Matching Day: Part 2

The struggle for honesty, and the grace to accept..

Based on a post by SmallTownPrincess, in 2 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connected.

"So, tell me about your family, Mason," Livia said, tracing the lines of his palm with one finger. How long had they been out there? Although it felt like she'd been with Mason for only a few minutes, at most, she was deathly afraid that dawn would break soon, and they would have to part ways, sneaking back into their respective beds.

"Oh, they're nothing special," he said with a shrug. "My father's done pretty well for us with inter-community trade, and my mother's a self-proclaimed busybody. I have two little sisters who must hate me, for all the grief they cause me, and a cat that only eats because I ask him to every day."

Livia sympathized with the cat; she would follow Mason to the ends of the earth, if he asked her to and really meant it. She wouldn't tell him that, though. He still believed that the answer to all their problems was to run off into the wilderness and never look back.

"They must love you a lot, to plan a big wedding for you - and build you a house! My father expected my match to do that with his own two hands."

"Nah, they mostly just like being a spectacle in town, and a big wedding's the best way to ensure that everyone's talking about you. As for the house, I'd rather build it myself, honestly. I feel like a child with them paving the way for me like this."

"I'll bet Salvia's bragging to everyone who'll listen about her fairy-tale wedding and big stone house - at eighteen!"

Mason shrugged, looking stormy. "She keeps asking me when we can have our first baby boy. A baby? I'm not ready for a baby. I could go another decade before I would even think about having kids. I'll be nineteen when we get married, for gods' sake."

"Nineteen?"

"I barely missed the cutoff for the last age group, so I think I'm probably the oldest in ours."

A chill wind snuck down Livia's collar, and she shuddered, enjoying Mason's immediate response of wrapping his arms around her and pulling her back up against his chest. She could get used to being held that way. She lay her head back against his shoulder, and he sighed happily.

"Mason?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you still intend to marry her?"

He shook his head, tousling her hair where his chin rested on it. "That big house will be ours - yours and mine - or they can give it to one of my sisters, for all I care. All I want is you."

The chuckling scream of an owl broke the silence of the night, foreboding as the lustrous moon lay silver-lined shadows over the pair. "What are we going to do, Mason?"

"What do you mean?"

"What are you we going to do? I mean, you're supposed to get married in a month, to Salvia, and I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life unhappy and alone. People are going to notice if either of those things don't happen."

"We could tell them that I prefer you to Salvia, " Mason said doubtfully, and Livia didn't even bother to reply. That was clearly not an option. "Or we could run, like I said originally."

"There's nowhere to run," Livia murmured.

"Then, I suppose, this is our only option."

"What is?"

"This. Meetings, like this."

"What, you mean you want to keep meeting me in secret like this?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Won't someone in Salvia's house notice that you sneak out every night?" Mason was living with Salvia's family until his own house was built in Micrague, but, to Salvia's dismay, he was not taking advantage of sleeping just down the hall from her.

"Probably not, and even if they do, I told them the very first day I went home with her that sometimes I preferred to sleep outside, under the stars." He chuckled. "They probably think I'm quite odd, but it really is nice, sometimes, to just lay out here and look up at them."

Livia snuggled closer to him and followed his eyes up to the dancing points of light in the rich blue-violet night. "But then, what happens next month, when your family send word for you to come home with her?"

"Hmm, the guys from Micrague probably don't remember what my match looked like, and you could answer to Salvia for the rest of your life, "

"But the girls who matched those boys would know I didn't match you. They'll definitely remember that I was the one who ended up with no one to love but a dead boy I never met."

"Gods, Livia, I don't know," he said, sounding frustrated. "What do you want me to say? That this can only go on until I'm called home?"

"Can't it?"

"Maybe it'll have to stop when I'm called home," he said, then shook his head fiercely. "No. No, one way or another, I'm going to marry you someday, Livia Russing."

Hearing her last name from his lips sent a jolt of reality through her system. "I don't know your last name, Mason," she said, eyes still fixed on the glittering treasure of the heavens.

