connororeilly.livejournal.comI'll admit I was feeling a bit woozy from loss of blood when she said it. I'd ended up in a duel with the Red Victor not by choice it might be said but I'm not a coward and will fight when I have to. Immediately after the fight as my blood flowed from multiple wounds from my invisible opponent she approached me
"Still love me?"
The words were past my lips before I could even think
"always"
I always had this nasty habit of telling the truth when distracted, makes me fun to be around at parties, with my reply Astraea moved close to me laying her hand against my chest, the smell of jasmine, ylang ylang and other night flowers wrapped around me and made me feel dizzy. Suddenly I felt my wounds start to knit together, cuts becoming bruises, bruises disappearing totally. We talked deeply for a while afterwards with her scolding me for putting myself in danger and I tried to charm my way out of her bad books, and since she laughed at my off colour jokes and smiled in a way that lit up the room I'm sure I was being sucessful.
And then she walked away, of course I knew that I couldn't take all of her time but deep down I felt a little rejected. Not a person to be knocked down for long I went looking for fun and ended up chatting to lots of different people while putting off a couple of blood splattered people who wanted me to help in a ritual of some sort.
The next night we sat and watched the lectures on the courts and I held her hand and talked of the power and my determination to become more powerful in my chosen court. Once again I felt her pull away from me and leave. I threw myself into my court's work helping with the arrangement of defenses for the ritual. Apparently something had gone wrong with last night's ritual and we might all die if this one didn't go well, bloody ritualists always doing something to the fabric of reality.
And then a gunshot, a broken heart and Astraea turned to me for comfort. A gentleman doesn't speak of the sort of things that happened next so I won't. After I snuck out of her room as dawn broke over Buxton I turned and looked back at her slumbering form. I was glad I could offer her some solace in this difficult time, it wasn't a perfect moment for either one of us but as a smile played across my face I thought to myself maybe it isn't perfect but where is the challenge in perfect.