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philtstone · 2 months

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Taylor Swift prompts! 5 for Anne/Aramis

#5 -- once upon a time, a few mistakes ago on a whim i returned to my old constance owns a small town inn au today and i thought what better way of filling this prompt than sharing an excerpt from the yet-unpublished chapter 5, "what happened to anne and aramis", which was meant to be a flashback sequence after the very dramatic late-night reveal that theyd slept together its very unlikely that ill ever be able to finish this fic, but i do love it so much.

For all the goodness in his heart, it must be stated that René Aramis d’Herblay has been, and always shall be, the sort of young man who very frequently makes mistakes. This is not his fault, necessarily, nor can it be said that these mistakes are those of the Earth-shaking, life-destroying variety. Most, indeed, are fairly mundane, and have to do with simple things such as his daily intake of caffeine (too high) or the average hours of sleep he manages per night (too low). But perhaps the greatest mistake Aramis has made thus far in his life is not his childish impulse to neglect his piano lessons at the age of ten, nor his impetuous decision to join the army at age nineteen, nor even the stubborn insistence that he use his middle name as his first. In fact, some might argue that this last point was a perfectly allowable decision, though anyone who knows him could testify that the René suits him just as well, if not more, than Aramis ever has. No -- the greatest mistake Aramis makes in his youthful twenty-eight years on God’s green Earth is that he never once takes his father’s oft-repeated advice, and makes nearly all of his decisions with emotion, rather than logic.

Now, it would be remiss of the narrator not to point out that this is not a trait inherently faulty. Indeed, a young man of Aramis's education and reading might breeze through most of his life making decisions that are blessedly the correct choice despite their emotional backing, for a strong ideological basis, borne of a broad and illustrious education, is generally helpful in internally nudging a person’s mind in the right direction. Aramis, whatever other faults he may have, possesses this ideological basis perhaps unusually strongly for a young man his age.

Ana Maria Mauricia de Bourbon is not the first to notice this, nor the last. But she is the first to take it, and tuck it away in her heart, in a way that precious few others have. It is here, then, that the narrator must take yet another step away, and point the reader back to that fateful day wherein the fae, well-meaning wife of their little town’s incompetent mayor was nearly brained by a ceiling tile in the middle of Monsieur d’Herblay’s second-grade classroom.

On the afternoon of the day immediately after this incident, Anne donned her most autumn-appropriate cardigan (a soft cream-coloured cashmere), swept her hair up into its most sensible updo (the one bordering on severe, which Louis had always hated), and slipped her smallest pair of pearls into her ears (these, Anne knew, were barely visible, and brought no attention to her ears, which she believed to be her most shapely feature). Having thusly prepared herself, she took a deep breath, clasped the delicate gold chain of her favorite crucifix around her neck, and walked the short distance back to the public school to check on the state of Monsieur d’Herblay’s ceiling.

Monsieur d’Herblay’s ceiling was doing just fine, and his children -- for that was what he cheerfully called them -- were doing even better. They flocked her upon her gentle knock at the doorway, clambering over each other and disrupting their daily Reading Circle to be the first to greet her at the door. Chirped cries of, “Monsieur d’Herblay, Monsieur d’Herblay, Madame de Bourbon has returned!” and overloud “HELLO MADAME”s, and, most amusing of all: “are you dying, Madame de Bourbon?” rang out in abundance.

“Oh, no, I am in perfect health, Henri,” Anne had assured the little boy, clutching her handbag with perhaps more force than she might have usually. “The ceiling tile missed me, you see.”

“Were you very scared?”

“I don’t think I --”

“Did you think you were going to die?”

“Marie, I really don’t think --”

“I don’t think you were scared,” had declared Suzette, a little girl more rolly than polly, who enjoyed wearing corduroys at every given opportunity.

“She is a superhero,” whispered Victoire in agreement, from Suzette’s left, only she lisped most of the word, for she had just lost her two front teeth the night before.

“I am --”

“She is indeed.”

And here, the narrator may say that Anne felt once more rescued, just as she had been rescued from a terrible head injury the day before, as the lanky figure of Aramis swept smoothly through the children and in front of her, somehow managing to usher them back into a bad imitation of a half-moon and relative silence without uttering a single word. Anne wondered if this sort of skill was cultivated, or if he had simply possessed it since birth. (This was not a sign of her own naivete. To be sure, Aramis himself had no idea.) “Madame,” his smile was soft but infectious nonetheless -- Aramis had many of these smiles to give -- and Anne found her grasp on her handbag ease.