"It's Griersley. Don't let that be the deciding point against me when you're deciding whether or not you want to marry me," he said with a grin.

"It's not bad."

"Is bad enough."

"But I still don't know you well enough to say that I love you, Mr. Griersley," she said, grinning a little herself. "For all I know, you could be an axe murderer."

"Well, you've been alone with me for hours now. Have you seen any signs that I'm going to be a danger to you?"

She giggled, then settled into seriousness. "No, I don't think you would hurt me."

He was still in a silly mood, grabbing her lightly around the neck and cackling evilly. "Now I've got you, princess!" he said in a nasal, grating voice. "You only thought I asked you here because I'm falling for you. In fact, I'm a hideous villain, bent on killing the loveliest and most brilliant girls in every community. You're my next victim!"

Livia laughed, twisting to kiss him again. It felt more natural every time their lips met; after hours of it, she felt like she'd been born to kiss him.

Dawn bleached the horizon and made the trees stand like motionless skeletons. Livia savored the taste of Mason's lips on hers as she clambered back into bed, wishing her quilt-shrouded mattress was half as comfortable as his arms.

With the promise of seeing him again that night, having him all to herself for hours and hours, she could make it through another day. She just wished night would come a little sooner.

There were moments, in the next few weeks, that made Livia wonder if the gods were making up for tormenting her with Bracken's death by saturating every moment with exhilarating euphoria.

Mason, his face glowing with the radiance of the simple joy her presence brought him, danced with her in the moon's spotlight, humming a song he made up on the spot, her twirling feet sending leaves spinning all around them and making the breeze whirl and seethe with jealousy.

His teeth stood like pearly bits of star against his tan skin as he laughed, dipping her low enough that her hair brushed the dirt forest floor, then bringing her lightly back to her feet with an easy, undemanding kiss.

Combing his fingers through her hair, he poured nonsense pieces of poetry into the night, laughing occasionally at a particularly horrible rhyme, calling for her to contribute as well. But she wouldn't interrupt the uninhibited rhythm of his deep, pleasant voice; she let his words roll pleasantly over her soul while his fingers did the same to her scalp.

Electricity lanced the night as their lips mimicked each other's shape, and each of them drew life from the other's wholehearted ardor.

Livia whispered, "I do, after all."

"Do what?"

"Love you."

Mason wrapped around her, keeping her warm as her discarded clothes could not. His lips were drawing a lazy line of kisses from her forehead down her nose, over her lips and onto her neck. He sucked gently at the spot where her neck ended and shoulder began, then dusted kisses across her collarbones.

His hands ran lightly along her sides, fingers brushing her skin from tits to hips and back again. She brushed her fingers through his hair, tugged on it in a mute request for him to make his way back to her mouth and kiss her as he had been for weeks, but his mouth was quite busy venturing to previously unexplored territory.

Mason's lips pressed against her sternum, and the softness just above her belly button, and then the softness just below. He shifted back onto his heels so he could more easily massage his way down her thighs and to her knees. Hungrily, he eyed her body.

"Mason?" She could barely manage the breath to whisper his name. Something was making her chest tight, making it hard to bring in air; she realized after a moment that it was fear. That was the thing with Mason ,  he frightened her. Not because he would ever hurt her, but because he looked at life and asked for more than he was given. He pushed boundaries.

His fingers were testing her boundaries now, working their way back up the inside of her legs and finding the intersection of her legs. He bent low, kissing her thigh just south of where his fingers rested, and his breath was both hot and cold on her body. It made her suddenly aware of a dampness there she did not recognize.

"Mason," she said again, more forcefully this time, and his eyes met hers.

"Yes?"

She licked her lips, trembling as he continued to breathe on her slick folds. "Are you planning to do what I think you're planning to do?"

"Only if you want it," Mason replied. He stared up at her for at least a minute before she realized she was meant to respond positively or negatively, but she had no answer. How could she think with his mouth practically pressed to her lips there? "Livia? Do you want to?"

"I, " She observed the tenderness with which he was stroking her thigh, and melted a bit. "Yes. Please."

