Disclaimer: All the characters from the "Magnificent Seven" T.V. series are property of Trilogy Entertainment, The Mirisch Group, MGM Worldwide.
There are two kinds of passion.
There is passion and longing for something distant and far away, having once experienced it in all its fullness, yearn forever to wish it again. Time does not diminish the intensity of that hunger, it merely deepens it and eradicates the imperfections that caused one to walk away in the first place. Eventually, the passions consumes all other aspects, it dulls the appreciation of what is and the burning desire for what was or might have been, becomes a poison from which there is no antidote. It seeps into the veins like a vile concoction, devastating the whole until there is nothing left but the overriding need to satisfy something that should have remained forgotten.
She still burned for him
At night, when the other held her close, whispering his dreams for a new beginning, she could only left her mind drift to him who for one brief moment, had shown her perfection. Patiently, she endured the other's attempts to pleasure her, resigned to knowing that he never would and fighting back the need to escape and find the man who had. She knew where he was and for a long time after he had walked out of her life, she stared at the stars overhead and dreamed of the night when they had shared the canvas of light together. She wondered if he ever gazed into sky like she did and wonder about her as she often wondered about him.
She had hoped time would ease the burden inside her heart. At times, she wished so hard for it to go away that she thought it might take the best part of her when it did leave and strangely enough it mattered little if it had. Unfortunately, there was no respite, no end to the wanting and with each day that passed by, her life grey by definition, began to slip further into the mists, until the only reality she could endure was the brief time she spent with him.
She would recall what he look like and remember that he had been a beautiful man to begin with, even though he had taken great pains to hide it. After she had laid eyes on him that first moment, she could not imagine why someone so beautiful would hide the way he did until she understood that he did not believe himself to be that way. When she looked at him, she understood what it was for the first time to lust purely for the sake of it. She had wanted him and though it took time to break the barrier of her reservations, it crumbled at the sight of those almost childlike eyes and a face that should have been immortalised on someone's canvas.
Of course, he had never even imagined that anyone could feel passion for him and was almost grateful for the interest. It had never occurred to him that women could perceive him as a thing of beauty. His honesty was refreshing for he did not believe himself to be attractive to women with no idea that a smile from him could send most of them into fits of orgasmic distraction. He had been such an innocent in these matters that when she chose to pursue him; he did not stand a chance of resistance.
Until then, he had been quiet to the point of almost being shy, a thing that escalated her passion for him more steadily then the lack of physical contact. His eyes did not just look at her, they teased her his own desires with each gaze offered. He tried to speak to her, clumsy in his attempts to charm because it was obvious he had not much practise with conversing with the fairer sex. His words would permeate with feeling, dripping with desire he dared not acknowledge because he knew she belonged to another.
It did not help that the rift between herself and the man she had chosen was widening with each mile traversed in the long journey they had been taking. As man and wife, they viewed each other by strangers, bound together by the loss of a child but forever split apart because they were unable to cope with each other's grief. The further apart she drifted away from her husband, the easier it became to justify to herself that he was what she wanted and caution edged closer and closer to being hurled heedlessly into the wind.
When there was danger and terrible men had spirited her away, it was not her husband that came to find her, it was him. Without any thought of himself, he had risked himself to save her and in doing so, sealed both their fates as they rode into the sunset. Of course, they never reached the others that night. Perhaps even as they rode away with the intention, she had known that this night was for theirs and whatever happened tomorrow was still far enough away for either to care.
Under the same stars she would stare longingly into every night after that, they had made passionate love the likes of which she had never known. Once freed of his inhibitions, he had indulged himself by pleasuring her with such searing intensity that nothing before or since could compared to the experience. Everything about him remained vivid in her mind. The silk of his skin, the softness of his lips as he devoured hers and tasted every inch of her body, the raw heat that he was capable of engendering because he dared to find every place that yielded pleasure and exploit it.
That night, their bodies had melded continuously, burning with the same passion that kept the fires aflame at the campsite as they pleasured each other. She remembered the soft cries of her ecstasy and the groans he made when he had reached the peak and was about to release it with her. She savoured such memories, allowing them to warm her during the nights when it was necessary to feign some interest in the performance of her marital duties. Despite her husband's attempts to rekindle some genuine passion, even he understood that he was powerless against a memory.