“I simply wanted to make sure that everything was in working order, Monsieur d’Herblay. It would be a shame if any of your students were injured by more falling ceilings, you see.”

“I’d protect them with my own life were that to happen, Madame,” said Aramis very seriously. The reader might have realized by now that Aramis was very rarely a truly serious sort of person, but that this was certainly one of those rarelies. “I assure you.”

“Like he protected you,” offers Henri, from around Aramis's leg.

Anne, whose skin was cursed to be fair and quite susceptible to flushing, turned pink. However, she did not deign to acknowledge this, but rather cleared her throat and squared her shoulders. This was a tactic that she had picked up from Constance. She found it was a great help in faking sensibleness when one felt a resounding lack of it. Sensibleness was something she needed tremendously just then, as she was suddenly infused with a surge of reckless courage.

“It was nothing,” said Aramis, smiling warmly, but was gently cut off by Anne’s voice, in it an odd note both hesitant and hopeful.

“Oh, it was certainly not nothing. In fact,” Anne took quite a deep breath, “I am in your debt, Monsieur, and as such, I would like to give you a token of my gratitude.”

Aramis blinked, a few times, and then said, “Oh?” very curiously. There was half a smile in his voice.

“Yes,” said Anne, taking a step forward and lifting her chin. Carefully, she reached around her neck and unclasped her crucifix, and then held it pretty and dangling in front of her. “A good luck charm -- for protection,” she explained. “In case there are any other falling ceiling tiles.”

“Would you not need it yourself,” asked Aramis, though his tall frame was already slightly bent over, as though instinctively anticipating her next move of clasping the necklace very carefully behind his collar.

Anne was determinedly trying not to let her fingers brush against the tanned skin of his neck as she fastened the chain, which was perhaps why she did not think before she said, “Oh, but I am sure you will always be there to rescue me again.”

She straightened, bringing her hands down abruptly and smoothing them carefully over the front of her blouse; she did not break eye contact with him, but did flush just a little more, contrite.

Aramis, however, was looking somewhat entranced. The children were watching the proceedings with rapt attention.

“Of course,” he said, his voice impossibly soft.

Anne could have sworn she was floating. She wasn’t sure if it was embarrassment or something else entirely that she could not have for the life of her identified just then, as she had very little experience with these things overall. “Yes,” agreed Anne, although there was nothing to really agree about. She then hesitated, surrounded by the colourful paper posters lining the walls alongside the children’s macaroni artwork, as people like Anne caught in such situations are sometimes wont to do. “Goodbye then, children,” she said, her voice a little high pitched, taking a step back to go and once more clutching her purse.

“Say goodbye,” Aramis had whispered loudly over his shoulder.

“Goodbye, Madame de Bourbon,” chanted the little class. Anne made it all the way to the doorway, before turning back to give the class a final little wave and a smile.

And Aramis had smiled back at her, as people like Aramis caught in such situations are sometimes wont to do, and it was for this smile that Anne did not leave the classroom and put the incident completely out of her mind, as she had vowed to do so as to save herself long stretches of internal embarrassment -- but instead, not a week later, returned.

Once again, in preparation, Anne donned her second-most autumn-appropriate cardigan (a delicate off-yellow wool), swept her hair up into its second-most sensible updo (elegant, but discreet), and slipped in her smallest pair of pearls (her ears, Anne thought, with a small pang of regret). Having thusly prepared herself, she took a deep breath, tucked her most cherished copy of C.S Lewis’s The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe into her handbag, and walked the short distance back to the public school.

Anne’s faint little knock on the door was noticed first by the sweet red-headed Henri, who leapt to his feet in the middle of Reading Circle and declared her presence with great gusto.

“Madame de Bourbon! Madame de Bourbon is here again, Monsieur!”

One hand paused over his guitar, Aramis had stilled as he looked up at her from their lopsided circle. There was a look on his face, one that neither Anne nor the children quite understood, but made everyone in the room feel as though something was about to Happen. He was still wearing her crucifix, Anne noticed, and for that she took a deliberate step into the classroom, inhaled silently (she would later confide to Constance that it felt far louder than it actually was), and reached into her handbag.

“I was -- I brought you a book for Reading Circle,” she said (Anne never blurted anything in her life, but it was a close thing), and held out The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe in front of her. “Monsieur. If you need another one, I thought that the children might enjoy --”

Anne's words came to a stop -- not because she was the sort of person who faltered, but rather because she was caught off-guard by the growing smile on Aramis's face, the kind that started small and grew to be enormous, like the lights of a Christmas tree flickering on when the electricity is a bit unreliable.

