Forever Folklore [One-Shot]

[Nireva Hale]

What's that metronome I hear? Perhaps the end is drawing near.
You never hear the shot that takes you down.
Out of time. So say goodbye! What is yours, now is mine.
And I dream broken dreams! I make them come true.
______________________________Shaman's Harvest - Broken Dreams

"Please, I ask of you, cease this ma-..."

No-one had expected the impetuous young nobles - as arrogant as they were - to draw their pistols and goad each other into settling their differences in a more final manner, nor had they expected the hostess of the party to which they'd been invited to try and quell the disturbance before it had a chance to fester. In the hours and days which would ensue, everybody including the men between whom the dispute had been raging would be unable to recall just what had prompted a poised index finger to flex inward. Had it been impatience? Surprise? Anger? Such reasons and rationales would invariably become lost; the minds of the guests forever fixed on the spectacle which occurred next.

Count Césaire Bellerose may not have been a particularly powerful or well-known figure in the French nobility of the early 18th century, but he had never let his status stand in the way of a celebration to which he could invite all he knew, much less his own wedding. Two years ago, with a growing need for staff to help maintain his palatial manor house, Césaire had ventured out to the neighbouring towns and villages in search of suitable employees. Taking cues from his father, he had always endeavoured to be as beneficent a landowner as was possible, ensuring that the taxes levied against his tenants were well within their respective means and never unfairly raised out of greed. Césaire, nor his father, had never seen the point in subscribing to the traits of their peers. Regardless of their heritage or bearing, men were equals.

A progressive and rather unpopular view for the time, to be sure, but three generations of Césaire's antecedents had never had cause to change their ways. So, therefore, neither would he. Among the procession of men and women who had shown promise and demonstrated skills he felt he needed in the day-to-day running of his household, he'd met and subsequently become quite taken with Emelie Baudain, a slender ebon-haired woman who, despite eking out a meagre living as the only woman in a dozen-strong group tasked with tending an orchard, seemed to carry herself with the poise of someone beyond her station. He had never been one to believe in something as seemingly outrageous as the concept that a soul could have been granted physical incarnations and lived lives before their current one, but Emelie had always struck him as someone... wiser than, by all accounts, she should have been.

Not wanting to have her prowess wasted, Césaire initially hired her as a gardener. Spring had caused the multitude of flowers which surrounded the manor to come into bloom a few weeks prior and, while his father had already employed three of them, he felt the time had come for the trio of middle-aged men to get some assistance. Their collective ability to tend to the whole garden between them was starting to wane slightly and, with Emelie around to help out, the men would find themselves useful and appreciated for a lot longer yet. As the months passed, Césaire and Emelie's paths crossed more and more - not entirely by accident on the Count's part - and, before long, Emelie was being whisked away to spend some mutually-desired personal time together in a quiet corner of the household; somewhere where the maids wouldn't accidentally intrude.

The more the two fell in love with one another, the harder it became for them to hide their feelings from prying eyes and guard their respective responses. The line between simple favouritism and conduct unbecoming of a French nobleman and his new gardener was an infuriatingly fine one. However, after another sojourn to the nearby villages to employ a couple more younger gardeners after the most experienced of the "old guard" fell ill, there was no longer any reason for them to bother. Emelie's original purpose for her arrival had become superfluous and, with her life having well and truly shifted to accomodate her new circumstances, Césaire had no desire to order her to leave.

After coming clean to everyone else - his father included - and officially declaring that Emelie was his lover and had technically been co-habiting with her for months, engagement and marriage didn't sound like that much of a stretch. The ceremony had gone without a hitch, Césaire's friends and relatives had, to his surprise, been nothing but supportive of the whole situation and their honeymoon on the southern coast had been heavenly to say the least. He wouldn't have changed a single thing for all the art in Italy.

Except, perhaps, for this.

Part of why Emelie had been so attractive to him was how... unwomanly she was at times. While she definitely knew her place and was ever-cognizant of the need for propriety when around the French nobility, she was far from a meek and timid woman. She was passionate, strong-willed and in possession of a scathing, fiery temper; a product, he surmised, of living and working around the lower-class villagers for as long as she had. In his circle of society, it was refreshing to witness. Not wanting anyone to ruin her slightly belated wedding reception, she'd wasted no time in trying to defuse the argument before it could boil over and incite chaos.

But, as though the end result was destined by divine fate, it was her attempt at intervention that had sped the slighted nobles along their misguided course. The gunshot alone would have been more than enough to shock the assembled guests into silence, but when Emelie's imploring voice was abruptly halted mid-sentence, more than a couple of wine glasses dropped to the grass as noble and servant alike watched the bride and newly-minted Countess Bellerose crumple to the ground, the solid metal shot finding its mark half an inch above her left eyebrow. Torn between drawing his own sword and running the noble through where he stood or crumbling into an inconsolable wreck himself, the Count simply went numb to everything around him. After the past two years, he could scarcely believe that something like this was even possible, much less a reality and, leaving the guests and his servants mostly to their own devices, he did what he'd done on every other day and remained by his wife's side.

For Césaire, the next few days passed him by in a barely-remembered blur. His butlers and housemaids had - with calm professionalism he'd remember to reward in time - set about making arrangements for the guests to leave and for the parents of the young nobleman who'd killed Emelie to be contacted while the relevant authorities debated on what should be done. He'd lost the inclination to sleep on his own accord, instead electing to pray until exhaustion claimed him each night, wondering if there was anything a mortal man like himself could ever do to remedy the gaping void his wife's absence would no doubt leave in his soul.

Inevitably, as news spread, the manor was visited by those with the varied talents employed in the overseeing of a funeral. Rather than allow himself to dwell excessively on the fate of his beloved, he had entrusted the particulars of the affair to the manor's head butler - a man almost twice Césaire's age who had been serving the Bellerose family since back when his father still had natural hair - and lock himself away in his chambers where he could grieve in peace. While the maids - some of whom had once lived in the same village as Emelie - took it upon themselves to put together an appropriate outfit for the Countess to have a dignified burial, a clutch of doctors and stylists showed up to ensure that her body was equally presentable. While a large bullet wound to the face was among the trickiest of wounds to conceal, it was by no means impossible with a little ingenuity and a lot of time.

With only the front of Emelie's face to contend with, the first order of business for the doctors was to prise the pistol shot - a sphere of lead rather reminiscent of a miniature cannonball - from the wound. Having deformed and somewhat broken apart from where it had punched a hole through the front of her skull, the shot was now about as round as the tweezers the surgeon was using to extract it and, after navigating his way down, he was able to carefully pluck it free. The tiny twitch from her eyebrow as the misshapen ball of lead emerged was something the man ignored. He'd both read about and seen how some bodies of the deceased were prone to involuntarily twitching as the vestiges of their brain's final thoughts were shaken loose.

But, as Emelie had been taught lifetimes ago, the embrace of death was an elusive sensation for those of her bloodline. She, like her absent mother before her, was immortal. And, with that rather dubious gift, came their unnatural resilience; something which had been equally dubbed a godsend and a manifestation of the devil's work. Even now, she clearly remembered coming within a whisper of death at the age of ten. Her mother had told her that, like her own, her gift had needed a push in order to emerge and, once it had, it had the potential to literally be with her forever. That ten-year-old girl had now lived for a century and a half, surviving wounds both intentional, accidental and even self-inflicted as her body simply repaired itself without a care in the world, leaving her looking as if nothing had happened at all.

