𝑰𝑵𝑲 • 𝑻𝒆𝒘𝒌𝒆𝒔𝒃𝒖𝒓𝒚 / 𝑳𝒐𝒖𝒊𝒔 𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒈𝒆

Laze Away

If I were the reacher

As hopeful as can be

I'd wish for nothing but a world

Where you can settle for me

—————

'I believe those days to have been the best of my life'

The sun that had once scorched my skin, leaving it to burn and blister, now felt more like a soft glow, bringing with it a certain warmth that was all consuming yet liberating at the same time. Everything tasted like sugar. Like the world had been doused in sucrose, glazing over every fault and filling in any gaps.

Winter faded away slowly in what I now perceived to be the background of my life. I remember feeling like he and I were the only ones there, and everybody else was just a blur in the setting of some old painting where the guy would forever hold the girl. Perpetuated in oils and pigment.

It reminded me of how things had been before everything. A simpler time. It hadn't been too long ago, but I felt older, worn, tired. More aware of how things worked, what was expected of me, how I should appear, portray myself. The difference was, that I didn't really care anymore.

The ice that melted down into water flooded the valleys and crevasses between pastures, molded over small hills. Their peaks were dry and heated by the sky, an optimal place for lazing around on busy days when my absence would most likely go unnoticed. If Mr Warren were to ask on my behalf, I could alway just tell him that he must not have been. Able to see my in the midst of it all.

Sometimes I think he knows what I do. But he's a peaceful man, stays out of other people's business. And I'm pretty sure he's the only person, other than my father, even slightly aware of my closeness to the young lord.

But I wasn't the only one working. T had begun taking over from his uncle as master of the house. It was weird watching him be all grown up, I felt like that had always been my position. Until then, I had always been the one faced with reality, he'd had the freedom to ignore it for so long that delivering his morning tea to study rather than his bedroom felt incredibly odd.

Nobody questioned where he'd gone. A perk of his new role I suppose. They's always just suppose that he was off somewhere important doing important things with important people in an important manner. And anyways, it wasn't anybody's place to question the head of Basilwether.

So we lolled around on top of one of the fields further away from the manor right on the outskirts of the estate. I could let my hair down, read my book in the sun while he did whatever it was that he did when we were together. He always just seemed to be in his head, occupied by some thought or another. I knew not to disturb him, he'd lose his train of thought.

He'd started bringing me novels again, no longer required to sneak them out of his grandmothers library seeing as the library was now, well, his. Most of them were classics, but I didn't mind one bit. Reading them made me feel worldly.

I'd flip through their pages on while lying on my front, propped up on my elbows, chin resting on my palm. The grass was cushy, soft and comfortable. Probably more so than my own bed.

Tewkesbury's head lay on the small of my back, skull against my spine. He wasn't really doing anything, seemingly entertained by the sky above us and the clouds that floated within.

Every so often, I'd ask him what a word meant. I'm not going to lie and say I didn't feel at all stupid asking him what 'morose' meant, but he answered kindly as best he could.

"It's sort of like a sadness, but emptier." I pondered on his words for a moment, taking them in and trying my best to make them stick. I wouldn't want to have to ask him again.