darkened once more when, after a pause, he said, “You don’t get used to the loneliness, though. Everyone that you know, after a while, they move on, or they die, or you leave and never see them again. History proves to be cruel time and time again.”

His voice was sorrowful. He refused to look at her.

Claire thought about Thomas’s scowl, his laugh, his eagerness to be a count someday. Maman’s tired face, Papa’s busy eyes scanning the newspaper. Friedrich kissing her hand tenderly, the sparkle in his eyes as he looked up at her, the crinkle in his brow when he said how much he loved her. “I wouldn’t see them again,” she said. The realization settled slowly on her.

“You couldn’t,” Cecil admitted. “They think you’re dead. What would they say to seeing a corpse come back? Even if they accepted you, maybe some freak accident happened and you weren’t really dead, how could you explain away your illness? Or the fact that you never get older as your brother gets taller and marries someone himself and your husband starts to get stiff joints, and, God forbid you have children, but what if you could? And if your children eventually became older than their mother?” Cecil paused. “I’m actually not sure if you could even have children,” he said softly.

“That doesn’t matter so much,” Claire replied, shaking her head. “But the rest of it, I understand.” She bit her lip. She hadn’t thought about the consequences of seeing her family again, or the fact that she couldn’t at all. “I’m immortal, too, so I can’t die?”

Cecil nodded. “It’s not as great as it sounds,” he said apologetically.

“I know,” Claire said quietly. Let me see him again in Heaven, she had prayed. Now, even that was impossible.

“So what do you say?” Cecil continued as he stood up, extending a hand to Claire. The sky was lighter now, still blazing at the edges, but upward of the horizon, the sky faded into a gradient of pink, lavender, and finally light blue. “Will you join me in my travels, Claire?”

She took a second to ponder the possibilities, but honestly, it would be better to at least be with someone than to haunt the family home as a corpse. With a smile but a sinking feeling in her heart, Claire took Cecil’s hand.

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[incandescent-eden]

Claire [Part 6]

Desc: Claire recalls the progression of her illness and her last night alive.

Word Count: 2334

TW/CW: illness (tuberculosis/consumption), death

It had been some ten months since Claire had last seen Friedrich.

The winter months had passed, and summer was slowly returning. From her bed, Claire could see the garden outside her window. The memory of last year, running onto the bridge with Friedrich, seemed so vivid that she almost believed it happened yesterday, and that she could walk out now and find him.

Time seemed to go by too quickly when she was sick, even though the individual days dragged on. She knew her skin was too pale, that the circles under her eyes had grown too dark, that her hair, once golden and sunny, was now pale and lifeless. She was bored for hours on end, unable to go riding or strolling in the garden or dancing, unable even to play with Thomas, but at the end of the night, when another day had passed - another day had been wasted laying in bed and sleeping - Claire felt panic grip her to her core. As hard as breathing was already due to her illness, the realization that another day of her fleeting existence had slipped through her fingers so quickly seized her throat. The darkness, penetrated only by the moon gently caressing her from outside her window, seemed to grow heavier and heavier with each passing day.

Sleep came easily for her. It cradled her, promising peace from her thoughts and fears, whispering to her to allow it to embrace her. She had tried, at first, to resist it. After all, she knew if sleep lured her in too far, she might not wake from her dreams: some dreams she remembered, others she did not.

Ironically, the dreams in which she died were the ones she feared the least. She was dying already! She would never have the chance to fall off a cliff, or be eaten by a monster, or even be shot! No, the dreams of dying did not stoke the fires of her fears; she laughed in their face.

There was one dream she remembered vividly, however, a recurring dream. A happy dream. Claire dreamt that it was her wedding, and she walked down the aisle to a beaming Friedrich, the whole of the village over which the Pontrose family presided there to congratulate them. The wedding party took place in the gardens, and the warm sunlight was just strong enough that the gentlemen were tempted to take their jackets off. Claire and Friedrich were on the bridge, dancing even though there was no music, giddy and slightly drunk on wine. Claire was laughing, safe in Friedrich’s arms as he twirled her. It was not proper, and no dance would be that intimate, but those who saw the pair only smiled and shook their heads.

That’s how Claire knew it was but a dream. Her mother had seen them, and she would never let it slide. Even knowing so, she let herself laugh and bask in the sunlight.

Whenever she awoke from this dream, she would find her heart was pounding, and her legs ached, as if she truly had been dancing for hours. Her fever, already warm and unpleasant, seemed to make her skin prickle, so different was it from the soft sunlight in her dream. From Friedrich’s arms around her. She would curl up tighter under her blankets, pull them closer to her, and hug a pillow tightly, hoping it would bring back that warmth and ease the cramping nerves in her stomach as the realization that she would never get to experience her dream firsthand set in, but the silk threads of the blanket felt coarser by far against her skin than Friedrich’s gloved hands in her dream.