Mason grinned. He leaned in just a bit closer and touched his lips to her, then slid his tongue between her folds, trailing it up to the nub of her clitoris ,  she gasped and tried to keep from shuddering, not wanting to break the contact ,  and then down until he circled her slit. His eyes sought hers, looking for approval; he must have seen it in her face, because he began to move his tongue in earnest, sliding it up and down, then delving into her opening as deeply as he could.

Livia squeezed her eyes shut to concentrate on the feelings, but the intensity gave her a sense of vertigo so intense she almost felt herself sliding along the forest floor, as though the world had tipped off its axis. She clutched at Mason's shoulders to steady herself, digging her nails in harder than she realized.

As Mason's warm mouth moved against her most sensitive places, she began to feel something completely new. It was a need she had never experienced before, an urgent and desperate desire so foreign that she could hardly guess how to fulfill it. She would have thought that Mason's current activity would relieve it somehow, but it was only sharpening the edge on her hunger.

"Mason, I need;” she started. She wasn't sure how to finish. Mason stopped immediately, sensing her distress, sitting up and wiping his mouth.

"What? What do you need?"

"I don't, know." She spoke quietly, distractedly. When Mason sat up, he revealed the entirety of his nude form, and Livia found her attention drawn to his sizable manhood, standing at attention. She stared, beginning to get an idea of what it was she needed.

Picking up on her thoughts as though she was speaking them aloud, Mason abandoned his eager, if inexperienced, efforts to please her with his mouth and bent to press his body against hers again. He held himself just far enough off her that his weight would not oppress her, but the full length of his feverishly warm body covered hers, and the full length of his member pressed against her mound, pulsing slightly with each heartbeat.

Slowly, painfully slowly, Mason slid his hips down, pulling his cock down her body until the head rested just where her lower lips parted, and then gravity and her own moisture pulled it the rest of the way. It came to rest just where it belonged, against her opening.

"Is this what you want?" Mason asked. With his mouth on her throat as it was, she felt more than heard his words.

She nodded, eyes closed. "Yes."

There was really no pain. Livia was surprised; she had heard from other girls that it was quite unpleasant the first time, sometimes even traumatic, but perhaps they had not had such tender first lovers, or perhaps they had not been so achingly, drenchedly eager to have their lover inside them. Livia hadn't even been aware of how badly she wanted Mason within her until he was, and all her tension drained out of her with a long sigh.

"It's perfect," she said, marveling at the fit of him in her. They were made for each other.

For many long minutes they were motionless, sharing each other ,  they were no longer two people, but a single entity, joined intimately.

"I'm yours, Livia." Mason's voice was husky, and Livia saw that it was costing him something to remain still, not to just claim her from the inside out; she saw also in the way he wrapped his arms tightly around her and squeezed as if he would never let go that he was happy to remain frozen in place and share the moment, happy even as he strained for more.

"And I'm yours. Take me, Mason."

And he did.

Eventually they fell asleep, still connected, and didn't wake until larks' songs began to break the stillness of the air with the dawn.

Just when she thought nothing could be more perfect, more beautiful, the gods realized their carelessness in letting too much rapture concentrate in just two small hearts, and they began to set things back to rights.

Livia picked her way through the now-familiar path from her house to their meeting place in the trees, stepping lightly over fallen branches and dodging snags and thorns with ease. She'd sat at her window all afternoon, watching the sun in its path, wishing it haste as it progressed toward the horizon. Her mother wondered what had gotten into her, but didn't mourn the change. It had been painful to see her daughter in such misery after Matching Day.

Just a little ways now, she thought cheerfully, wanting to whistle but deciding that would be imprudent. The fear of what they were doing didn't eat at her anymore, and she could almost forget, in the flawless moments with Mason, that there was anything wrong in what they did. When she saw Salvia, her face did not burn with blood, as it did at the beginning, and she did not hunch her shoulders against imagined accusations as she crossed the town now.

At the very moment it always seemed she had been walking too far, that she must have passed the clearing completely and needed to turn around, she saw Mason.

