Beyond Time (closed)

[KieranSoares]

"Oh, no, most of them have except those that were left hanging in the manor. The Queen owns most of them and they're in the local museum." He offered a smile, "Would you care to go see them? Some of his architecture plans and sculptures are there too.

 

[heartofcourage]

"His things are still there?" Dylan asked, stunned that they would have survived outside of Darkwood. "I would love to go and see them."

 

[KieranSoares]

"He was one of the finest artists of his time, of course they're still there. The paintings travel the world for special exhibitions during the summer, but they're usually all in the same museum during the rest of the year." He then added, "There's a few in there of a nameless woman, but the historians say she was Ashien's lover and she died very young. After that, he kept trying to paint her, but he could never finish any of them. Most of his surviving work is unfinished."

 

[heartofcourage]

Dylan felt her eyes tear up at the fact that he had kept her paintings and never finished one after she was gone. She had no idea that she had meant that much to him, but it was obvious that she never left his thoughts.

"That woman was me." She said softly. "We have to go see them. I have to see them."

 

[KieranSoares]

"We'll go just as soon as we're done eating," he nodded. "There's no reason to rush, we have plenty of time." Their food soon arrived, and once they were done, Dr. Elm took her out to the museum and into a lonely wing labeled 'A.V.Ghis Hall' and the first painting that greeted them was Dylandra's first of him, lounging in his chair with his arms crossed and Ballas at his feet. The next was the first Ashien had ever painted of Dylandra, lounging against Ballas. There were some from Ashien's years before Dylandra, but anything dated later than 1103A.D. was in a group of scrapped or unfinished canvases that had been kept to show how much a perfectionist Ashien had been with his work though most were fairly dark and gloomy, and the few finished paintings were of Ghis family members or of places in Darkwood. There was one portrait of Kiva that was unfinished, but the museum of course had no idea he was a werewolf and not a wolf or a hound Ashien had kept. The rest of the hall was filled with painstakingly-made but unfinished images of Dylandra, just doing simple things around Darkwood like sitting in the parlor for tea or joining Van's side to help him when his sight limited him. Perhaps the most painful was one of Dylandra at her easel with paint streaked on one cheek, smiling gladly as she painted her own masterpiece. Several of Dylandra's own works were scattered through the hall, marked 'Artist Unknown' but with plaques explaining they'd been the work of Ashien's wife who'd died the day they married. The plaques told the story that Ashien had told to his good friend King Henry, that Dylandra had suddenly fallen ill and died, and he'd buried her behind Darkwood. However, her body could not be found so there was some speculation that she'd disappeared or been killed. The only thing that had been in the grave was the only post-1103 painting of her that was finished, which now hung above the story plaque. It was a simple image of her peacefully asleep in their bed.

 

[heartofcourage]

Dylan couldn't help the tears that came when she saw the paintings. Kiva and Van were there, her sweet Ash, and some of his family. Darkwood looked as she always remembered it, but the most gut wrenching of all was the painting of her asleep in their bed. He had told her just that morning that he had wanted to paint her while she slumbered. He must have done it from memory after she disappeared and then never attempted to do any more.

"These are mine." She said softly, pointing to the few that had her unique signature at the bottom of them. "I always thought that I had been named after her, but I never thought in my wildest dreams that I actually was her. I can't believe he stayed at Darkwood instead of going home. His family would have comforted him."

 

[KieranSoares]

"It says here," Dr. Elm spoke up as he found another plaque beneath a small portrait of a slightly older Ashien, "he never left Darkwood except to lead the cavalry for King Henry, and he was wounded in Normandy in a war when he was forty and died in the King's palace... I've seen his grave before in the ruins of the old palace. He was buried near King William the Conqueror and King Henry's late wife, and then King Henry and Queen Elizabeth and Sir John Davies of London were all buried in a line near him later on. If I remember correctly, the tiger Ballas was buried with Lord Ashien too, he'd died in battle protecting his master."

Looking over, Dr. Elm knew this was all weighing heavily on Dylandra's heart. "But if what you say is true... then if we get you back, none of this would ever have happened. I wonder what else it would change..."

