Just an Old Legend Ch. 11

"No," she shook her head, "I never saw it as that. It only made me able to suffer the pain of my life for longer than a person is supposed to live."

He nodded a little sadly. "So, I am not alone with this pain."

She sighed, "I said that I'd speak the truth, so you have to listen now. I came for the federation -- and I also came to find out if you are the one who I am searching for. I see that you are bitter from many things, but, ..."

Lia stopped for a moment to draw a breath and try to hold his gaze. "If you are the one who I came halfway around the world to seek out, then you must also know that there was one once who always loved you." Her voice cracked a little at the end and his resigned look changed instantly as he stared at her.

He looked at her a bit strangely. Her words brought up a memory that he'd lain down long ago, but he nodded finally, "I had a friend who I loved from when we were small. My family moved away when we were about twelve. I never saw her again, though I tried. She went to a school far away, and then I heard that she had gone to another. I was a soldier by then. I saved my leaves so that I could travel to where we once lived for news of her."

He sighed at the unpleasant memory, "I only wanted to find an address where I might write to my old friend. I wanted to find her, and I hoped that she was well. I heard that she became a teacher. She was always good at that."

His face clouded over, "But I never did find very much. I was stationed at the other end of the country. I tried three times, once every year. I could never travel fast enough, and I came back to my regiment late every time. Each time, they took my rank away from me again and threw me into the military prison. That was the punishment for coming back late from leave; prison and beatings."

He looked down for a moment, "The truth of it is that from when I was little, I always knew that I wanted to marry her. The years apart didn't bother me if I could see her again. I even told myself that if I found her and she was in love with someone, I would be glad only if I found her happy. It was a dream, I guess, and the prison cured me of it. When I left the army, I went home to my parents and still I heard nothing of my friend. Then I met my wife." He looked at her and was surprised to see that she had tears there herself.

"It is worse than that," she said, "I never knew about your journeys or the prison. Otherwise, I know quite a bit about it. Just tell me since I need to hear now. What is your name?"

"Ion Sorescu," he said with a shrug, "What do you know of this? Please, do you know anything about my friend? Please tell me if you do. I think that she must be dead by now, or at least very old, but I must know if she was happy."

Lia was surprised that she could speak through her tears. She supposed that she'd had plenty of practice crying, after all. She shook her head, looking down. His eyes were draw to the dark spots on the old rock which marked where her tears fell.

"No. She was never happy after you moved away. No, she is not dead, though she is old. And no, you are not Ion Sorescu. You are Ion Nichita Sorescu." She looked up at him.

"I always called you Nikki."

He shook his head, looking a bit angry now, "No. I don't know why you would tell me this, but it is some trick to go with your silver knives. Only one person has ever known me by this name. You cannot be- "

He stared as she stood there in human form, a beautiful and now very cold human woman standing in the autumn wind. His glance went from her face to her legs and back.

"Lia," she said through her tears, "I am Lia Pantoferu."

His mouth fell open and his eyes widened.

She sniffled, "I am the same Lia - your Lia. Do you remember? As a little boy, you never asked my mother where Lia was. You always asked her where your Lia was when you looked for me, and that is how I always thought of myself. I was your Lia, and you were my Nikki. You helped me with everything," she sniffled again.

"You helped me up when other children only pushed me down and laughed at me because of my weak legs. Until you moved away, you were my only friend. Then I had no one and I cried," she sobbed once. "I think that I have spent most of my long life in tears."

"You taught me to be strong just like you were. You taught me to make myself walk when I was too weak inside myself to go another step. I finally saw better doctors because of that school. They helped me, but they told me that it was you who had done the most with your help and your words and your heart. That I can walk and run at all I owe to you. I have never had the chance to thank you."

She stepped forward slowly and reached her left hand out to him, past the waiting muzzles of the old gun to gently place her palm against the side of his wide chest, "I always loved to lie down in the meadow with you and you let me put my head here."