~-~-~-~

By the time her eyes opened again, she was surrounded by dark stone walls completely unfamiliar to her. The stale air hung within them and as what few lit candles flickered under the influence of some far away disturbance, Emelie realised that she was completely and utterly alone. In pursuit of her blurry eyes as they slowly scanned the ceiling above her, her head rolled gently to one side, causing a vaguely yellow something to roll away from her face and land somewhere near her shoulder. For a minute or two, her vision was unable to make sense of anything as her groggy mind sought to piece together the information it was receiving.

As the fog cleared from her thoughts, she surmised that the curled yellow object which had rolled free was a long piece of solidified wax. Having wanted to make her face presentable despite what had happened to it, the stylists had been forced to get creative. By filling the wound with wax and waiting for it to solidify, they were able to then apply the make-up over the top of it, knowing that their work wouldn't be ruined by something as mundane as movement. Emelie had, for all mortal intents and purposes, died. But with the majority of her brain intact, all that her gifts needed in order to jumpstart their usual task of repairing her was for the obstruction to be removed in short enough order.

Unbeknownst to him at the time, the surgeon - by removing the shot from Emelie's face - had saved her life. At some point between the removal of the ball of lead and the application of the wax, the healing process had had the opportunity to begin and, following the funeral, the rampant rebuilding of bone, flesh and brain tissue had simply pushed the wax plug out, leaving a slightly red imperfection on her otherwise pristine face which would fade in time. Slowly sitting herself up on the stone slab upon which she'd been lying for... however long, Emelie was quickly starting to realise the particulars of her situation and what her long-absent mother's advice commanded her to do.

Leave. In order to avoid further undue suspicion and stop the masses gathering at the door baying for her husband's (or perhaps widower's) blood, Emelie had to find a way to sneak away from the manor, travel to someplace far away and reinvent herself once again. Having clearly been interred in some sort of family crypt where she could await a quiet burial, her next move was to find the entrance and slip out when she was certain no-one was looking. From there, she could think up a plan to grab some of her belongings and flee into the night. It wasn't the first time she'd come back from the dead and, as she set about working the feeling back into her legs on her way towards the door, her objectives were set out before her in her mind like a shopping list.

All she had to do was hope she didn't run into...

"My God...! Emel-..!

...her husband. No sooner had she planted her hand on the door to the crypt that she felt the heavy object being pulled away from the other side, revealing an all too familiar face; one whose mouth hung open in utter shock at the sight its owner beheld. Without a further thought, Emelie lunged forward, clasping one hand over Césaire's maw while the other looped around his shoulders, hauling him inside, whirling him around and pinning him back-first against the wall in a fluid motion. His eyes were a picture of elation and horror, both directed firmly at her. "I can-...", she began, finding she needed a lot of effort and concentration to both keep her husband restrained and keep her voice down. "Please! Stop... struggling. I can explain everything!"

The moment she saw compliance in her husband's eyes, she allowed her hands to slowly fall away, freeing Césaire from her spontaneous imprisonment. It wasn't every day that one visited a crypt to grieve only to find the object of his grief stalking the structure alive and well. The kiss wasn't something either of them had planned, either. Emelie hadn't expected to come face-to-face with her husband before she had a chance to leave, just as Césaire hadn't expected to see his wife upright. "H-.. How are you... alive, my love..?" It was hard enough to string a sentence together, much less avoid tripping over his own tongue. "Everybody saw you... a-as you tried to break up the duel."

The sight of the blushing bride suddenly getting shot in the face was admittedly a hard thing for the guests to miss. Normally, if she was able to help it, the secrets of her gifts were ones she divulged to nobody. But here, now..? It was unavoidable. "I'm... I'm immortal, Césaire." Incredulity was always the go-to emotional response whenever she discussed her longevity with someone. "I have lived for over two-score years beyond a century and I... my body can heal - be restored to its unmarred state - from almost any wound. Even mortal ones, if people are kind enough to remove any... obstructions."

As unbelievable as it sounded to him, Césaire was still able to keep up. He'd always appreciated how plainly Emelie explained even the most complex things. It was why he hadn't pestered the gardeners about things beyond their control since she'd arrived. She was always on hand to tell him why things couldn't be done. "S-.. So when the surgeon examined your face and... removed the shot so that the maids and stylists could make you presentable, you were able to... restore yourself?"

"Yes." With each word, Emelie was finding it harder and harder to go along with what her mother would have told her to do, were she here. "It took all this time, but yes. I'm... actually surprised that my body was able to bring me to life again after being shot." Firearms still hadn't exceeded swords and other bladed implements of warfare in popularity and affordability - and wouldn't for another few decades - but with the nobility's ever-present wont to have the most exclusive and prestigious trinkets, she was surprised it had taken this long for her to see two people in posession of a duelling pistol in the same place. "I've... never had to contend with such a wound before."

Although, in theory, her life would never end, Emelie had found herself moving from place to place over the years out of sheer caution. Whether it was her mortal families dying of old age or some grievous accident befalling her that no normal person could ever survive, she had nevertheless encountered cues in these "incarnations" which had given her no other choice but to move on. "Césaire, I..." She wanted to explain to him how their friends and peers would never understand how she'd suddenly returned from the dead. She wanted to insist that she should already be so many miles away, with their short-lived marriage as nothing more than a memory. "...I can't stay."

But, whenever her voice rang out, it was filled with indecision and doubt. "Can't we... find a way to explain this to everyone?" Although she was over a hundred and fifty years of age, love was still a special thing for her. Marriage, even more so. Having gathered from Césaire's surprise how he must have been taking her 'death', Emelie was rather averse to carving out his heart now that her presence had seen fit to restore it. To have her die, come back to life and then leave him? Her mother's rules be damned, even if only just this once. "Could the doctors have... saved you somehow?"

No, that wouldn't work at all. She remembered standing only feet away from the man who'd shot her. The chances of a glancing blow being inflicted upon her at that distance were near zero. Although she'd had multiple lifetimes worth of education and training in skilled work, an intricate knowledge of eighteenth century ballistics wasn't among her repertoire. "W-.. What if we... hid my face?" It was a woeful rationale in retrospect but, at the time, she had nothing better. "W-We could say I... miraculously survived, but the wound... ruined my good looks?"

"You mean... to wear a mask?" Césaire ran a finger gently across his wife's forehead, tracing it along where he clearly remembered the bullet wound had once been. "Hide your face from the public eye and create a false story to fool them, perhaps for the rest of yo-..." Of course. He'd already forgotten that his wife was immortal. The rest of her life would have literally been an incalculable amount of time. "The rest of my life, I suppose. Which begs the question, what will you do once I'm gone..?"

So he was on board with her crazy plan. That was more than enough for her. As for everything else, they could cross those bridges when they got there. "Whatever else would I do, my love?" She couldn't leave him. She wasn't that heartless. She simply loved him too much to put him through something so painful. "Ensure your future heirs don't get into trouble." A crypt might not have been the best place for Césaire to once again kiss the bride but, with his formerly-deceased wife in his arms once again, neither he nor Emelie could help themselves.

~-~-~-~

"...is all understood?"