He was standing much as he had been the first night they'd met here, his hands balled into fists in his pockets, his eyes on the sky, standing in what she now recognized was his tensest stance, directly in the center of the clearing. He was wholly illuminated by a moon that approached full, and she could see the glistening tracks of tears on both cheeks, the slightest quiver to his bottom lip. Pain spiked just beneath her breastbone as she wondered distressedly what had upset him.

"Mason?" she called, tumbling out of the trees and into his arms. He barely caught her as she tripped over the undergrowth, landing ungracefully against his chest, and when she looked up into his face, she had never seen such despair.

"You came," he said brokenly. "I hoped you wouldn't."

"What?"

Rustling footsteps all around them told of the presence of others, and Mason's hands tightened on her upper arms as if he could somehow squeeze her out of sight.

Livia's head swiveled frantically from side to side as she tried to see each face as they appeared, grimacing, out of the shadows; at the front of them all, she saw Salvia's triumphant countenance.

And Mason's eyes never left hers, never stopped pleading with her to forgive him for asking her to meet him the very first time. She had the horrible, world-shaking, vomit-inducing thought that, perhaps, he had tired of her and betrayed her. Her eyes begged his to assure her that this could never be true, but there was too much self-condemnation in their greyness for her to be sure.

"You have broken a match, you and Miss Livia Russing, who was unmatched and took it upon herself to tear apart two compatible souls"

"Livia did not take it upon herself," Mason interjected. "I convinced her. I persuaded her to meet me there."

"Regardless, she took part in the breaking."

"No, no, none of it was her fault. Aren't you listening to me? She didn't intend to do anything wrong. If anyone deserves any sort of punishment, it's me. I knew full well what the consequences would be if I were caught, and I chose to do it anyway."

"Did you ever stop to consider your matched pair? Salvia?"

"Salvia and I were never compatible. Never. You must have made a mistake;”

"We do not make mistakes! We are the Matching Council. We know what is best for the community, and it's self-important children like you that sow dissension."

"You made at least one mistake, didn't you? Or did you forget so easily that you left Livia without a match?"

"Her situation was unfortunate, but not the fault of the Matching Council. If anyone should be blamed, it's the elders of Micrague for allowing such a tragedy to happen on their ground."

"Unfortunate? Unfortunate? You condemned her to a lifetime alone. And someone like Livia should never, ever be left alone. Someone like Salvia, on the other hand, "

"Enough! Talking to this boy further serves no purpose. He has already told us what we need to know. Tomorrow, he and the girl will receive their twenty lashes."

"Wait, wait, you're not listening! Livia didn't do anything wrong! Just by being caught, she's probably punished herself more than you ever could. Please, please, by the gods, have some mercy! She doesn't deserve any punishment!"

"Whether or not you feel she has done anything wrong, the law states that forty lashes will be dealt to the breakers of a match."

"Then give them to me. All of them."

"Excuse me?"

"This is completely my fault; I want the complete punishment."

"Young man;”

"Please."

A long pause from all of council members for thought, and then, "Very well."

They swept out of the tiny room like so many heavy shadows; they must have worked to make their flat black cloaks billow that way. Mason's head dropped to his chest, the ropes that held his arms behind the chair stretching his shoulders almost beyond their limit.

I promised I would never let anything hurt you, Livia, he thought. Gods, I'm doing my best.

"You're free to go," the elder said blandly as he released Livia. She stared unbelievingly at her unbound hands.

"Where's Mason?"

"The convicted young man awaits his punishment, to be dealt within the hour."

"His punishment? What about mine? I was there in the clearing as surely as he was, "

"Your punishment is to witness his flogging. We believe no other discipline will be necessary, in your case."

Livia's mouth opened and closed as she tried to find the words to express what she wanted to say to the man; at last the only word she could summon was, "Why?"

He said nothing, just dropped his eyes and led her out of the cell.

The whole community had gathered around the platform, the same that had been used for the matching, only now a low block sprouted up from the wooden slats, looking ominously innocent. None had been told why they were gathered there, except that there had been some crime committed and they were to witness the punishment. Only Salvia's family, and Livia's, understood what was happening.