She smiled with a sniffle, "You always worried about where you put your hand around me once these began to come in," she indicated the two breasts that her human form retained.

"I always told you the same thing about where to put your hand, - that you could always hold me there." she said, reaching for her braid to show him the end. "And you always loved to play with my braid here, Nikki."

His fingers flew away from the twin triggers as he stared open-mouthed and he now felt foolish that he'd leveled the shotgun at her. He felt even worse about the throwing knife, "But you, you're - "

She nodded, pointing to the scar on her chest, "And so are you. We both have lost our blue eyes to the same cruel bitch who gave us these golden ones instead - another dark part of our sad story. I did not want to tell you about that but it doesn't matter much anymore and I think you are ready to hear it. A lot depends on how you remember my cousin."

"Your cousin, ..."

"Yes," she said, "my beautiful cousin Danaya, who laughed at me our whole lives. She knew where to write to me the whole time that you were with her. She even knew that you had searched for me, she must have."

"My bad luck that the one I ached to see again moved close to the same village where my own cousin then had even more to laugh at me about. From my aunt, she knew that we were friends, you and I. My aunt said nothing to my parents because her daughter had found such a strong and handsome man for herself, and so they had no news to give to you. They didn't even know where the school that I was living at was, really. The name meant little to them, and they couldn't read well."

Lia smiled bitterly, "Danaya began to write me proud letters crowing about you only after it was too late and you were married. I received no invitation to the wedding. You were here for three years when she was bitten herself, and it only brought her meanness out more."

"You should have heard her laughter after she did this to me the same night that she told me that she was leaving to come to this place. It was the only time that she ever came to visit my family alone. She told me that she would bite you, even then. I stood in pain and shock, and she laughed with my blood on her face."

He watched Lia's tears stream down, amazed that she could cry like this without a sob. It told him that she'd done it for long years, just as he had himself.

"I was never able to see my parents again," she said, "I tried once to go home as a wolf because I had no clothes anymore to come as a girl. I only wanted to see them, but my father ran after me with an axe. He thought that I wanted to eat his sheep. After that, I didn't try again. It hurt me too much."

She looked up and wiped her eyes with her hands, "I have never hated anyone, Nikki. Not even those who tormented me when I was little. You know this. But I wanted to kill my cousin for what I knew that she would do to you. I could do nothing but hide in the forest and cry. Thank you for killing Danaya. I know that the price was high for you, but thank you."

He wanted to protest, but deep inside, what she'd said made perfect sense to him. He'd seen that Danaya had a mean side to her for himself. He'd just never seen it while they courted.

He felt his own tears beginning as he realized the full depth of what Danaya had done to them. He pushed the thought aside in his mind angrily. She was no longer worth remembering.

If only he'd known.

"You are very brave here," he with the first of his own sniffles, indicating the shotgun.

"Perhaps no braver than you," she said. "I learned many things about you today, things that I should have known and remembered about you."

"You showed me no fear. I have killed many and it is unusual. They are always afraid of me. It bothered me until I saw that you really have no fear of anything at all. It shouldn't have surprised me. You were always the bravest person that I have ever known. And I also saw that you have no fear because you are not afraid to die. You would welcome your death."

Lia reached for the muzzles slowly and guided them to her breast, laying them directly over her heart, feeling the deadly silver there from this close.

"I am the same, Nikki, just the same as you. My life has gone on the way that it has for far too long. I have lived most of my life completely empty inside."

She looked into his eyes, "I think that I can even guess what you want to ask of me now, or soon. You spoke of it as a sad taunt just now before you knew who I am. If you ask this of me, I would do it, but not here and not now, and only in a certain way." She slowly took the shotgun from his hands, and laid it down on the ground by her swords.

Coming back to him, she reached out slowly and put her arms around his neck for a moment, "Since we were parted, for eighty-four years I have ached to hold you like this, Nikki, but could you please let me see you as the man that you are now?"