As much as that night had been treasured and enjoyed, she had known as much as he had that it was what it was, a one time event. Even though she wanted him still and she knew that it was much more than that for him, she had tried to walk away, to leave the edge of the precipice from which she hung so precariously. She saw the pain in his eyes because he did not understand the complications that came from her being wed to someone else. He was a creature of feeling, even though it was restrained most of the time. However, when it was allowed to emerge, he could see nothing but the emotions he was feeling and had believed it to be a simple matter of just acting on those baser impulses.
For a time, she had succumb to the fervour of his desire for them to be together and they had fled like children together, catching a moment in the sun before the sensibilities of adulthood claimed them again. Far away places with names that held more enchantment than the reality ever could sprung to mind as they dreamed of some place that would offer them refuge in their sinful indulgence. Places like Brazil.
It was he who came to his senses first and realised that what they had done was wrong. He was honourable this man she loved so passionately, with a streak of nobility that would allow him to put principle ahead of his own desires. On some level, she knew he was right but accepting it was harder no matter how he tried to convince that that this was the right thing to do. However, that he wanted her to return to her husband was enough to tell her that the fever that had taken enable to take leave of their senses was gone. It was time to walk away before more people were hurt by what they were doing.
She had watched him go, feeling a little part of her die as he disappeared with promises that he would always love her even though they would never encounter each other again. She had accepted his wishes and returned to her husband whose happiness to have her back had allowed the broken fences between them to be mended. For the first time in a long time, her husband looked at her with love.
And she looked back thinking how he could never be the man who had just rode away with his six comrades.
She endured the return to married life as long as she could, throwing herself into the building of a new home on a piece of land that would have been ideal if the man she shared it with had not been her husband but the lover she mourned daily. Eventually, her ambivalence started showing and the animosity that had been the cause of all this sorrow, returned with as much vigour. The rift that was created this time was wide enough to be permanent and even her husband knew that this time there would be no healing it.
They continued as they had always done, two animals locked in the same cage while she indulged herself with thoughts of the man she really wanted until the passion for him reached climax and she now found herself on this lonely road. She knew the stage came by this trail regularly and she left her horse untethered, confident it would know the way home after she was gone. Everything she owned was wrapped up in a neat bundle including all the jewellery her mother had given her for her wedding. She had enough money to secure passage on the stage and when she reached her destination, the jewellery would allow her a few weeks accommodation while she sought him ought.
As she heard the thunder of hooves coming up the road, she picked up her belongings and flagged the stage to a halt as it rounded the corner. The stagecoach driver whom she had seen on occasion, immediately spotted her and brought the team of horses under his ministrations to a halt.
"Good morning." The elderly man greeted, tipping his weather beaten hat at the same time.
"Is there room Isaac?" She asked with a hopeful smile.
"Sure thing," he nodded. "Where're you headed?"
Charlotte Richmond paused to answer as she was about to climb into the stagecoach.
She replied with a smile. "Four Corners."
There was also another kind of passion.
There was the kind that was almost as infectious as the first. It consumes with as much intensity and drives all other emotions away, even the ones that know the difference between right and wrong. There is passion that is so complete in its permeation of the soul that the soul itself is extinguished until what existed before is given away to a madness that no amount of reason can prevent, no hurdle that is to wide to reach in its acquisition of its desires. It starts as something small and it soon inflames the mind with a singularity through which nothing can pass without being changed irrevocably or destroyed in the process.
She still burned for him.
Even after everything that had transpired between, despite the finality of their last meeting, she could not let him go. She would not let him go. She would pursue him until the end of time if need be but he was hers and she could not allow him freedom even if it meant damning him to the same hell fire she would undoubtedly be forced to spend eternity. Perhaps it was the one way to assure that he would be hers finally. She had sacrificed everything for him and she would continue to pay the price that was required, because he was her destiny. She knew that even though it was difficult for him to comprehend it.
He was after all a man and despite her love for him, she had to appreciate that he could not understand things as women do. However, his lack of comprehension was of little consequences for she could do the thinking for both of them, like she had always done whenever he had chosen to go astray. It was a chore she happily endured though, making the hard choices for him when he was incapable of making them for himself. Ever since that first coupling, where they had made love as youthful lovers often do, she had known that it was her lot in life to forever guard him and keep him from the dangers that might intrude upon their grand love.