Livia was kneeling to the side of the crowd, the council member standing behind her one of the youngest - still spry, in case she tried to bolt. She ripped dying grass out by the roots and shredded it, releasing the pieces to the wind.

When Mason was led out, gasps peppered the assemblage, and curious whispers erupted from the collected people like ants out of a kicked anthill. He was shirtless, his hands bound in front of him, and he was flanked by four elders. They forced him to his knees, bending him over the block and retying his hands around the metal ring in the deck of the platform so that he had no escape.

His eyes scanned for Livia's but he did not turn his head far enough to catch sight of her, so low to the ground and separated from the rest of the crowd by guilt and empty air. He sighed, seeming a little relieved.

"State your name and your crime," one of the elders demanded. He was not the one holding the cruel whip, a man of middle years with deeply etched lines in his face and a cold, set line of a mouth.

"I found love outside of my match," Mason said clearly.

A few women squawked at the brutality as the whip snapped across Mason's back, eliciting a cry from him; his eyes went wide, as if he was surprised at how much it hurt.

"Let us not have your lies, boy," said that head elder, the oldest of them, the only one who would speak in public when they were all gathered. "Explain your crime."

Panting, Mason spoke again. "I fell desperately in love with the perfect woman for me - and it was not the girl that I was paired with."

Crack "Enough! You pollute the minds of our community with your fabrications."

"Admit it, you were wrong, Crack, ah!"

"This boy coerced;”

"I loved;”

Crack!

 a young woman of our community;”

 the beautiful Livia;”

Crack!

 with empty promises!"

 with all my heart!"

Crack!

"He wants to destroy our society;”

"I just want to be with her;”

Crack!

"He broke faith with another;”

"I never loved Salvia!"

Crack!

 and destroyed her happiness!"

"The Council made a mistake!"

The last crack resounded into silence, broken only by Mason's painful gasps. Eyes of the gathered flicked between Mason and his trembling Livia, her lovely face marred with tears, and to Salvia, who looked as though she would be sick, and to the elders, whose faces ranged from clearly uncomfortable to purpled with rage.

"That's eight," the eldest Councilor said at length, waving for the man with the whip to continue.

The crowd was silent through a few more strokes as Mason bit nearly through his lip to keep from howling. Gradually, whispers spread sporadically again, people began to shake their heads, drifting away from the platform in small chunks.

Council members watched their disgusted people leave and wondered if they had, at last, gone too far; but they dealt out the punishment, as they must, and then dragged Mason to his feet with a Council member holding him up under each armpit.

They towed him back to his cell, unable to force him to stand up on his feet and walk the distance, and dropped him face down on the bench that served as his bed, though his legs hung off from the knee down.

"What now?" asked the second-youngest of the elders, barely old enough to be called an 'elder' at all.

"He will be taken back to Micrague, to be sentenced there as well," said one of them. "They've had this problem in the past; they know how to deal with it properly."

"And their people aren't so fragile as to sneer at the law," said another, sneering himself. He was the thirstiest among them for brutality, for swift attacks on anything that threatened the community.

"What will they do with him there?" asked the young one again, his shoulders drawing up as though it were him being sentenced, and not Mason.

The others did not try to protect his gentler sensibilities. "Once they've heard what he has to say, he'll be killed, just like the last one. The Matching Council will not be questioned."

Salvia sat on her bedroom floor, her knees drawn up to her chest and her head resting atop them. She had not cried at the whipping, but she'd wanted to; her pride had prevented her from making any show that the other girls could use against her in a pity attack.

Now, though, with only her cat, Lollaine, to see her; she shook with quiet sobs. "I just wanted them to have to stop," she whispered. "Mason, poor Mason, "

Livia lay curled on the forest floor, where she had lain with Mason every night before. She wished they had not let her go; she deserved to be in a cell, for what she'd done. And Mason, oh, poor Mason,

She spent the night not looking at the stars, and crushed dried leaves into dust that, dancing on the breeze, still looked more alive than she did.