For the past half hour, Césaire had explained - to the best of his ability - how the very same Countess Bellerose who had been seen by dozens of people catching an eighteenth century bullet with her forehead could be walking around without a single mark on her. As well as swearing the house staff to secrecy at Emelie's behest, he had neglected to proceed with any of the earlier funeral arrangements he'd made; the whole affair now rather superfluous. As expected, nobody had actually believed him until, in shock, they saw the Countess stroll into the dining hall where they'd all been assembled, just long enough to see that the servants hadn't rioted before strolling back out again to wait patiently outside.

Glancing down, she looked at the black-and-gold mask in her hand. It was a relic from their last masquerade party, something which had been previously worn by one of the butlers as part of their ensembles for the occasion. It was a mite unfitting for the dimensions of her face but, for the time being, it would suffice. Although everybody within the mansion's walls were now being made privy to the secret that they would all be keeping, Emelie knew that this would be one of the last times any of them would be seeing her face in its entirety. Given the ages of some of those who worked in and around the Bellerose household, a few of them might very well have never seen her face again.

In the space of thirty-six hours, the story the two of them had concocted had now become a part of the established Bellerose canon. Inevitably, word would trickle out from visitors and passers-by that, despite the apparent finality of her wounding at the post-honeymoon reception, Emelie Bellerose was alive and (mostly) well. They hoped that the presence of the mask on her face would breed rumours on its own accord, helping to divert the masses from the truth. Were her mother around to hear her plan, she would doubtlessly have been chastised for days on end. As far as those 'rules' were concerned, she was now walking quite the metaphorical tightrope. Her world would be filled with so many people existing so close to her secret without their knowledge.

Right now, there were more people than ever before who knew of her immortality. Far more that she would have thought comfortable, but a necessary number in order to ensure that her quirk of fate would remain under wraps. If she was going to stay by her husband's side like she intended, the whole thing was necessary. Gently pressing the concave side of the mask against her face, Emelie sighed into it as she began to tie the silk ribbon tightly together, allowing the adornment to hang from her head in much the same way as a pair of glasses. In an instant, she was robbed of her peripheral vision and, until she took the mask off again, would only be able to see directly in front of her.

"Was that the best the servants could find?"

Much clearer now that he'd emerged in the hallway, Césaire's voice prompted his wife to glance over, turning her whole head in his direction in order to see him. It was rather eerie to think that he would see his wife imprisoned by a mask for most of each day to come but he, like her, saw the necessity of the ruse. "On such short notice, yes." The mask's moulded lips, unlike her own, didn't budge an inch as she spoke. "Were you able to send word to Venice?" Even now, it was a little difficult for her to refer to Italian cities by something other than their Italian names. Realising that the wearing of a mask was going to be a long-term, if not permanent arrangement, Césaire had suggested that they commission an expert in the field to build one specifically for her; one that would last for years - if not decades - as opposed to being discarded after a matter of days.

"Of course." Rather than papier mâché, Césaire had presented his wife with the idea that her mask instead be made of porcelain. While it would take a long time for even the best artisans to form the material into a shape so intricate, a porcelain mask would be better suited to standing up to the rigours of time, provided nobody dropped it. And, once the artisans had made a mould of her face, any replacements could be made quicker if need be. "I do hope they won't balk at the notion of making a mask out of porcelain, but... I really have no other ideas on what could be used to be both long-lasting and comfortable."

It was an odd request, to be sure. But Emelie could see the potential glamourous benefits to wearing such a thing. It would foster yet more rumours. The 'tragedy of Countess Bellerose' who, after surviving a grievous facial wound that left her devoid of her heavenly beauty, took to wearing a painted mask of porcelain in order to recapture it. It almost sounded like a fairy tale. "I would happily wear a mask of ruined steel if that was all you could find for me." Beyond the logistical nightmare of finding someone capable of making the mask, there was also the financial issue to contend with. After having paid for a wedding, a honeymoon, a party and perhaps half a funeral, it would take a while for their coffers to recover. She may have adored the idea, but Emelie wouldn't have considered such extravagance necessary. She'd lived on means far more meagre than this multiple times already and somewhat doubted she'd reach monetary heights such as these again.

"Is it strange that I can imagine your willingness to do that?" Whenever there had been a lavish party or some other form of extravagance evident in the household, it had often been the plan of someone other than Emelie. Happy to reside in a life of luxury she may have been, but she was one of the most frugal individuals Césaire had ever met. Perhaps, he surmised, it was yet another trait he could now chalk up to her immortality. With everything in the world far more fleeting than herself, he could understand her willingness to hold onto what she had as opposed to unnecessarily letting it go. "But no, my dear. Your false face will be just as beautiful as the rest of you."

Emelie wasn't sure why she blushed when Césaire poured out his heart the way he did. Maybe it was the French people's reputation for being romantics - a stereotypical trait they seemed to share with Italians like herself - that lent a certain merit to his words. Or maybe it was his charisma; the way he was able to play to the emotional needs of all he met, nobles and commoners alike. She'd fallen in love and been married before in another lifetime, but it hadn't yet got old to hear a mortal man tell her that they loved her and, more thrillingly, for them to show it. "I hope you won't bankrupt us all on my account, Césaire," she warned with a smile. Ever the cautious one. "Just remember that my face isn't actually a scarred ruin."

"I would never be able to forget, Emelie." Momentarily torn between wanting to pluck the mask from his wife's face and to leave it be, Césaire allowed his eyes to settle on the outer shell shrouding Emelie's face from his view. His mind was ablaze with ideas of just how this Venetian mask would look. Although hopefully made by the masters of carnival masks, he had already decided that this would be nothing so gaudy and garish. He was yet to discuss it with her, but he wanted the masked Countess to be just as elegant as the one he'd married.

However, what his dreams failed to take into consideration was the amount of waiting that would be involved in a project such as this. Just getting a response from the Italian mask makers he'd contacted would take, at the very least, a week or more. It had been a couple of days now since he had dispatched his trusted courier on the road to Venice and, even with a powerful young horse, clear roads and fair weather, he doubted that his missive had yet got far beyond the Italian border. Venice was at the opposite side of the head of the country, nearer its eastern border which he'd only ever read about in books. "Though there are other concerns we have to consider beyond how you look."

"Such as?"

"How will you eat?" It was one valid question amongst many. Admittedly, not a tricky one, but it was a logistical concern. "If we're entertaining guests at the dinner table, you would have to go without food - and drink, too, for that matter - until such a time you could eat in private."

"Then that is what I will do." Her accepting smile went unseen, but she couldn't help but do it anyway. "In these past few days, our servants have risen to far worse challenges and conducted themselves more than admirably, wouldn't you say?" A few of the younger maids were still a little shaken up by seeing their much-admired Countess shot dead in the garden and still couldn't help but stop and stare whenever they passed her by. It was an understandable reaction for them to have, even after she and Césaire had revealed that she was immortal, but Emelie had tried to be just as personable and approachable as she had been before. For the time being, at least, it had helped. She might have been able to live forever, but she was still human; no more or less divine than they were. They shouldn't have thought of her as anything beyond them.

