A/N: I have been feeling a little love-stricken lately, and I am in desperate need of a release. What better way to let go of some of it than one shots focused on love. Unrequited love. Shared love. Forbidden love. Tragical love. Heterosexual and homosexual love. Love between knights and ladies. Between poets. Between king and queen. Between noble and commoner. Love both clichéd and original. Something you've never heard, and something you're tired of hearing. Both happy endings and sad, depending on my mood. I will finish when I finish, or when my muse runs dry. Until then, I give you this.

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“I am too late.”

Emily smiled up at me. Such a sad, delicate smile did not belong on her lips. Not when she had laughed out loud and smiled wider, bearing all of her teeth, only hours before. Her cheeks were covered with quickly drying mud and streaked by tears. Knotted and bloodied blonde hair splayed behind her head on the ground. Bending closer to her, I curled one of my arms behind her shoulders, pulling her closer to myself. She groaned softly, and my blue eyes searched over her body to find the wound. Her dress was torn under her ribcage and just above her breast, identical lines of red beneath the cuts in the fabric. The worst of it was her pregnant belly. With a shaking hand, I smoothed over the ripped and dirtied fabric. My child. My child was gone, and my girl was bleeding to death.

All around us, swords impacted each other with force that caused shivers to run over my skin. Fires burned at the thatched roofs of our houses. Women and children screamed. Shouts of insurrection left the lungs of both grown men and fresh-faced boys. I had seen her fall. She had been running across the dirt road with her pale fists curled in the skirt of her dress, trying to get to Nicholas before he was slain. Instead of running to safety with the other noble ladies, she had strayed. Her loyalty to her husband never faltered when it came to his safety. “Cian.” My name was only a whisper on her lips. It had always been that way. Looking down at her, black curls in my eyes, I ran the tips of my shaking fingers over her brow. “Ssh,” I chided quietly, biting my tongue to keep the tears out of my eyes.

Looking up quickly, I caught the eyes of my son. He saw the despair in them, for it was that evident, and ran over. The battle was nearly won. All around us, the Irish were fallen. Only a few stood that could still fight. Falling to his knees beside Emily and I, Daniel’s expression became filled with worry. He made the sign of the cross and kissed the nail of his thumb before looking me directly in the eye. Even if he was only a boy of fifteen, he had grown wise over the years. “We must find a place for her. Away from all of this,” he said quickly, stumbling over the words as his dark eyes looked this way and that. “Over there, father.” I took a deep breath as I tore my eyes away from Emily, following Daniel’s line of sight to a storeroom a few yards away.

The roof was there and not burning. Outside, there was the body of an Irishman, but none others. There was no one alive in a half mile’s distance. Slipping my arms beneath her, I stood. I wished that I knew a way to take away the pain she must have been feeling. I cringed at the very sight of the cut on her chest and the stab wound in her belly. The pain must have been severe. Daniel had taken my sword, which I had lain down on the ground beside me. He led us into the storeroom, and I swerved so that she did not hit her head on the doorframe. There was a stack of hay in the corner, covered with a thin blanket. A fire crackled on the opposite side. Someone else had used this shack for a home recently. Very recently. Placing Emily softly onto the hay, I bent down close to her. “I will come back for you later, father,” Daniel said quietly, twisting the hilt of my sword nervously. He knew of the solitude Emily and I needed.

Brushing her blonde hair away from her face with the back of my fingers, I pressed my lips against her forehead. “I am so sorry.” My voice quivered just as my heart shook in my chest. If I lost her, I would lose every bit of love in my life. My wife had died fifteen years before in childbirth. I was given Daniel as a reminder of my great loss. I loved my son, but I could not look at him without thinking of my wife. His dark eyes, his light hair, his smile: everything about him reminded me of Anne. He had acquired no traits from his father. “Why?” Her voice was threadlike, and I strained to hear even the one word that left her mouth. “I told you that I would protect you,” I groaned, pressing my face firmly against hers and curling my fingers around her hair. “I promised. I vowed. I… swore.”

Emily arched her neck and shut her eyes, moaning aloud in pain. The sound was horrible. She was not meant to be in this sort of agony. “You were doing your duty,” she panted, her thin hands shaking as they lifted to my face. I shook my head, blue eyes entreating her misty gaze. “You were my duty, Emily,” I whispered. My face became distorted slightly as hot tears began to roll down my stained cheeks. “You were my duty.” Her clear gray eyes shimmered from the fire that still flickered in the room. My words had moved her, yet they were displeasing to her ear. Moving closer into my arms, she let her head fall against my chest. “Do not make us into a tragedy, Cian,” she whispered in a somehow stronger voice. “We were a romance. We shall always be a romance.”

It was then that her breathing slowed. Her eyes clouded, and her limbs ceased quivering. Blood had soaked her blue dress as well as my arms and lap. This was my last chance. She was leaving me, and I had to act quickly if she was to know how I felt. If she was to know of my love before she left, I had to speak now. If she was to know of how beautiful she was even now, I had to tell her at that moment. If she was to know of how much I would miss her, I had to let those words leave my mouth before she was gone. My lips parted to tell her of all those things, but her chest shuddered and eyes slowly closed. Her cut breast no longer rose and fell even the slightest bit. Her fingers fell from my cheek and onto her chest. “Emily,” I choked. “Emily, no. Come back.” I lifted my hands to her face, combing back her hair and passing the pads of my thumbs over her cheeks. “Please.”

This was a tragedy. It was the greatest tragedy of all.