It began to rain in the wee hours of the morning, a steady, mournful downpour that soaked Livia through immediately and began to make the leaves float in anonymous streamlets. She unfolded herself for the first time since she lay down, feeling the creak of limbs as they complained about hours of stillness.

Her hair plastered to her face, water running into her eyes, she considered going home, but decided against it. Once there, her mother would comfort her, and coo over the state she was in, and find her warm clothes, and stoke up the fire for her; she knew she didn't deserve any of it.

Her jailer-of-sorts, the youngest of the elders, had informed her that Mason would be taken back to Micrague in the morning, to be sentenced there by his own Council. She hoped they would be more lenient with one of their own.

"I wonder if they'll let me see him?" she wondered aloud, her eyes settling on the nearest tree as though it might provide an answer. A tree branch shuddered in the wind, restlessly nodding, its leaves quivering. Taking that as an answer, she floated back toward town like vapor.

There was no one in sight until she reached the doorway of the internment building, and even then it was easy enough to slip past the man as he leaned inattentively against the brick wall; even with this obvious crime as evidence that humans were not incapable of treachery, the people of this community were unused to deception, and knew little of how to guard against it.

Livia darted through the hallways, remembering from her own brief imprisonment here that the dungeon-like cells were on the lower floor, beneath the benign entry hall and waiting room, the beautifully carved desk that blocked the entrance to the stairs and which Livia leapt easily, and the offices of each elder, some of which were still dimly, warmly lit.

She slowed her steps as she approached the final corner in the cell hallways. Once she turned it, she knew she would see someone sitting vigil at Mason's door, and she did not want to alert him to her presence until she learned whether he was one of the younger, more sympathetic ones, or an older, unsentimental hard-nose.

Taking a deep breath, she leaned out just far enough for her eyes to be past the edge of the wall, then jerked back. There was no one in the hall.

Offering a quick prayer of thanks to whatever gods were listening for keeping the way clear for her, she strode down the hallway, peering into the small, barred window in each door to find Mason. At last, in the next-to-last cell, she spotted him, still lying just the way they'd dropped him face down on the bench, his feet dragging the ground.

She knocked quietly on his door, and when he didn't move, whispered, "Mason!"

He raised his head slightly, his eyes straining to see over his lacerated shoulder; they widened when he recognized Livia.

"Livia? What are you doing here?" he mumbled. He sounded like his mouth was stuffed full of cotton.

"I had to see you, before they sent you away. Can you come up to the window?"

"I can't, can't really move, Livia. I mean, it's hard." She could see the admission was hard for him; he wanted to seem always invincible.

"Hold on," she said, then darted toward the closet at the end of the hall, where she was sure the keys were kept. She was right; she found the rusty skeleton numbered to match Mason's door and hurried back with it. The lock grated open with a corroded screech, and she heaved on the handle to gain entrance.

Kneeling next to Mason, she was horrified anew by his injuries. Her hand, hovering just above his tender skin, passed back and forth over his back as if she could somehow erase the bloodied lines that way.

"Oh, Mason," she breathed.

"Is not so bad, Lenny," he said sweetly, if insincerely, gritting his teeth as he strained his shoulder backward to grab her hand and pull her in front of his face. "Listen, you've got to get out of here. If they find you here, they'll think you were trying to help me escape, and you'll be in more trouble than ever."

"Escape?" Livia repeated, her eyes curious. "Why would you escape? You're just going home, aren't you?"

"Yes, " Mason said, watching her with cautious eyes, wondering how much she knew.

"Well, they'll be nicer to you in Micrague, won't they? I mean, you're one of their own, "

He sighed infinitesimally and forced a smile for her benefit. "Yeah, they'll go easier on me, I'm sure."

Her eyes flickered between his eyes and his mouth: he was a master of lying with his eyes, where most people would read an untruth, but she had noticed the way his lips tightened, showing more gum when he lied, and she saw now the way his lips drew back from his teeth.

"What?" she demanded. "What are they going to do to you? What can they possibly do that would be worse than what they did today?"

He sighed heavily this time, wincing as an attempted shrug made his back muscles scream. "They've had this problem before, Livia. A couple of years ago, a boy who grew dissatisfied with his pair was caught with a girl a year younger than him, who hadn't been paired yet."