Sometimes, Thomas came in. He would chatter on about the day he had just had, as befitted the heir of a count: days full of noble instruction and hunting and music lessons and statecraft. Today, the first roses started blooming, he told her. And today, I saw a rabbit and tried to chase it, but it ran away.

Every so often, he would peer curiously at her, ask her when she would get better.

And every so often, every time Thomas asked, Claire would respond “hopefully tomorrow.”

They both knew it was a courtesy.

One day, as Thomas was visiting, telling Claire about the cranky gardener and his smelly son, Doctor Barnes came into the room. He bowed to Thomas in greeting, but in a quiet, concerned voice, told him he had to go, it was not safe around Claire.

Claire nodded weakly when her brother shot her a worried look. I’ll be fine, she tried to smile, but she felt too tired to even keep up appearances.

Begrudgingly, Thomas got up from the chair he had set at the foot of Claire’s bed. When he walked to the door, Claire was shocked.

“Wait,” she tried to say, but her voice came out in more of a croak.

“What is it?” Thomas asked. Doctor Barnes stood to the side, brow furrowed, looking as though he might try to protest Claire’s sudden outburst.

Claire regarded Thomas for a few seconds as he fidgeted, feeling the intensity of his sister’s once bright blue eyes as she searched his face, her lips parted ever so slightly in contemplation.

“You’re so tall now,” she said finally, with a small smile. Almost a grimace, really. “I didn’t notice. But you’ve grown taller.”

Thomas, who was especially tall for a ten year old and now stood at the notably tall doctor’s chest level, beamed. He puffed himself up with pride, straightening his spine, as if trying to appear even taller. “Soon, Maman will have to call a tailor so I can get new clothes that fit me better,” he answered, his voice quivering with excitement that his older sister noted how tall he had grown.

Claire nodded weakly. “Then you will be the most handsome boy at my wedding,” she replied.

Thomas’s smile quickly faded: A year ago, Claire would have called him an ugly little goblin with a cheerful laugh, perhaps ruffling his hair before Maman scolded her for behaving so unlike a proper lady should.

No one scolded Claire now.

Doctor Barnes cleared his throat. “Perhaps it is better for you to go, monsieur,” he addressed Thomas, who glowed once again with pride to be addressed so like a grown-up as he happily left his sister’s room, excited to brag to his tutors, no doubt.

Now Doctor Barnes regarded Claire, his gray eyes kind and wary. He sat down in the chair where Thomas had been minutes before. “And how are you feeling today, mademoiselle?” he inquired. His voice was soft, but there was a sense of urgency to it.

“Better,” Claire whispered. She could not manage more than a whisper or her voice would sound too much like the frogs she used to poke on the edge of the pond in the garden.

Doctor Barnes raised an eyebrow. He placed a hand on her forehead, frowning as he felt the raging fever emanating from her.

“Please don’t lie to me, Claire.” Although it was the kind of phrase adults uttered imperatively, Doctor Barne’s tone was more desperate, sadder - he was not commanding her as her superior, but entreating her as someone who cared about her condition. There was sadness in his voice.

“I don’t know,” Claire replied, sighing. She shifted slightly against her pillows, tracing the threads of her covers in slow, circular motions. “I had that dream again, Doctor Barnes.”

“Ah, the one about your wedding?”

“Yes.”

There was silence for a moment.

“Are you nervous for the wedding?” Doctor Barnes asked.

Claire turned her head away from him, looking out her window instead. “No,” she replied.

“Are you excited for it?”

“Should I be?” Claire turned back to Doctor Barnes. “I don’t know if I’ll live to see it. Do you think I’ll live long enough to marry Friedrich?”

Doctor Barnes opened his mouth, as if to protest, but he quickly closed it again. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m not in the business of lying to my patients.”

“It’s alright,” Claire mumbled. “I don’t want pity, anyway.”

Doctor Barnes looked uncomfortable. “There is not much else I can do to treat you. You don’t seem to be getting better.”

Claire’s face remained impassive. “Then, I suppose, I must accept my death.”

Her words hung glumly in the air. Another moment of silence, longer this time.

The sun was low in the sky now, bathing Claire in golden light as it streamed in through her window. In the light, she looked gilded, a statue of a saint immortalized. Her golden hair fanning out on her pillow created a halo around her, and with her melancholy expression and gaunt face, she resembled the saints in ancient mosaic icons.