She certainly didn't. "You have a point." Just as he expected he would when his father eventually passed on from the mortal realm, leaving him as the true head of the family in more than symbolic succession, Césaire would muddle through this latest situation and lead his peers and servants in doing the same. He and the household were a cohesive unit, regardless of everyone's place in the hierarchy. One simply could not function without the rest. "Speaking of which, I think I'll visit the kitchen; see how the cooks are getting along with dinner. Why don't you get accustomed to wearing that mask and I'll come and join you later?"

Having decided to remain in Italy until his master's acquaintances had composed their response, the courier's return to France was delayed by the better part of a week. Upon his return, Césaire and everyone else at the Bellerose manor had been steadily growing more accustomed to seeing Emelie with the masquerade mask perpetually concealing her face. As word had trickled out into the surrounding areas that she had somehow survived her harrowing ordeal, concerned paragons of nobility had each made their respective appearances. To act as though the mask on her face was some sort of comforter - flinching away and growing panicked whenever someone reached out to touch it - was initially hard on the eternally young Countess.

Having never tried her hand at acting before now, her peformance was a little forced in places but, with most endeavours, it was nothing that couldn't be solved with sufficient time. And, as her husband now knew, she had an ample supply of that particular commodity. Regardless, the courier had returned with good news. With their legion of apprentices and students proficient enough to hold the fort for the duration of a sojourn north to France, they had relayed word to Césaire that, following the finishing touches of a few projects for a high-profile ball for the great and the good of Venice, they would set out on the road north to central France as soon as they were able.

Which left Emelie with little else to do but wait. In the sanctity of her bedroom, the mask was safe to remove. Not even her husband entered their bedroom without permission while she was in there and, with her new facial adornment lying haphazardly on the bed, she'd been gazing out of the window, watching the world go by. With the room offering a view of the manor's rear garden, there was little danger of her unmarred face being seen by the guests. Normally, she would have been admiring the view outside but, with guests now prone to showing up at any moment, it was safer for her to entertain her myriad interests indoors whenever possible.

The knock at the door behind her was the first attention-grabbing noise she'd heard in over an hour and, after a couple of seconds delay, she allowed her voice to ring out. "Enter." Just loud enough for the door handle to twist in response, revealing a young brown-haired maid in the midst of an awkward attempt to make her way into the Countess' bedroom without dropping the serving tray she was delicately holding in at least one hand. At only eighteen, Lilianne was the youngest member of the serving staff by nearly a decade and unlike her colleagues, who already had months if not years of experience under their belt both under the Belleroses and elsewhere, she had come into Césaire's employ a day or two before the garden party. Barely enough time to settle in and learn the basics of her profession, but Emelie had always had a soft spot for the inexperienced.

It gave her flashbacks of over a century ago, when she had been the inexperienced maid without a clue what to do. She knew just how the young woman felt and, before there was an opportunity for protest, she moved into position to meet the maid's gaze the moment she turned around. "Let me help you, Lilianne." A smile crossed both their faces as, with slight reluctance, the maid handed the tray over to the Countess, scurrying back to close the door behind her while Emelie carried the tray - which she could now see was ferrying the lunch she'd just missed - over to her desk.

"Do you... enjoy helping me, Countess Bellerose?"

"Please." She didn't enjoy standing on ceremony or propriety when it wasn't necessary. Regardless of who she'd married, she was from just as common a background as any who served under her. "In here, Emelie is enough." There weren't many who got this degree of treatment from her. While she was accomodating and fair to everyone in the household, she was lenient on the "rules" to a precious few beyond her husband and the butler who had served three generations of his family. It never got old to see the surprise appear on their faces when she told them how they could address her in so personal a location. "And yes, I do."

"Why..?"

"I wasn't always a countess, dear." Ignoring her food for the moment, she returned to the maid's side and, with a gentle arm across her shoulders, ushered her over towards the bed. It was the most comfortable piece of furniture in the room by far, whether for lying or sitting on and, with a gentle sweep of her hands beneath her backside, Emelie had shifted enough of her dress to comfortably sit herself down. A few moments later, Lilianne followed her lead, plonking herself down beside her. "Once upon a time, I was a maid, too. Just like you."

Like everyone else, Lilianne had been present when the Count had explained that Emelie had survived not through the grace of God, but through an otherworldly resilience borne from her immortality. A secret that she was now dutybound to take to the grave, but one which filled her with wonder reminiscent of the fairy tales she'd heard as a child. Only now she was actually talking to a fairy tale. "Before I was born, Cou-.. um... Emelie?"

The countess let out a quiet chuckle. "Over a century before, yes." She'd started to reminisce about what, to her husband, would have been historical accounts bordering on antiquity with him ever since her "return" from the grave but, with Lilianne, it was different. Being so young, she couldn't help but feel that, in some way, she was a mother speaking to her daughter, regaling her with all the stories and wordly advice she'd amassed over the years. "The house I served was nothing compared to this but, to me at the time, it may as well have been the royal court. Everything was so... beautiful and expensive compared to what I'd had as a child. I spent fifteen years there, serving the man who had employed me as well as his children; just long enough to see a couple of their first children be born before I decided to leave."

It was a few moments before the maid spoke again. Although she wanted to be just as hard-working as everyone else, there was something about hearing the stories of a woman almost ten times as old as she was that enthralled her. She would have loved to sit in the Countess' bed chamber and listen to her talk until the sun went down. "I don't understand why you would leave." The Countess had, after all, watched three generations of a family come into being, grow older and, in the case of the man who had agreed to employ her, die. With such a connection to them, why would she choose a day to collect her belongings and... just go? "Did leaving bring you here?"

"It's complicated," Emelie sighed, choosing to ignore one question in favour of answering the other. "While I could quite easily have remained there and served their family forever, my, uh... my gift also means that I possess eternal youth. My face has simply not changed in a century." How best to explain the rules set out before her by her mother; a woman she hadn't seen in so very long? "I don't leave because I want to. I leave because my continued presence in one place will eventually breed suspicion. My... my mother taught me that so long ago and I have done my best to heed her words ever since."

"Were you tempted to leave Count Bellerose after..." Try as she might, Lilianne couldn't bring herself to explicitly say it. She couldn't talk about someone's death when that very same someone was sitting right beside her. "...after what happened at the party?"

"Yes." Why should she hide it? Her personal rules were ironclad. This was the first time she'd actually deviated from them since her mother - Magda Panzavecchia - had laid them out for her to absorb. Understandable and perfectly reasonable rules that were there to protect her as much as those she cared about.

"Why did you remain?"

There really was only one reason for her stupidity. One reason why she was continuing on with this elaborate charade and giving serious credence to the notion that commissioning some artisans from Venice to make her a bespoke mask - out of porcelain, of all things - which she would wear for the remainder of the lives of just about everyone currently living in the palatial Bellerose manor bar herself and possibly the maid sat beside her. And to say that reason only made it sound, at least to part of her, all the more utterly ridiculous.

"I love my husband far too much."

~-~-~-~

"He said that they need a large working space; one with as much natural light as possible." It hadn't taken the Bellerose house particularly long to realise that Italian was the preferred language of the visiting artisans, especially the elder of the two. Being a fifty-something man who had lived in the centre of Venice his whole life, he hadn't had much use for learning French. He'd simply worked through interpreters and intermediaries. Emelie, on the other hand, had no such issues. The virtue of possessing limitless time to learn whatever she wished meant that she was now fluent in both languages, something which came as a surprise to both her husband and staff. "Easy access to the outside would be helpful, but not essential. They can work around that."