 

[heartofcourage]

"If I go back, I don't know what will happen." Dylan said as she looked towards the doctor. "I've been pulled back once before. When we were meeting with the king after he fought in a battle. I was pulled into the ruins of the castle, but it was brief and temporary. Van could always go between times without a problem and without the moonlight."

Her heart was aching fiercely to know that Ashien had died in battle so young. Ballas had gone with him. Of course, it was centuries ago and they were all long gone now. Even John.

"Would you take me to his grave?" Dylan asked, needing to be near him again.

 

[KieranSoares]

"Of course," he said softly, seeing the deep hurt in her eyes. He had no doubt any longer that, even if it turned out she wasn't quite in her right mind, it was all certainly very real to her. Because of his profession, he was forced not to believe her at her word, but he wanted to see how things panned out for her and if she could find her way back to where she belonged.

Across town, they came to the old ruins of the palace. It'd been turned into a historical attraction and there were history students, tourists, and locals about, examining the twelfth century architecture of the castle. Dr. Elm led her past a small sign that read 'Quiet. Please treat the grave sites with respect.' They stepped into the area that had once been the garden, where a line of graves lay from William the Conqueror, whose remains were held in a church elsewhere, down to Sir John Davies.

John's grave read 'Sir John Davies, Knight of England, Husband of Queen Elizabeth of Lancashire.' It had no birthdate, but marked his death to have been in 1165. Elizabeth's marked her own death only a year later. Henry had died in 1135.

Ashien's grave stood spaced a little further away from the others on its own, and the headstone was shaped in a Celtic cross with a tiger paw print on a small stone beside. The inscription across the crossbar of the cross read 'Sir Ashien Vincent Ghis, Lord of Darkwood Estate. 1083-1123 Fell honorably in service to HRM King Henry I on the fields of France.' Down the vertical bar of the cross was written a poem in Gaelic blessing his spirit, but at the very foot of the cross, nearly half-sunken into the grown, there was a carving of Dylandra's vine-wrapped 'D' she put on her paintings, and it appeared again in the middle of the tiger paw stone that marked Ballas' resting place.

 

[heartofcourage]

It was hard to stand at the foot of his grave. Dylandra swallowed hard and willed the tears to not fall in front of so many people. Still, she couldn't move as she saw her D on his tombstone. For so many years, he had never forgotten her nor moved on from her memory. She wanted to touch the stone, to touch Ballas's familiar paw print, but she knew she couldn't.

"What about his family? His brothers and sisters and his mother?" Dylan asked, glancing towards the doctor. "Why did they all let him live alone for so long?"

 

[KieranSoares]

"If the remaining journals of some of his family members are anything to go by... apparently he told them he was just fine, but too busy to come home especially when things got heated between England and France. He still went to visit them, painted their portraits, but he never let on that he was devastated. None of his family ever knew his wife had existed until he died and his twin sister came to get his things to send to Inverness and take with her back to Norway where she'd become Queen." Dr. Elm sat on a wooden bench at the side, looking over the grave. He noted the vine-wrapped D as well, and asked quietly, "Is that your mark?"

 

[heartofcourage]

He had suffered in silence, never telling his family about her. She let out a long sigh, sitting down beside Dr. Elm as he asked about the D. Letting out a small nod, she showed him the wedding band on her finger.

"He bought it this morning when we wed. He said that it reminded him of my signature." She murmured softly, completely devastated that Ashien's story had ended the way that it had. "He was a lovely man. As was John, and Elizabeth, and King Henry. He loved his daughter greatly and I see that John finally grew less shy and married his princess."

 

[KieranSoares]

"Did you know Sir John well?" Dr. Elm looked over at her, delving a little more into her story to piece together just what was going on.

 

[heartofcourage]

"John was a year older than me. He was from London and we were engaged to be married for a while. He came with me into the past and fell in love." Dylan said, glancing towards John's tombstone. "He loved Elizabeth, even if he was scared to admit it. He also loved carpentry. He was working on a table when I left Darkwood."