Theirs was a relationship that transcended time and space. No matter how far away he was, no matter what he may tell himself about her, she knew otherwise. She loved him from the moment she met him and she would continue to do so until the last breath left her body and when she was burning in hell for the sins committed to possess him. There was no end to them, there would never be so long as they were within reach of each other.
She had let nothing stand in her way, no then and certainly not now. When he had carried out the ultimate show of foolishness by marrying some farmer's daughter, she had stepped in and watched with careful deliberation. Of course, she knew the woman meant nothing to him. He could be so misguided at times by these foolish dalliances with women who could never possibly hope to understand him or love him for that matter as much as she did. Sometimes, she endured their presence in his life, knowing that it would not be for long and when it was required, she stepped in and took matters into her own hands. For his own good of course.
When he married, she had been slightly disappointed that he would go to all the trouble when it was simpler to just sleep with the woman but then he was never very smart. The woman, he had chosen, with her wide eyed look of innocence might have tricked him into believing that this behaviour was the honourable thing to do. She had sat back, waiting patiently for this show of domestic bliss to run its course and he would come back to her, as he always did.
Until the child came.
When the child had arrived, she understood that the farmer's daughter was attempting to sever the love that had existed between them for so long. He was as vulnerable as most men to the pride of having a son and for the first time, she began to see perceive the threat that was his marriage to their long standing emotional bond. Deciding that it was necessary to act for his benefit as well hers, she took steps to dissolve this untenable situation he had stumbled into. It was easy enough to do since he travelled a great deal in order to support this family that was now not only an emotional burden to him but a financial one as well.
She had watched from afar the flames that had blazed when the men she had sent freed him once and for all. She watched the small house burn, mesmerised by the dance of amber in the night sky, hearing not the screams as the end for his little family, but the sweet song of his freedom drowning out the murder she had committed for him. She had stayed there until the house was nothing but cinders, until the fire could nothing consume no more and the billowing smoke disappeared as the sun ascended over the horizon.
She lost of him for a time following the fire and searched for him through the agents at her disposal. Eventually, she heard stories about a sombre, brooding gunslinger who was always garbed in black and had a tendency to drown himself in whisky during the nights he took up residence in any saloon. She felt his pain and wished she could explain the necessity of what had been done, knowing that if he could only hear her say the words from her lips, he would understand that it was for his own good. A man such as he could not be tethered by such mundane concerns as family and responsibility, she understood him as a free spirit, a force of nature that could not be tamed.
Later on, when he had found solace in the town she would come to know as Four Corners, she was pleased that he was rekindling his desire to live by finding six friends who would protect him as much as offer him comfort from the loneliness of her absence. She waited until the time was right and she was certain that enough time had passed so that she could present herself to him, knowing that as soon as they were together again, all the sorrow of what he had lost would be forgotten.
Except that he was angry.
He had almost killed her for taking his family from him. If he had not desisted in killing her, she would have been forced to consider that perhaps he might have not have been as in love with her as she originally believed. However, she did not like what that could mean and the terrible implication that might follow that train of thought If she was wrong about how he felt about his family's death then perhaps, she might have been wrong about a great many things.
She had left because he was still grieving for his family and knew that a time would come when he would accept the purity of their love and come for her. Naturally, she had people keeping a close eye on him during his tenure in the town of Four Corners and intelligence regarding his life there reached her with regularity. It kept her abreast of what was happening in his life until she was ready to take her place in it once again.
Unfortunately, things rarely occurred as they should and now she was informed that he intended on taking another wife. She remembered the woman Mary Travis and considered the blond widow to be a rival even more formidable than the farmer's daughter. This was no simple woman who was content to raise a child waiting for her husband on a homestead. Mary Travis was a power onto herself and she had the intelligence to cause serious concern.
So, for the second time in his life, she was going to have to save him from another mistake. Mary Travis would be harder to deal with then Sarah Larabee but then any woman who captured Chris Larabee's heart had to have mettle.
Fortunately, Ella had more.