"You... speak Italian, Emelie?" His immortal wife, it seemed, was always going to be full of surprises. Just what had she learned in the lifetimes which had led her to him? Césaire doubted he had the time to have all of his questions about Emelie's life answered. Realising that he wasn't going to be much use when communicating with the artisans face-to-face, he'd elected to stay quiet. Quiet and rather relieved that someone under his roof could translate for him. The artisan's lead apprentice could speak a bit of French, but nowhere near enough to accurately translate from one language to the other.

"I have spoken Italian for longer than they have, dear," she remarked, flashing her husband a brief smile. "Both of them, in fact. Don't worry. I think I'll be able to remember all the details we discussed." The previous night, the couple had thrown ideas between one another about how Emelie's mask - the adornment that would essentially become her new face for decades - would look. Emelie had entertained the notion of looking perpetually glamorous in case they were invited to parties in the future, while Césaire had wanted the mask to be a glistening jewel of beauty; a partially abstract representation of how his wife appeared to him in his dreams.

By way of compromise, Emelie set about explaining to the artisans how both of their ideas should be combined. Painted lips and eyelashes to represent the layers of make-up women such as herself were mandated to wear on formal occasions, with swirling silver-and-crimson floral shapes to represent her husband's imagination, with perhaps the odd line of gemstones here and there to catch the light. While the majority of the work still had to be done in an actual workshop, due to portable versions of the equipment required not being invented yet, the artisans could at least deal with the first few steps at the Bellerose manor.

The first of which was to take measurement after measurement of Emelie's face. After asking her to sit down, the older of the two artisans set about placing each and every inch of the Countess' immortal features under immense scrutiny. As well as needing to ensure that the mask would rest correctly upon her face, this was one of the only stages where he could make notes of where points of discomfort could occur. Apparently, the Countess was planning to wear the mask not just for an upcoming ball as was the norm, but almost perpetually; treating it as as much a part of her attire as her underwear. At first, he thought he'd misheard her or her command of Italian had hidden some of the nuance away but, as it became apparent that she was as good at speaking Italian - if not better at it - than he was, he realised that she really did want to wear the mask forever.

Payment wasn't an issue. Césaire had made sure of that. He had needed to call in a couple of favours as well as owe a friend a couple more, but the artisans were guaranteed to head back to Venice happy. Under the pretenses of offering to fetch drinks for the artisans as they worked, Lilianne had given Césaire an excuse for her to stay and watch the process unfold. Emelie's facial expression was as blank as she could muster as various measuring devices were placed against her skin, charting the length, width and angles of just about everything between her neck and hairline. Her eyes had slid shut ages ago and it was hard for Lilianne to tell if her mistress had actually fallen asleep. It was relaxing for her and she was simply watching.

"Serva..?" The first couple of times, the artisan's apprentice had politely translated for her but, after the fourth (or was it the fifth?) time, Lilianne knew just who the old man was addressing and what he wanted. "Acqua, per favore." Although the Italians were famous for their wine - though, in comparison to the French, not so much for producing it - the artisan abstained from alcohol whenever he worked. Sobriety bred divine precision, he always said. When one's mind was able to utterly focus on a task, it was as if their hands were guided by God, leading them to produce masterworks of which they could be pleased. Talent was half of the process. The rest was simple faith that the designs would work out in the end.

"Of course, sir." Lilianne didn't really mind if he couldn't understand her response. The fact that she responded was an autonomous reflex; something she'd been trained to do ever since she'd started working at the manor. Within minutes, she'd rushed off to the kitchen and brought a jug of water, which she was intent on using to refill the glass she'd also brought along whenever the man asked for her services again. After handing it over, she heard a brief utterance of what she presumed was thanks before the artisan's gaze flitted back to the statuesque Emelie.

By the time the artisans' work was done and Emelie was permitted to move once more, the once-requested natural light of the afternoon had given way to the dusk of a late evening. Rather than send the artisans home, leaving them to travel through the night where they could potentially be set upon by any manner of dangers which littered the land, Césaire and Emelie had invited them to dinner and allowed them to stay the night before departing in the morning. It was the least they could do for entertaining their strange request. For the duration of the meal, as well as a considerable amount of time afterward, the four of them - with the assistance of both Emelie and the artisan's apprentice - discussed the reasons why the French nobles had asked for the mask to be made.

As they'd practiced numerous times before, Césaire and Emelie made no mention of the latter's immortality or her apparent ability to heal from almost any imaginable wound. With the Italians only let in on the secret as far as the fabricated miracle they'd elected to use as a cover story for those outside the manor they still trusted, the Countess had no need to keep the mask close by and had entrusted Lilianne with the task of returning it to her bedchamber in her stead. The elder artisan, being a religious man, was the first to mutter a near-silent affirmation to his deific figure of choice. It wasn't something which needed translating and, as quickly as the subject had been brought up, talk of Countess Bellerose's 'near-death experience' was shelved for later.

All in all, the artisans' visit ended without incident. Nothing had been disclosed that the Belleroses had insisted remain secret and the Italians had a full set of facial measurements with which to begin the laborious process of crafting the concave shell of porcelain that would make up the base of Emelie's mask. By the time they left the following morning, it was already business as usual at the manor; the servants including Lilianne returning to their normal duties while Emelie and Césaire busied themselves with a rather more private endeavour.

In a desperate attempt to get some privacy, Emelie had shoved a chest of drawers in front of the door at her husband's behest and, with the curtains mostly drawn shut, they'd finally brought things back to normal in the bedroom for the first time since the shooting. Césaire, were he being honest to himself, would have wondered why he hadn't given in to his urges sooner while his wife had just been waiting for him to get the thoughts of her 'death' out of his head for long enough. Realising that their minds had aligned once again, Emelie had decided to give her husband something special; something less tedious than simply clambering into bed naked.

During another of her strolls around the manor, she had paid a visit to one of the larger rooms towards the back of the building. Nestled between the kitchen and its adjoining pantry was the servant's quarters; a whole wing of the palatial house dedicated to housing the staff in comfort. While not as luxurious a place to live as where she and Césaire called home, the communal area was a damn sight better than anything the men and women could have hoped for away from the grounds. While keeping the hierarchy in mind, Césaire's forebears had insisted that the servants want for nothing. They had all of the amenities and necessities that the Belleroses did; more than enough to keep them content.

As well as offering rooms in which the servants could sleep, bathe and rest whenever they were off-duty, there was also a large-scale laundry in which they could keep their uniforms presentable. Knowing that they had decent supply of spares in case anything was rendered irreparable, all Emelie had to do in order to have unbridled access to said supply was to order whoever was within elsewhere. Of course, nobody would have dared protest if she had elected to tell the truth, given that she technically owned the room and everything in it, but she was leaving nothing to chance. The last thing she wanted was for rumours to start sweeping around the staff. Rumours that she and Césaire could control were one thing. Rumours that they couldn't which carried the risk of passing beyond the manor's walls were quite another.