She sighed as he complied, and smiled softly, "I always knew that you would be the most handsome man when you grew up. You are just as I saw you when I closed my eyes to go to sleep as a girl." They looked at each other's wet eyes and she smiled.

He began to smile a little softly, "You are lovely, and you cannot know how good it is to see you without your braces."

His eyes shone at her as he laughed quietly, "And you can run! Like a deer, Lia!"

His smile widened and she continued, "Then please only hear me out. If you are truly tired of your jail here, then let me take you away and set you free at last. We can go home to Romania. It will take a little time, but I promise that you can learn all that you want to. How to live in the world and understand its ways today and how to live free. I promise you this, and you know I do not lie. I will even help you as I always did, Nikki. It would be my honor to do this for you."

"Then you and I can go home. I mean home where we were born. I own that place now. I always thought that one day I would be your happy wife there, but I gave it up at last."

"You could do this, Lia?" He was incredulous, "What are you saying to me?"

She smiled a little hopefully to him. She had an idea and needed now to make him understand. "Now I think that maybe we could have what we missed. So I want to bring you there. We both carry old wounds. I feel better now only standing near to you. I think it would make you feel better to have me working beside you there to make a home for ourselves. I want to try this now."

His arms held her to him and she laid her head against him for a moment, and then she looked up, "And if we do this, if we try to have our time together at last, and we find that it will not work for us anymore even in that place where we once belonged to each other, then if you still want me to, I will kill you as you wish, but on one condition."

She looked directly into his eyes and they both felt it, that the slim chance that they had after everything ought not to be wasted.

"It must be with pistols loaded with silver. I have them at my home. I will kill you only if you kill me then at the same instant, because for me, that would leave me nothing more, now that I know that you live and I have touched you."

"I am just as tired of my empty life as you, though I am sure that I have lived better than you did here. The sad story of the two little children will then finally end where it began. Do you agree, Nikki? We were those children long ago and we made promises to each other. I have never forgotten, and I am certain that you now remember our promises. They have a lot of dust on them, but we both meant what we said to each other. I am saying that if you agree, then we should sweep the dust from them and live them as we intended to."

He nodded, "Yes, but are you saying that you still want me for your husband, even now? I tried to find you but could not. I think that I broke my promise to you."

Lia shook her head, "Not really, I think, since you tried so hard to find me and someone else hid the truth from you. I came here for the federation in case you were another one gone mad, but really, I came for the tiny hope that I felt as soon as I read that book. I thought that it had to be about the one I loved so long ago."

She looked at him and felt some small hope rising between them. Decades and decades without hope at all and now ...

"Please," she said what came to her as carefully as she could, wanting at the same time to just drop to her knees and beg him, now that they were this small distance apart on a cold and windy island, "As soon as we can get your life in order, I would marry you in a church if you wish, though I only wonder who would marry a pair such as we are. Before that, I would consider you my husband if you only tell me that you are. I would marry you even right here and now, Nikki, before only God if I must and you tell me so. Only tell me that you might still love me, and I'll be happy. I'll never let you go again."

He looked at her for a long moment, "It was simple then, no? We just knew what we were supposed to do and we waited only to be old enough." He looked into her warm smile. He felt the chill on his chest from their tears as they ran down in the cold air.

"Yes," she said, "I remember the times that you helped me up into the loft so that we could kiss each other a little longer without being seen. I would hug you and you would be a little ashamed sometimes."

She chuckled, "We lived on farms and we saw how things were. I never minded it, but it was then that I just knew that I was for you and that you were to be mine one day. So? This is one day, isn't it?"

He found himself in trouble wanting and needing to believe this here. "In spite of what you think of me, Lia, I do have a fear. I have grown afraid to hope. But I know it will be alright," he said, making up his mind.