"What happened to him?" she whispered.

"He was, put to death. The girl killed herself a week later."

Livia gaped in horror, mouth hanging open like the connection of her jaw to her skull had gone slack. Abruptly, she said, "Can you walk?"

"What?"

"Can you walk, or do I have to try to carry you? Well, no, not carry. I don't think I can carry you, but I could probably drag you, if I was careful. Maybe you could wrap your arms around my neck and;”

"Livia, stop," Mason said sharply. "Like you said before, there's nowhere for us to go. We'll get caught again, and this time there'll be no way to protect you;”

"I don't want to be protected, Mason! I want to get you out of here!"

She seized his arms and tried to move him, succeeding only in stretching his wounds and nearly knocking him off of the bench onto his back. His muscles were too stiff from laying the way he had for hours for him to help her much. She let out a small cry of frustration, but Mason quickly shushed her.

"Livia, I hear something." Both of their heads swiveled toward the doorway just in time to see someone appear, framed by it.

The next-to-youngest elder looked as stunned as they did, his hand going immediately to his heart as he spotted Livia kneeling there next to Mason.

"Miss Russing? What do you think you're doing?" he said at length.

"I have to take him away," she said boldly, ignoring Mason's eyes, that pleaded with her to hold her silence and not incriminate herself further. "Do you know that they're going to kill him? What has he done wrong that deserves that?" She was on the edge of tears; she knew there was no hope now of Mason escaping his fate. She had almost resolved to follow the path of the girl who had been in love with the last Micrague resident who'd stood against the Matching Council.

"I, I did know that, " the elder said, struggling for words in the face of Livia's misery. "But he - he's a, lawbreaker! And we, er, that is, the Council, must follow the, um, law, "

"But look at us!" Livia begged. "Are we criminals? Do we deserve punishment and public humiliation? Our only crime was falling in love."

"Ah, yes, but, you see, you fell in love with the, uh, the wrong person."

"The wrong person? Who was I supposed to fall in love with then?" Livia persisted. "A ghost? My pair was gone before I even knew him, and Mason saw me as something more than an object of pity. He saw me, and he fell in love with what he saw. How could that be wrong?"

"I, I really must ask you to-to leave, Miss Russing, " the elder said, desperate not to have to report her. He'd always rather liked Livia.

"I'm not leaving without Mason. I'm afraid he's my other half; where he goes, I go." She clung protectively to Mason's arm, squeezing her fingers tight against his skin so that she could not be seen to shake. Her heart knew that what she said was right, but her head was packed with the logical arguments against her that came from a lifetime of listening to the community elders, and that was hard to ignore.

The elder looked first at her - her face pained, but resolute - and then at Mason, whose eyes never left Livia, and his heart battled his head in much the same way. Here was his chance to prove that he was not the weak-spirited, soft-hearted one, that he could stand for justice and law just as surely as any of the other elders, that he could look impartially at any situation and choose the wisest course. But here was also his chance to see in action real, honest to gods true love, and to protect it rather than stamp it out. Several long minutes passed without anyone moving, and then the elder spoke.

"He won't want to wear a shirt right now, but you should take one just the same, and a cloak, so that you don't freeze to death. There are bandages and such in that cabinet where you must have found the key, so that you don't have to break into the infirmary."

And then he left, returning to the cup of tea and paperwork that had held his attention in his office upstairs until the sounds of voices below had alerted him to Livia's presence in Mason's cell. At this hour, he was alone in the building; in the morning, when someone came to relieve him, he would be conveniently asleep, close enough to the cell that he could have been keeping watch, but far enough away that the young lovers could have snuck out without alerting him.

It was a miracle that they made it out of town at all, with Mason so incapacitated and Livia's strength hardly adequate for carrying a young man his size, but somehow, leaning heavily on each other, they made it into the woods.

For a long time, they heard only their own heavy breathing as they fought their way through the undergrowth, moving always away from the community, but then, just when it seemed they might have gotten clear, a voice said clearly, smugly, "I knew it."