With the chatty off-duty maids out of the servant's storehouse, the Countess set about her objective, bundling a dark-coloured dress into a small bag along with a white apron and hairband before making her way back to the main body of the manor. Having wanted to try something new - at least for Césaire - Emelie had 'borrowed' a complete maid's uniform and, after sequestering it in her closet for the rest of the day, had chosen her time alone to don the whole thing for her husband's pleasure. After a moment or two of surprise at the sight which he beheld, he'd taken to his wife's temporary new role rather well. It was likely going to be the only way he would ever be able to have sex with a maid and get away with it and, like many things he'd learned about his wife over the past week or so, her obvious kinky side was something he could definitely grow to enjoy.

After all, certain parts of him already had.

~-~-~-~

Three weeks went by before the Venetian artisans returned to the Bellerose manor. The somewhat ill-fitting masquerade mask had well and truly become a fixture on the Countess' face as both she and everyone else did their best to integrate its presence into their day-to-day life. When faced with the logistics of the situation in their entirety, Césaire was a little surprised at how little had actually changed. Other than more frequently seeing an empty space where his wife would normally sit at the dinner table and one of the servants ferrying the expertly-cooked food to her room, the routines of all involved in the colossal charade weren't all that different.

As well as a veritable cornucopia of enamel paints with which they could make the Bellerose's designs a reality, the artisans had also brought the completed porcelain base with them; securely housed in a velvet-padded box until the time came to present their work to their latest patrons. Still unpainted, the mask was a blank representation of Emelie's face, the measurements from their last visit serving to capture every last contour of the flesh covering her skull. To say that porcelain had been a difficult material with which to work was an understatement. With each attempt at the complex shape having to be hewn by hand, it had taken days just for them to meet with failure.

Thankfully, the successful culmination of their work had given the artisan and his apprentices a lot of practice along the way, affording them far more confidence in replicating the procedure in future. At the moment, though, the immaculate piece intended for Countess Emelie Bellerose was the first and only porcelain face mask in existence; a more perfect expression of love and wealth impossible to find. "Simply incredible work," Césaire spoke quietly, his face a picture of disbelief while Emelie translated on his behalf. "I wasn't entirely certain that this would even be possible. You have definitely proven me wrong, sir."

Elated that the Count approved of his effort thus far, the artisan opened up a large wooden box, inside which lay a collection of high-quality enamel paints, the requisite fine brushes with which to transfer them onto the pristine porcelain canvas and, at Césaire's request, a pot containing a not-so-insignificant number of small "gemstones". Diamonds would have been impractical, even for French nobility, so the artisan had instead asked for expertly-cut pieces of blunted glass. It was a method he'd used before and, with such adornments on clothing rarely being subject to close scrutiny, the only requirement he sought was that the final product simply looked the part.

In order to provide a line along which the fake gems could be set, the artisan had taken an artistic liberty and cut a slender channel down from the crown of the mask to a point above the wearer's left eyebrow. It would make for a focal point for the painted designs to come and, with it being the opposite side of the face to the one on which Emelie had been shot, he felt that the aesthetic choice would prompt conversation at formal parties. He'd told Césaire as much, albeit in Italian, leaving Emelie to deal with it. "The gap is so the false gemstones can be set alongside it, dear," she explained inbetween reassurances to the artisan that they both still approved of the decision he'd made behind their back. "Think of it as painting the background separately to the subject of a portrait."

With everything explained, there wasn't much left to do but remind the artisan of what they wanted the mask's painted design to look like before leaving him to work his magic. Similar to their last visit, Emelie had fetched Lilianne and instructed her to diligently field the artisans' requests for sustenance as and when they were needed. As ever, she'd been all too happy to oblige and, with all the arrangements made, Césaire and Emelie left the large room - the same one in which the Countess' facial measurements had been taken - together. The couple spent the rest of that afternoon eagerly awaiting word that the mask was finally complete. It wasn't technically a coronation, but Césaire felt that the occasion warranted some form of ceremony. His wife didn't really agree at first but, after being convinced to picture a scene in which the servants gathered to watch her put on the mask for the very first time and see how it complimented her full noble regalia, she couldn't help but feel a little giddy at the prospect.

"Why do I allow you to goad me into such things, Césaire..?" Standing before a full-length dress mirror, Emelie let out a gentle sigh as she suveyed her underwear-clad body, twisting herself at the hips from one side to the other before her gaze wandered off to the side, where a pearl white ball gown stood, draped over a wooden dummy formed to match a feminine figure. Although not the very same one, it was rather reminiscent of the gown she'd worn at the wedding reception; the gown she'd essentially died in. With an embroidered sky-blue pattern that encircled her countless times, bursting into plumes of floral elegance every foot or so, the whole thing - according to the tailor who had spent day after day creating it specifically for her wedding - was designed to give the aesthetic of a leading ballet dancer, meshed with the formality befitting a noble ball.

She'd adored it back then, just as she still adored it now. And, with such an important moment in her latest lifetime a scant few hours away, she couldn't think of a better outfit in which to greet it. "Because, my dear, I still like to believe my words still have some sway over an angel." Her head dipped as an embarrassed smile crept over her lips. The confession of her immortality had only served to increase the frequency with which her husband saw fit to win her over with affirmations of her beauty. They'd already cast aside the literal tenets of their wedding vows by refusing to allow death - as temporary as it apparently was for Emelie - to part them. Césaire knew he would eventually grow old while she remained the same, so he'd elected to keep reminding her how much she loved her while she was still inclined to reciprocate.

With her hair as prepared as it would ever be, and the servants who had helped make it so having been sent away, Emelie stepped over towards the gown. "I will need your help." With no further prompting, Césaire was by her side once more. She'd reassured him time and again that extricating the ball gown from the dummy - and, in so doing, allow her to wear it - was a simple task and, after a moment's indecision, he was hoisting the gown free from its wooden prison before allowing it to unfurl once more. The dress was deceptively heavy, layered in such a way as to allow the skirt to billow out from the wearer's hips. Hoops, petticoats and various other tricks of the trade had been employed and as he turned the upper section around in his arms, he prepared the colossal garment for his awaiting wife. "You see?", she remarked, threading her legs into the gown one by one, lifting them up so that they fell toe-first into the gaping hole of expensive fabric. "It isn't as difficult as the servants make it out to be."

Now standing in the centre of the gown, all Emelie had to do in order to wear it was reach down and hoist the whole thing up to her shoulders so that her arms could thread through the sleeves. From there, it was left to Césaire to stride around behind her and zip the whole thing up, allowing his wife's body to finally take the strain of hauling the gown around. "How close, do you think, are the Italians to finishing your mask?" Césaire couldn't help but feel impressed at the level of craftsmanship the artisan mask maker had exhibited upon his arrival. The amount of time and care it must have taken for them, not only to get the dimensions correct, but to create a mask that stood up to the standards they felt were required were simply baffling to him. He was definitely no artist. Whenever something artistic had required his attention, he had either deferred to the superior experience of whoever was crafting it, or had sought his father's counsel on the matter.

Thankfully, however, Emelie seemed to have a discerning eye for the arts. Her fluent command of the Italian language certainly helped, as well. "I told them to send Lilianne to fetch us when they're ready to present the mask to us," was the explanation his wife gave. While he was ever so slightly anxious, she was utterly calm. "I even taught the mask maker how to say 'go and tell the Countess we're ready' in French before I left the room."

"So that was what we kept me waiting," Césaire responded, finally smiling once more. "Was he a good student?"