Was it vain to imagine she did? Consumption was supposed to be beautiful, according to the great artists, but maybe it only worked for saints and martyrs in the olden times. Maybe seventeen year old girls waiting to marry were made ugly by it as it stripped their youth away.

“Tell me truthfully, Claire, do you want to live?” Doctor Barnes was the first to break the spell as the sun faded and the sky turned blue once more, accompanied by the pinks and purples of the soft flower petals in the garden below, as though the sky had been so inspired by the flowers below that it deigned to blend itself into their colors.

Claire was silent. Finally, she said, “No one wants to die, Doctor Barnes.”

Doctor Barnes regarded her carefully before answering, “I think, then, you have misunderstood my question.”

She stared at him. “No one wants to die.”

He gave her only a sad smile, with those weary gray eyes that seemed almost to say, some do.

“Well then, Claire,” Doctor Barnes said with a small smile. “I will come check on you in the morning.”

Claire opened her mouth as if to protest when she started coughing, choking on the air she now craved. Doctor Barnes helped her sit up, rubbing her back gently as tears came to her eyes.

She whimpered as the coughing dissipated.

“Do you want to die, Doctor Barnes?” she whispered, thinking of his sad gray eyes.

Doctor Barnes regarded her for a moment; although he was looking at her, his mind was far away. “I don’t think I actively wish to die. At least, I should not like to die a violent and sudden death. But I think I should not mind it to go in my sleep. I have long since made my peace with death.”

I have long since made my peace with death. Claire pondered his statement. Had she yet come to terms, to peace, with death herself? Out loud, she only said, “You are still young enough, Doctor.”

“Ah, mademoiselle, looks can be deceiving,” he replied with a wry smile.

At this, Claire chuckled. “You are younger than le dauphin! I’m sure you have years in you yet.”

“That I do,” Doctor Barnes said dryly. “Many, many years, in fact.”

“I envy your certainty,” Claire said, wheezing weakly as she lied down once more. The pillow beneath her head was soft, and she sank into it. Like the dirt in my grave, she thought. If dying, being buried in the family tombs, was like sinking into a pillow, she did not mind it. It was far preferable to dying a violent, painful death.

Unexpectedly, Doctor Barnes reached over and squeezed her hand. His hand was colder even than hers. She told him so.

“I, ahh, I just simply have cold hands,” Doctor Barnes replied. “Please, sleep now,” he said. Claire nodded.

She drifted off into sleep quickly. It was full nighttime by the time she woke up.

The night was hot.

It was the kind of heat that buzzed in her ears, a palpable heat. She coughed, as if the heat was choking her. Her white nightgown glowed in the moonlight, and it soon became speckled with dark spots as she hacked and coughed. Her limbs were heavy as she writhed, trying to stop coughing, until she fell on the floor. A dull pain shot through her hip where she landed, but her lungs and throat burned worse.

It was several minutes before she could lie still, coughing weakly. With one last wheeze, she stopped, bloody drool pooling on the floor out the corner of her mouth.

“P-please,” she whispered, wiping her lips with a shaking arm. It was hard to lift and trembled as she brought it back down.

Slowly, she got on her knees, the lattice pattern of her window pane painted across her lap in shadows. Her arms were heavy, her head heavier, but she still lifted the former and bowed the latter. She locked her fingers as tightly as she could until they hurt.

“Please God, let me see him again someday,” Claire repeated over and over. “Let me see Friedrich again one day in the future. Maybe not in this life, but someday, maybe, if I can go to Heaven, let me see him again there.” It took all her strength to keep her head bowed and hands clasped, but she held on. “He c-can get married and move on. I hope he d-d-does,” she whispered. Her whole body shivered. Wasn’t it hot only minutes earlier? It was too cold now to be summer, surely. “But please, God, let me see him again, please.”

Her diary sat on her bedside drawer. If she could just reach it and the pen next to it…

Somehow, she did. The diary clattered to the floor; the pen followed. She feverishly flipped through pages until she found a blank one.

At the time, she didn’t know they would be the last words in her diary, but she tried to stare at them in the moonlight. The words were scrawled across the page, blurry.

Claire blinked. Then, she collapsed.

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[incandescent-eden]

Claire [Part 7]

Desc: Anthony compares immortality to vampirism. Cecil (belonging to @sinnabon-cosplay) doesn’t know what memes are.

Word Count:  865

TW/CW: I namedrop the “Twilight” series.

“Claire?” Claire whipped around. Anthony’s eyebrows were crinkled in concern. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Claire said. “Sorry, I’m just… heavy stuff, you know?”

