David had heard legends of a woman. The first woman.

She was not an appropriate mate. She was too strong, her words were too blunt, and she didn't know her place.

Instead, there was Eve, who was pleasing in every way one can please. She came after Lilith, but she was much preferred.

The story of Lilith is the story of a woman walking away from a garden.

The story of Eve is the story of a woman's lips on a piece of fruit, of the juice that runs down her throat and makes her know things she wishes she never knew. The story of a woman whose deceitfulness ruins a man. Ruins all men.

But then at the end, it is still the story of a woman walking away from a garden.

David wonders why Rose is here. He knows it must be some plot, some strategy that he could only wish he understood. The way she moves near him, on him, around him, practiced and precise and deviously good; the way she lets spill just a few words from her lips, and these words become his lifeblood; the way she knows far more than she should know, than anyone should know.

It is clear; he is no match for her....

Sometimes, David wonder if maybe Lilith and Eve were not the same. If perhaps Eve was the story they created later because they could not bear the truth of Lilith.

He thinks these things as he stares out the window, behind him the Queen asleep on the bed, the expanse of her body reigning over the covers like an emblem or a seal of power.

He thinks these things while he can. Soon she will be awake and will decide that David should be thinking of other things.

AN: Originally for the prompt David/anyone, 'Lilith,' at comment_fic on livejournal