"For a man his age, I'd say so." As rugged, timeworn and graying as the elder artisan was, he was only a third her age. To her, he was quite young but, as she was abundantly aware, time would never have the significance to her that it did for those around her. To stave off the cold grasp of death for five decades in this day and age was, in itself, an achievement to be lauded. There were alarmingly few in the lower classes who ever achieved it. There wasn't much in the way of medicine beyond folk remedies and prayer and, while she wished things would some day be different, she had long since made peace with the fact that it wasn't. And that none save herself would be around to witness any remarkable change to the situation. "The younger you are, the easier it is to learn a language. With... myself as an exception, that is why it's only scholars and diplomats who have such skills."

In order to avoid her legs falling asleep, Emelie had elected not to sit down, a course of action she adhered to now that she was dressed in her formal gown. Instead, she slowly paced around the bedroom, keeping her husband in view whenever possible. The billowing skirt shifted from side to side as the fabric vainly attempted to break from the thin hoops which had been sewn to its underside. With practice, looking elegant as she demurely strode from place to place was effortless for her. Whether she was in a set of matching heels or, as she was now, barefoot, her paces were deliberately small, giving the dress enough of a lead over her legs in order to stop herself treading on it. She'd seen numerous women - from fledgling debutantes to older heiresses - fall flat on their faces as they tried to grow accustomed to a new gown. On the outside, she had to remain polite; express concern over the mishap and offer assistance. But, after a while, she couldn't help but find it a little funny.

"How do you think the mask will look?" Emelie had caught a glimpse of the artisans' paint box on her way out of the door following her impromptu linguistics lesson. With so many colours and materials at their disposal, she had no way of knowing how many of them they would decide to use. The only thing either of them knew for sure was that the mask would in some way be incorporating a series of false gemstones; costume jewellry, basically. "You are the one who's going to be looking at it, after all."

It was a shame he couldn't tear Emelie out of the gown he'd just put her in. Instead, Césaire settled for intercepting her on her way across the room and lovingly sliding his arms around her waist. His sordid fantasies would have to wait. "As long as I am able to imagine the beauty wearing it," he began, capturing his wife's lips in a gentle kiss before she could protest. "They could completely ignore my suggestions. With you in my life, Emelie, nothing else is important to me. I know that our time together will, one day, seem fleeting to you, but I hope you'll always have a place in your heart for me."

"Yes, Césaire. I will." Even though she was now married to him and a social equal, Césaire Bellerose was always going to be that dreamy nobleman who sauntered into the sleepy life of a French orchard girl and turned the whole thing upside-down. If time was going to command her to eventually forget this man, then it was going to have one hell of a fight on its hands. "I've... never wished for the power to make anyone immortal like me as much as I do whenever I see you. If I can't find a way for you to live forever, then I will make sure my memories of you do instead. I promise."

Even when Lilianne knocked on the door some fifteen minutes later, the couple were more than content to stand there, saying nothing. Maids were prided for their ability to politely wait, after all.

By the time Lilianne had led Emelie and Césaire back to the room in which the Venetian artisans had spent the past few hours working diligently on their craft, the large room which flanked one of the manor's gardens had been filled with many of the staff in the Bellerose's employ. Having explained to anyone she passed along the way that the visitors had finally finished Emelie's mask and were awaiting her presence so that she could finally put it on, she had encouraged her fellow servants to pass the news on to anyone they met and, in the short time it had taken her to get from the gallery room to her employers' bedchamber and back, more than a dozen maids, butlers, gardeners and the like had taken leave of their duties for the moment to be in attendance.

For the first time in a good few weeks now, Emelie emerged with her face completely visible, having left the masquerade mask behind. Her slightly tanned skin rose up from the elegant upper trim of her dress and met with a sea of lightly curled black hair. In truth, she preferred to have it arrow-straight but, at her husband's urging, she'd taken to having her servants curl it for her in order to make it appear less ordinary. Nobles, especially the women, were meant to look as much like a picture of beauty as possible when around their peers. It was a subtle method of oneupsmanship in which they had been embroiled for centuries; nobody really knowing why anymore save for the reason of vanity.

"He is..." Forgetting that Emelie was fluently bilingual, the younger of the two artisans found himself jumping into the role of interpreter as his master spoke. The mask, now fully painted, had been returned to the presentation box in which he'd brought it in preparation for the Countess' arrival. Rather than cut him off, she allowed him to continue talking. If she was going to take something away from this, then it was only fair that the artisans did so as well. The money was a given, but some linguistic practice wouldn't have gone amiss. "...he is happy that you are, uh... permitting him to make the mask for you. He is also happy that he was given, uh..." For a moment, he trailed off, somewhat stumped at the sentence the older man had formed. "Apologies. W-What is French for... sfida..?"

Emelie was ahead of him. Having listened to the two men near simultaneously, she had already discerned the context in which the word had been used. "A challenge." An appreciative smile crossed the younger man's face. Switching to Italian for the moment, she turned her attention to the older man, focusing intently on the box clasped in his hands. "I also appreciate that you were willing to make this mask for me. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been even to form the mask itself, let alone paint it to match our shared vision." Taking it as his cue, the older man approached, slowly opening up the expensive-looking box and allowing the Belleroses to gaze upon the wonder he'd created.

The pair of them were instantly rendered speechless as their eyes were drawn down to the artwork which had been painstakingly layered atop the white porcelain mask. The lips and eyes of the mask had first been dressed in painted make-up; the lips in a glazed crimson, while the eyes had been encircled in black and accompanied by a set of slender eyelashes. Towards the upper part of the mask, a sweeping section of the forehead had been delicately ground away to create a rift that curved above the left eye like an eyebrow before darting upward to where Emelie's hairline would reside. Along its edges, the false diamond had been glued into place in a row; one-by-one to create an unblemished, sparkling line.

To frame the mask, much of the rest of the space had been decorated with swiring floral masses of silver and crimson, speckled with coiling black stalks upon which tiny yellow petals had been allowed to grow. The whole thing, as Emelie could see through the eyeholes, was to be secured to her face by way of two lengths of strong red ribbon. And, as she stared down at the piece of art that would become her public visage for at least the next few decades, she found that she couldn't wait to put it on. "May I..?" She didn't need to speak Italian for the artisan to get the gist of what she was requesting and, with his permission, she gently hoisted the mask from the box and, with the utmost care, turned it over in her hands and held it against her face.

To her surprise, despite having sat on a chair for hours during the artisans' previous visit to allow for their collection, the mask's numerous measurements allowed it to sit perfectly flush against her skin, as if it had always meant to be worn. "Césaire? Could you tie the ribbons for me? I daren't let go of this." He complied and, within moments, she could feel the toughened - yet still smooth - silk gliding up against the back of her head. A few knots later and the mask was protected from the machinations of gravity. Like the masquerade mask she'd been wearing before, her peripheral vision was robbed from her as soon as the porcelain shell was fixed into place but, as she turned around to face her husband and her servants, she could clearly see the looks on their faces as they finally saw the Countess in her newly-masked glory. "I love it." She didn't even need to look in the mirror to know her opinion.

"As do I." All that was left for the Belleroses to do was to settle the matter of the Venetians' payment for their meticulous work.