Livia's head shot up immediately, with Mason's following more slowly on his unsteady neck, and their eyes both settled on the form of Salvia just in front of them, standing with her arms folded across her chest against the cold. The mist of rain - all that was left of the earlier storm - frosted her hair with shimmering droplets.

"I knew you would try to run. I knew it," Salvia repeated, anger licking like flames at her words.

"What else would you have us do?" Livia demanded.

"Stay here, of course! Well, not you," she said to Livia. "I wouldn't mind if you ran off into the forest, but Mason is mine. Now that he's been thoroughly chastened, he should be returned to me."

"Salvia," Mason said wearily, "you would not have me either way. If I do not escape now, they will send me to Micrague."

"Fine, I'll go with you. We should be getting married soon anyway."

"They are not sending me there to get married, Salvia. They're sending me there to be sentenced - and if Micrague tradition is to be upheld, I'll be killed."

Salvia's eyes widened; this must be news to her. "Killed?"

"Yes, killed," Mason said, his voice still heavy with exhaustion. He spoke matter-of-factly, not begging her, but not antagonizing her either, as Livia clearly was. "If it's dead you want me to be - and I suppose I'd understand that, considering what I've put you through - then announce our presences here to the elders. By all means, sound the alarm, let them know we've escaped. I'll be dead by this time tomorrow."

Salvia just stared at him, aghast.

"I, never wanted you dead, " she said at last. "I just wanted them to stop you, "

"Whatever your intentions, Sal, they will have me executed. They can't afford this kind of infraction against their authority. " He could see her resolve faltering, could see the wheels turning in her head, and he took a couple of painful steps forward, desperate to take advantage of her momentary weakness. "Think about it, Salvia: wouldn't it be amazing to be able to choose who you want to love? To entrust your heart to someone that you know wants it just as bad as you want to give it?"

She looked torn, confused; her eyes were shiny with impending tears. "But that's not right, "

"Salvia," he said seriously, setting his hands on either side of her face, "there is nothing in this world that could be more right."

She shook her head, breaking away from his hands. "No, no, you broke our match, you broke everything."

"I'm sorry, Salvia. I'm so, so sorry that I hurt you. But you've got to know that we were never right for each other. You could see that, couldn't you? Please, Salvia, please understand that I would never have hurt you if I could have helped it, but my heart was making the decisions for me. I had to follow love."

Salvia's eyes blazed toward Livia and then dropped to the diamond droplet-studded grass. "Why her?"

"I can't explain," Mason said, shrugging. "There's no explanation for love."

There were distant male voices in the trees now, coming closer. Mason's eyes bored into Salvia's, begging her to understand.

"Do you want me to die?" he asked quietly.

Eyes finally overflowing, Salvia shook her head. "No," she said miserably. When she met his eyes, they were hurt, accusing, but also relenting. "I won't say anything to them."

Mason kissed her on the forehead. "Thank you, thank you," he whispered.

As the voices floated ever closer, Livia gripped Mason again wherever she could tightly hold him without further injuring him, and they stumbled into the darkness. Before they left, though, Mason whispered to Salvia, "Find someone you truly love."

Watching his retreating back, she said, too quietly for him to hear, "I already did."

"That was so, so close to being the end of us both," Livia said, her voice breaking with relief. "Gods, I wish none of this had ever happened."

"I don't," Mason said. "I'm glad that Salvia and that elder both found us. Because of them, it was all worth it, even the punishment."

Livia was stunned enough to come to a complete halt. "How do you figure?"

"Now we know that there are at least two people in this world besides us that believe in love. Maybe there's hope after all. Maybe someday, people will be allowed to choose whoever they want to love. It'll be messy, and hearts will be broken, but in the end, when it does last, when you get to the end of your road hand-in-hand and turn around to look back at your life, you'll know that it was real love."

And with those words echoing prophetically through the trees, Mason and Livia began again to slink through the trees, stumbling one step at a time toward their messy, beautiful, imperfect forever.

Based on a post by SmallTownPrincess, in 2 parts, for Literotica.