(You see, here, that Constance’s earlier narration was quite accurate.)

“Oh, but this is brilliant,” Aramis was saying, scrambling to his feet, guitar still in hand (it twanged a little where his knee bumped it), as Anne managed to focus on his voice, a smile of her own growing on her face. He stood properly and strode through their now disarrayed circle, half-turning back to the children and then swiveling back to face Anne, as though he did not know whether to address his class or the book or her. “This edition -- I’ve been looking for Lewis for years, but I’ve never found this one again, anywhere, I --” He looked up from the book -- “I had it as a kid -- my mother gave it to me, but I lost it when I moved away and she -- it’s the only one --”

“-- With the good illustrations!” Anne finished for him, her own smile shining like one might expect a fairytale star to do up close.

“Yes! You’ve read --”

“It’s my most prized copy,” Anne admitted, a little bit breathless, because the topic of books was always an exhilarating one.

“Well,” said Aramis, positively beaming. “I’ve found a kindred spirit, it seems! Kids -- guess what we’re going to be reading next!”

Anne had laughed, a bright, tinkling sound. The children were all, once again, watching with rapt fascination, which was an important detail, for, as we all know (but most forget), children are an awfully perceptive sort.

“I’m glad it was a good choice,” said Anne warmly, and Aramis turned back to her, grin still firmly painted on his face. His eyebrows raised, then, as though realizing something, and quickly held up a long finger in the universal gesture for Wait, just a moment, for you might be an angel and I think that I’m dreaming. Anne did not read this far into his finger-raise, but waited curiously as he turned around and nearly stumbled to his desk, depositing his guitar in the desk chair and lacking half of his usual grace in his enthusiasm.

“It’d be rude of me,” he started, rummaging through what Anne identified as a battered canvas backpack, covered in pins and marker and looking as though it was on its last legs, “not to give you something back, Henri, wouldn’t it be so awfully rude --”

“The rudest,” Henri confirmed solemnly, nodding at Anne with all the gravitas a seven-year-old boy might possess.

“Un-for-giff-ble,” added Victoire, nodding furiously.

“We’d sack him,” said Marie, as though they even had that sort of executive power.

“Oh, dear, you really don’t need to --” started Anne.

“-- Aha!” cried Aramis, and held up a book. “Constance says you enjoy Shakespeare, Madame, and Shakespeare is certainly too much for us struggling students to grasp --”

“I could grasp Shookspeare if you’d let me, Monsieur d’Herblay,” complained Suzette.

“I shall give you Hamlet tomorrow, little bird,” Aramis said, very seriously, before turning back to Anne and holding out what must have been the most battered collection of Shakespeare’s comedies that Anne had ever seen in her life.

Once again, for a moment, Anne felt -- and, indeed, this time looked -- as though she might be floating.

“Oh,” she said faintly, “this is wonderful. I don’t know how to -- I’ll return it as soon as I can, Monsieur --”

“Aramis,” said Aramis, interrupting her. And, perhaps for the first time that day -- that week -- that month -- Aramis felt his face heat up with a blush, the sort that creeps up on you in moments of great excitement, where you have just met a person whom you think to be the terribly decent sort. “Um, you could -- well, Madame, if we’re exchanging books.”

“It’d only be right,” agreed Anne solemnly, and held out a hand. “It is very good to meet you, Aramis. I’m Anne.”

“Anne,” said Aramis, trying out her name in his mouth.

(The narrator must be appropriately dramatic about these little moments, after all.)

They shook hands, the beaming smiles still present (but perhaps a little softer), and Henri tugged on the hem of Aramis's professional teacher-appropriate cable-knit sweater.

“Monsieur d’Herblay, may I call you Aramis too?”

Anne laughed.

Small moments such as these are actually not nearly as rare as we may believe them to be -- such as these referring to the small event of two souls knitting together over a mutual delight. For some, it may be ping pong. For others, long walks in gardens, or contemplation of the night sky. Still others may collide gently into one another because their dearly beloved pets decide to sniff at each other’s bottoms, and for some, their eyes widen at the discovery that their coffee order is the same, down to the brand of cream they prefer, and everything shifts a little bit.

For Anne and Aramis, it was not books -- as one might expect after all that -- but kindness.

#my writing #anne of austria #aramis d'herblay #anne x aramis #annamis #taylor swift prompt meme #the musketeers #bbc musketeers

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