~-~-~-~

As it often seemed to do in the height of July, the sun had started to dip beneath the treeline of the distant forest; a well-trodden thoroughfare at least twenty miles from the edge of the manor grounds. The lower the sun sank, the more the sky above it was tinged red, the similarly tainted clouds which littered the sky spanning for miles in all directions. Now at the age of forty-two, Césaire had found himself starting to gradually slow down and prefer a more sedate pace when things got quiet. While still nowhere near as prevalent as his father's had been, his liking for stealing peaceful moments from the day was starting to reflect the onset of his maturity.

He wasn't the young and attractive heir anymore. With his father having died peacefully in his sleep almost a decade ago to the day, he was now the fully-fledged patriarch of the Bellerose family and, as he'd insisted to himself back then, it was high time he started to act like it. He may have been slightly loathe to do so, but it was the perfect opportunity to think about thing like 'settling down' and whatever else his father had been pondering while he'd been surging through his teens. With his wife by his side, he could think of no better woman with whom to do so. With the wisdom bestowed upon her by the virtue of immortality, there was no shortage of wisdom and experience upon which he could freely draw and, with her as his advisor in equal measure to his lover, he hadn't yet put a single foot wrong.

Although she'd warned him time and again how potentially jarring it would have felt to see her face never change as he grew older, nothing had really prepared him for that particular truth. While his hair had now started to grey out near his temples and the wrinkles become a more permanent fixture on the more mobile areas of his face, Emelie looked just as young and pure as she had on the day they'd married. On the one hand, his internal vanity loved that particular fact; how his wife would never lose her good looks. But, on the other, it had started to get rather depressing at times. He'd hidden it well enough, but the prospect of her leaving him behind through no fault of either of them was gradually becoming a reality.

"Thank you, Lilianne. You can leave the tray here. Emelie will no doubt want to share this with me." Mid-way through her thirties, the formerly inexperienced maid who'd once resided in the same village as Emelie had now adopted the position once held by Tristan; the butler who had originally been employed by his grandfather. Having grown close to the Belleroses over the years, especially to Emelie, she had been the first port of call whenever they were in need of someone to take care of an important duty. When Césaire's father died, leaving him as the next in line to assume the helm of the family, she had been in charge of organising the funeral service.

And, more importantly, she had been the perfect choice to act as Emelie's midwife when she had given birth to his children. The eldest - their daughter, Mathilde - had been born just in time for her grandfather to see her before being taken ill. She hadn't been old enough to understand why he hadn't awoken after 'falling asleep' for the last time but, as the years went on, Césaire and Emelie marked the day by taking her to visit the memorial they'd erected in the garden. It was her father who had all the stories to tell, of course, but it was the only way the couple could really tell their daughter about the man she barely remembered.

Just three years ago, Lilianne had helped to deliver Mathilde's younger brother. Tradition dictated that Léonard - once he was ready - would take over from his father as the head of the Bellerose family but, for the entirety of their son's life thus far, Césaire and Emelie had discussed precisely how things would pan out once death snatched away another member of the family. With Emelie's immortality, Césaire felt it stood to reason that his wife would assume the role of an interim matriarch until such a time she deemed her son worthy to take the mantle his father had left for him. The plan wouldn't have to be enacted for (hopefully) another twenty years, but it was good to plan everything out in advance.

"Shall I get Léonard ready for bed?" For a three-year-old, eight in the evening was a late hour for him to be awake but, a short distance away, both Césaire and Lilianne could see him, happily playing in the garden under the supervision of his elder sister. Like their parents, only the best attire would suffice for them and, even in this far-from-formal setting, it was clear that Mathilde and Léonard were the children of nobility. "I think you should, yes." Césaire nodded slowly, lifting the recently refilled wine glass to his lips. "I'm sure Emelie would appreciate the help."

"As you wish." With a small bow of her torso, Lilianne left the Count's side and made her way out across the grass to separate the two children for the evening. With no little brother to play with, Mathilde soon succumbed to pre-teen wanderlust and set off towards the manor in search of some other way to occupy her time. The siblings got on incredibly well. Where other families would have borne witness to incessant teasing from the elder sibling to their junior, Mathilde had almost never bullied her brother. There had been the odd occasion where Léonard had accidentally bashed his sister with a stuffed toy, but that was about it. They were precisely what he and Emelie had dreamed of as parents: well-behaved and polite children.

"Let me guess." Emelie's voice - unchanged even after twenty years - eventually rang out as she approached some twenty minutes later. Having been tied up with visitors elsewhere in the manor, it had taken her this long to politely see them off. Wearing her mask in the presence of the public had now become second-nature to her; the decorative porcelain shell feeling more like a part of her body than a wearable ornament. Quite often, she found herself forgetting she was wearing it, leaving her voice slightly muffled in situations where it didn't need to be. "You asked Lilianne to fetch you a 1726?"

"A 1721, actually." Césaire quietly chuckled, amused at how easily his wife was able to read his mannerisms. "The world gave me two beautiful things that year, don't you know?"

"Yes, dear." Claiming the other seat at the garden table, Emelie sat herself down and began to pour some of the remaining wine into the empty glass, a smile shining behind her mask. "Your favourite vintage of this particular wine... and me. Even I've lost track of the number of times you've recited this particular line."

"Even you?" Setting his glass down, Césaire gently tapped the bridge of his nose with his finger; a coded gesture to remind his wife that, once again, she'd forgotten to remove her mask. If she was planning on drinking with him, it would have been wise to get rid of the obstacle that would otherwise stop her from doing so. "Does that mean I should stop?"

Interrupting her intent to drink for a moment, Emelie untied the silk ribbon and gently set the mask down on the table, exchanging it for the expensive wine glass Lilianne had left for her. "Never." Even in middle age, Emelie could still see the dreamy, slightly rugged good looks in her husband's features. Pleasing aesthetics, it seemed, took a while to fade from the Bellerose men. "I thought about what you asked me a few nights ago."

"And?" While, unbeknownst to them, a highly advanced topic for the time, Césaire had pondered aloud the concept of hereditary inheritance. Having drawn parallels between certain aspects of their bodies which had been present in those of their children; Mathilde inheriting her father's eyes while Léonard had adopted his mother's dark hair, he had wondered if other things could be passed on from one generation to the next too. Namely, Emelie's immortality. Would the Bellerose bloodline, by virtue of their existence, potentially last forever?

"Honestly?" Leaning back in her chair, Emelie let out a small sigh. This was beyond even her. The finest minds of the age had barely grasped the concept of gravity. Understanding genetics was still generations away. "My... my mother would likely have a better idea on something like this. But... we've been apart for over a century now. I couldn't even begin to wonder where in the world she might be and, if she follows the rules which she imparted unto me when last we met, I have no way to know by what name she would call herself in this day and age. I'm... sorry. But I have absolutely no idea if Mathilde or Léonard will... be anything like me. I was younger than our daughter when my mother discovered that I was immortal and, up to now, I've seen nothing out of the ordinary with either of them."

If there was anything Emelie wanted more than anything in the world, it was to have a child that inherited her gift. She wanted something other than herself to mark the effect she'd had on the world. What was the point of trying to build a legacy as an immortal if it simply didn't last to achieve a state of permanence? "I don't... wish for either of them to be subjected to the way in which I discovered my gift, whether by pure chance or otherwise. I don't want us to lose one or both of our children if these assumptions of ours were wrong. If you want my advice. I... I think we should simply wait. There's every chance that the answers will arrive on their own."