Noémie Vaillant did as she was told.
She always did.
She looked to those who led her to guide her in proper and ladylike behaviour. She looked to her mother, when she lived. To her father. To her uncle. And if she ever had a question, or the time came to make a choice which puzzled her, she would always bring it to those three. Her uncle in particular had become her steward during her time in the city, while she waited to be wed.
Port-a-Lucine was more than a city to Noémie. In this place she was, for the first time in her young life, afforded a measure of freedom in her new womanhood. She had seen so many, both of the nobility and common-born, who committed themselves to one business or cause or another. They were actors, writers, painters, fighters - they threw themselves into new ventures, new mysteries, new experiences and expressions of self. Several of Noémie's friends and acquaintances were hard at work seeking admission and matriculation at the university.
Noémie felt, as she often did, and despite her own protestations, that pang of want. As ever, it brought her guilt. In all that she had been taught of duty and behaviour, want was a force to be denied. It was the small, seductive voice which whispered suggestions of rebellion.
Yet, for all her efforts, she never ceased to want. So it was, against her better judgement, that she sought permission from her uncle to embrace it.
Noémie was no great magician. She knew how to prepare a few wards for her own protection. She was keenly aware of how small she was, how little she knew, in the grand scheme of the arcane. She did not seek, neither did she expect, great accomplishments of herself. What she wished, simply, was to learn.
She knew her uncle well. She knew him well enough to guess at his response even before she asked. But she also knew that if she did not give voice to this wish, it would consume her.
Despite all this, she felt the sting of disappointment when her uncle refused. She could not tell if it was the pang of lost opportunity or of grief over her becoming, for that moment, a disappointment. Cowed and ashamed, she considered his words. He could not permit such distraction, not when he and her grandfather sought to make arrangements for her marriage. Such an alliance took great effort to secure. Hence, she had to be ready for the duty which followed, that for which she had been prepared all her life. That for which she was born.
Noémie accepted this, apologetic and quiet. She accepted his words when he dismissed her concerns over the man who had frightened her so deeply. He did however acknowledge her worry; it made an apt scapegoat for her foolishness in seeking such study. He also promised to buy her some new books, aware of her love for them. While Noémie accepted this gratefully to his face, something within the young Vaillant woman began to shake. Upon Grégoire's departure, that which had given her cause for such trembling spilled free as tears.
Noémie loved her cousins more than she could well express, but between Fleury being proclaimed illegitimate and Alexandre's first marriage ending poorly, leaving him hesitant to accept another, had resulted in the young woman bearing much of her uncle's remaining hope for his house. It made every decision grave. Every mistake was weighty. She had accepted living vicariously through her books and conversations with other much more interesting people for so long, earnestly taking in their news and sharing in their joys for the temporary easing of her burden these afforded. She had watched with jealous intent those who had gone to and fro from their examinations, wishing desperately to be among them - to be part of their tales, and not merely a spectator in the round. As the door clicked closed and Grégoire disappeared, the truth hit her hard in the chest and broke, for a moment, her resolve.
She had to do her duty, come what may. Such was the motto of her house. Such was her teaching. And though she spoke to try to cheer herself up, that to do her duty well would bring her joy, she would continue to want that which duty did not permit. Her heart ever stretched forth its hopes for those things she could not reach. Perhaps that was why she wanted them at all.
Perhaps that was why, when the dream of study was snatched away, another want took firmer hold.
She needed air. Carrying with her an easel, palette, brushes and paint, she headed east towards Edrigan, setting down her supplies by the road to paint the deer among the trees. Noémie was no great artist; she painted for the enjoyment of it, and not for any grander purpose. Though she was calmer now, she still dwelled upon her cares. She thought of all that awaited her, of the marriage to a man whose name she still did not know, and all that she had been denied. She wished to reach out to the dead's dwelling place, to hear her mother's advice, but there was only silence, and silence could not stop the swirling storm of thoughts that consumed her.
To her, it seemed that who she was did not matter. It did not matter that she loved to paint and lose herself in stories. It did not matter who she held as friends, what she learned, or what she felt. The name Noémie was of no import - but Vaillant was. That was what mattered, that she was a young woman of good breeding. It was her charge to be married in service of her house. It was her duty to be beautiful, soft-mannered, and full of her husband's children.
Again she told herself that there could be joy in it, if she worked hard, but doubt gnawed upon her heart, while her head sought to remind her that to hope for such joy could well prove to be a foolish want all of its own.
But there were other foolish wants, and her gaze was drawn to one as she painted. Her heart quickened as that gaze was met.
--
Noémie Vaillant yielded to want, slowly at first, then all at once.
They moved from mere gaze to conversation.
From conversation to accepting his hand upon her shoulder.
That soon became a kiss upon the crown of her head, then her cheeks, her lips,
her lips,
her lips...
her neck...
...
They stopped short of that which belonged to duty. That which belonged to the man whose name was still unknown. They knew that this freedom was temporary. They knew that soon, the day would come when all would be as it must, when reality would set in.
For now, at least, they were content to share this pleasant dream, for this was all it could be. A dream in which they could want and be wanted, love and be loved, not for something they might give, or for the sake of duty, but for the sake of themselves alone. There will be those who doubt that this shared feeling which swept the pair up like leaves in the wind, that burned hot and fierce as a wildfire in dry underbrush, might be rightly called love at all. One kiss, they said, would set them free from their desire. Of course, such a foolish course had failed, only serving to stoke the flame. Yet despite this, the two burned willingly, believing that the love they shared would serve to comfort them when their embraces had to end. They weighed their bond against the ash and tears which would meet them at dream's end, and found it worthy of such sacrifice.
And what is love, if it is not sacrifice?