Lady Antimony is hosting a week-long Repentance: The Seven Virtues flash fiction challenge.
The premise of the challenge is as follows:
Seven Days
Seven Virtues
Seven Flash Fictions up to 100 words
Starting August 7.
I cannot refuse this Disney themed Seven Virtues artwork from http://pat7.deviantart.com.
The Seven Virtues are not as easily defined as the Seven Deadly Sins. Each virtue has a host of different meanings. So with my Seven Virtues, I’ll be defining which particular aspect of that Virtue I’m following.
Today is Diligence: Unobserved convictions, integrity.
We could elope. No one would ever know. No one was watching. It could be our secret. But I knew it was not the right thing to do. I couldn’t take her away from the life she had grown to love – and thrived in – however much it hurt me. She wouldn’t leave the man she was engaged to. It wasn’t his wealth, or his comfort that kept her there. It was her duty. As it my own duty to keep her there as well. If she knew of my desires, she would come back to me in a heart beat.
To be continued…
Lissa Bilyk 
I really am loving the one in these… why do you have to leave it with to be continued… MEANIE!
Because it’s part of a broader narrative.
ooooo! I like this one! “she would come back to me in a heart beat”… now I feel sorry for both of them!
They both have barriers to their relationship, which is what I love.
Yeah, and that makes the story so much more interesting and so much more believable, too.
If she knew she would come back… then surely he should give her the choice? I love the questions this is raising…
She made her choice long ago, and it’s his own fault. That’s the beauty of his dilemma.
What time or place are they in that something is making them stay away from each other… I am not happy. The ending better be happy… will wait for answers in the next post.
It’s 19th century England. Think Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and the inspiration for this, Wuthering Heights. Propriety and manners all wrapped up in a turbulent love story. In my version, Heathcliff is a lot nicer.
It sounds like it wouldn’t take much for them to abandon the course of honour in favour of what they truly want. They’re teetering.
You’re right: it wouldn’t take much if they were a modern-day couple. That’s why I made it 19th century, the era of manners, propriety, and virtue.
Love this line: “It wasn’t his wealth, or his comfort that kept her there. It was her duty. As it my own duty to keep her there as well.” Fits the virtue perfectly.
Thank you, I like that line rather a lot as well.
It is a good era for Virtue and an excellent way of capturing it, but does seem to drive home that a Virtuous life is a sad and lonely one.
Oh, definitely. Being sinful is always a lot more fun than being virtuous – but there are often other perks of being virtuous. Don’t ask me to name them: I sometimes wish I could go back in time and be a little LESS virtuous, ifyaknowwhatImean.