A King, a Queen and the Dark Knight

As he sat and stared he said “I don’t have a feminine bone in my body”. Olivia sat quietly beside him afraid to speak out for fear of being crushed, squashed and forced out of existence. She knew she would have to wait to be beckoned, wait to be seen, wait to be accepted. She knew he was a good man beneath the harsh black armour he traded for his emotions. The years had taken their toll and with them he had forgotten the truth. She loved him and she would wait as she had done since their childhood. For her man life was about to change and she would sit beside him until the end.

It was strange that he kept her at arms distance, refused to recognize her existence; she was but an echo to him, a tree nymph, superfluous, unnecessary. But then if she was so unimportant, merely a wisp that called on the wind, a glowing shadow that lurked in the dark; then why had he given her so much credence? He had even given her, her name. And he feared her. He had been successful enough without her silent suggestion of compassion, of love and the pointless joy of life and its artistic expressions. These things were for fools with time on their hands, an unprofitable and costly pursuit and something he had no time for. He had got where he had without her interference, her distractions, and her needling guilt. Life was a battle and only the strong survived. She was weak and he would not be undermined by that. He had built his defences against the world and his walls could not be breached; but she, she was continually digging away at the foundations and there seem to be nothing he could do about it.

Olivia was so named for her love of peace and harmony. It was all she desired; to be at peace with him, to be in balance, be as one in harmony. She alone held the key to this dream, but she could only whisper in the trees and call from the babbling mountain streams. She would catch his eye from time to time in the twinkling of the stars, draw him to her in the mirrored reflect of nature’s beauty in calm mountain lakes. But these encounters were few and far between and when they did occur he would banish her to silences and the dark, he would only talk with her if she echoed his thoughts. But it was in the dark she could speak to him most loudly, when she could speak on level terms, when he would lower the drawbridge and let her in. It was then that he could not ignore her existence. She caused him to dream and to lay wake doubting the validity of his own existence. She held more power over him than he cared to admit, a power that would prove to be as deadly as love itself.