"You seem to know what you are doing if you can travel around the world as you do. You will have to guide me like a child, Lia, but I will trust you, because if I do not, then Danaya has still won and because I want to trust you. I still have my Lia in my heart; do not worry for that, even more now that I find you against me here like a miracle. I am afraid now that you will disappear, and I couldn't bear that anymore now. Does this place still exist? Really?"

She nodded, "Everyone is either dead, or gone to work in the cities and now in homes for the aged. The farms are beginning to fall down. But I know they can be repaired, even still. I bought the land so that I could go somewhere on this earth to feel only a little better. You would feel better there too. I go there and I see us when we were children, Nikki. The meadow needs cattle and sheep again. A few children wouldn't hurt it either to keep the weeds trampled down."

She looked up with a smile, "At least I didn't have to buy the mountain. No one tries to take it away yet."

"So after these years apart, you still want to love me and be my wife? I believe what I hear you say, but forgive me for asking again. It had been so long since I felt like this. Only your voice sounds so good to me, but your words... You are certain?"

"Yes," she nodded, "That is what we always said that we would be. What else is there for people like us now that we hold each other again? There is only a life together or we can be together in death. Even dead, I can no longer think of being without you because I know that you still live and I hold you in my arms at last. This curse that we share has kept us alive for so long. Maybe it could be a blessing too now that we are all that are left."

"I think this might be hard, but for our parents and grandparents, they just said it and lived their lives. That was our promise to each other. This is all that I want for us. I still have my job. When the federation learns of a man who could not be hunted by their best, they will want to find out why. Perhaps you can have a job there too. But even so, we can live together and I think that we still love each other somewhere inside. I feel it already from you, and I know that I still love you somehow, enough to come all this way to look for you."

He kissed her, trying hard to do it just as he did then. It turned into something more very soon after.

"This chance that you want to give to us, we will not make it to that place if we do not grow some fur again very soon, Lia. And then where will we go, to the house?"

She shook her head as her change began, "No. I have to return the boat. We can go to my motel in town, and tomorrow, we can begin the long trip home."

She looked at him, wanting his words. She needed to have this out in the open between them now.

Lia had to know. "But you have not told me how we are to go. Are we to be only friends to start? I can wait a little longer for you." Her last sentence was the same little joke that she'd often said to him, the one who waited so often for her as she struggled on her braces and canes. On the rare occasions when she'd gotten ahead of him somehow, she would say this one little phrase to make them both laugh.

He already knew that a miracle had happened to them and the hopeful way that she'd said it made him know that she really was his Lia, beyond any possible doubt. His head swam a little at this final proof, and he wondered now if his heart had torn loose in his chest.

He surprised her when he shook his head, but she saw the laughter in his eyes and wondered how she could have had a doubt that it was him. If she'd been close enough to see this look at the outset, they'd have saved the whole day of running around after each other. Then again, she admitted to herself, it had been fun.

"No," he said, "now that we know each other, we only need to throw away some things that we have carried. My friendship to you is not in question, Lia. You have it already as you always have. And you do not need to wait for me any longer."

He smiled as he pulled her head close to his while the cold wind whipped his hair around them unnoticed.

"If it is what you need to hear, then I tell you that I am your husband, now, - as quickly as I can say it -- before anything else can happen to two poor children, and you are my wife, since you still want me for your own after all this time. But I cannot only tell you. I must hear it too. So please, Lia, tell me yes, right now and quickly before the earth opens or the sky falls on my head. If you say yes, and it works between us, I will want one day to do this better."

She looked up, a little surprised, but suddenly so very happy, "I can finally have my Nikki now? Then yes. My answer is yes a thousand times, Nikki. To do this better, you said? I can wait for that. Only that you say this to me now is enough. Even before then, we can go somewhere warm, like the bigger island where I found the book about you in my hand by luck. Even tonight in my room, Nikki," she grinned at him a little mischievously, "you can put your hand where I told you that you could always hold me. But I have a hope that tonight you will not leave it only there. I have only one thing to ask about how we begin."