 

[KieranSoares]

"So he's from this time? Or rather... a version of this time? Why didn't he get pulled back with you?" Dr. Elm asked with a raised eyebrow. It was the only hole he could find in her story aside from the sheer impossibility of time travel.

 

[heartofcourage]

"I don't know." Dylan said. "Van could step between times easily. I don't know what happened to make this time different, except for the fact that I married Ashien."

 

[KieranSoares]

"Maybe it wasn't your marriage, but the fact you disappeared... The fact that it never changed before must've meant you were on the right path, I imagine. So... your disappearance wasn't supposed to happen, and now things have changed." He looked down at his hands, then up once more. "Where was Sir John when you were pulled back? Maybe we could find him if he came through as well."

 

[heartofcourage]

"He was working at Darkwood. In the stables, I would expect." Dylan said, wondering if John were unconscious in the ruins as well. "You don't think he's still there, do you? The police would have found him if they were checking the grounds."

 

[KieranSoares]

"The stables are just a pile of wood scraps now... they wouldn't have gone digging through them. He could be stuck underneath it all," Dr. Elm rose to his feet quickly, knowing that the man could be in danger if he was trapped. "Let's go. If we have to, we'll get the demolition team to help us." He quickly made his way back toward his car.

 

[heartofcourage]

Dylan was up and following Dr. Elm, pausing only briefly to look back at Ashien's grave before she left. They were soon speeding towards Darkwood Manor, the city blurring past the windows of the car as they sought to find out if John were with them or not.

 

[KieranSoares]

Dr. Elm had just parked the car when he leapt out and hurried up the path toward the manor, ducking under the rail gate. No one was near enough to see or hear them, so they were able to run freely toward the half-collapsed stables. Dr. Elm slipped in through the rotted door, holding it open for Dylandra. The back end was entirely collapsed, but there Dylandra could see an ancient hammer and other tools hanging on the walls just where John would've left them Dr. Elm searched everywhere he could before beginning to pull at the collapsed pieces. They broke apart easily and were flung aside, but they didn't get very far in before a construction worker appeared in the doorway.

"Oi, didn't we have you dragged out o' here?" He demanded with a light Irish accent. "Get goin' before we call th'cops back!"

"Sir, she's here with me," Dr. Elm turned, pulling out his wallet to show the man he was a registered doctor and psychiatrist.

"So she is crazy if she's got a shrink with 'er," the man growled.

"Hardly. We believe there may be a man or a body under this rubble. I'd very much appreciate it if you could gather your crew and help us dig," Dr. Elm told him in an authoritative tone. The man eventually gave in and soon there were ten construction workers digging. But all they found were old tools and the remains of a rotted sawhorse, certainly no John.

 

[heartofcourage]

Dylan stood looking at the rubble, struggling to think if John could have been somewhere else. "We need to search the house. He might have gone elsewhere after he talked to Ashien this morning."

 

[KieranSoares]

"Hold on, hold on," Dr. Elm said carefully, pulling Dylan aside. He spoke quietly so the other men wouldn't hear. "John couldn't have been pulled back... I think I understand. He married the Princess and died in those times. Maybe it's because you were the one near the piano. If he would've been there with you, he would've come back too." He took her hand then. "Let's go. We can come back for the full moon and get you home."

 

[heartofcourage]

Dylan didn't want to leave. She wanted to search the house, find something that might help her get back to Ashien.

"I don't know if I can wait that long." She said softly. "I want to search the house. I need to get to his studio. it's the oldest part of the manor. If he left me something it would be there.

 

[KieranSoares]

"Listen, lady," the Irish worker spoke up. "This place isn't safe an' I'm not gonna be held responsible fer you gettin' crushed when the floor collapses out from under you. Now get out o' here."

"She's my responsibility. I'll pay you, whatever you need to let her look around," Dr. Elm spoke as he pulled out his wallet.

"Whoa, you can't actually believe 'er? What're you even lookin' for?"

"We'll know when we find it," the doctor pressed all the cash he had in his wallet into the man's hand, leaving him stunned as Dr. Elm took Dylandra up the metal ramp to the third floor.