Anthony shrugged. “I guess so. You just seem really upset.”

Claire reached up and squeezed his shoulder. “It’s fine,” she said with a smile. “I get emotional a lot at places like these. All that history, and it’s…”

“But we’ve been to a lot of historical places like this!” Anthony protested. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m…” Claire trailed off, watching Anthony’s eyes scanning the plaque below the diary - the diary of seventeen year old Claire de Pontrose.

“Hey, isn’t your last name Pontrose?” Anthony asked again, as he had in the garden.

Claire sighed, crossing her arms. “Yeah,” she finally said. She brushed her pigtail back over her shoulder. “It’s… I mean, it’s been so long, it doesn’t matter. Just some random memories.”

“It matters,” Anthony said softly.

“What’s going on over here?” Cecil asked as he walked over so the three convened again, looking from Claire to Anthony and back again.

“Nothing,” Claire said sharply, at the same time Anthony said “Did you know this is Claire’s old home?”

Cecil paused. “I did know,” he said, which prompted a look of disappointment from Anthony, no doubt because he wanted to impress Cecil with his newfound knowledge. “I actually visited here a long time ago,” he said, smiling. His smiles always looked so sad. There was something about his eyes, the way the corners of his mouth quirked up as though he was tired, that gave him an air of weariness. “I remember a young woman at her last ball. She had the most beautiful eyes, you know. So full of life even as she wilted in her illness.”

Claire gave him a sharp glance. “Well, I remember a doctor who couldn’t keep his mouth shut and might still get punched in the face. It’s probably around two hundred and fifty years overdue.”

Anthony looked curiously between the two of them. “Is this where you got…” he looked over his shoulders before leaning in and whispering, “turned?”

Cecil started laughing. “Anthony, we’re not vampires, oh my goodness, turned?”

Anthony blushed. “I, uhh, thought it would be a cool term to use.”

Claire snorted. “Oh my god, Anthony, it makes us sound like the people from Twilight or something like that.”

“I like Twilight!” Anthony protested. “It’s a great story about immortality and love and -”

“I’m sorry, did you just say that Twilight is a great love story?” Claire interrupted, slackjawed. “Twilight? You do know the meme, right?”

Anthony scowled. “I mean, yeah, but it’s the - “

“The meme?” Cecil cut in. “What’s the meme?”

“It’s just a joke about how it’s a shitty love story,” Anthony said with disgust at Cecil’s lack of knowledge about memes. “Anyway, can I finish, or is it ‘everyone interrupt Anthony day’?”

“Oh, no, please tell us about why you love Twilight,” Claire said, rolling her eyes.

“I don’t love Twilight!” Anthony protested, his voice rising in pitch, speed, and volume. “I just thought it has a good depiction of immortality, you know, since we’re all undying and pale and all? What if vampirism really is just another form of necromancy?!”

Anthony quickly covered his mouth as Cecil, Claire, and every patron at the Pontrose manor turned to stare at him. “Oops,” he whispered.

“Quiet down, will you?” Claire hissed, but Cecil only laughed uneasily.

“He’s got an overactive imagination,” he said to a nearby passer who gave Anthony a weird look.

“Vampires don’t exist,” Claire said simply.

“Yeah, well, you thought necromancy didn’t exist, either,” Anthony scoffed. “Look where that got you.”

“Actually, necromancy was practiced as a magic art in the Middle Ages, so I did kind of believe in it. I mean, I wouldn’t practice it if I didn’t believe it, right?” Cecil chuckled.

“And France is where the new age of necromancy started,” Claire said matter-of-factly. To Anthony’s astonished stare, she said, “What? I read it online.”

Anthony shook his head. “Okay, okay, I get it!” He held both arms out in front of him. “But I didn’t know about,” he lowered his voice, glanced around, “necromancy,” he whispered, “but it happened, didn’t it? It doesn’t feel like almost a hundred years ago.”

Claire regarded him carefully, mulling over his words. “No, I guess it doesn’t,” she said thoughtfully. Had it really been two hundred and fifty years?

“I think for you guys, you only have the capacity for a human memory,” Cecil mused. “And time passes quickly when you’re immortal. Why shouldn’t it? You can go through so many lifetimes and only remember bits and pieces of each one. I imagine that would make time seem fast.”

Two hundred and fifty years, Claire thought, and she could hardly remember twenty years ago, but the events of a summer’s night in 1754 were detailed and clear in her mind. Even the present was blurry, too quiet and yet too loud, everything around her dreamlike. She could almost smell the fresh dirt in her nostrils as she struggled to breathe, just as she had two hundred and fifty years or more ago.

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