milieva: Purple flowers in a glass on a purple table. (now and forever)
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I am posting this here, so not to torture Rae-chan. I told her I finished it and FFN can be a bitch most of the time. So here it is, the first draft of Wish I had an Angel Chapter Three...



Wish I had an Angel

Chapter Three: Your touch, my bliss

The high paned windows vibrated from the heavy crash of the thunder, but none offered to rattle. The castle was too well made for that. Ascot stared out at the grounds; the next lightning bolt illuminated the shadowed trees. His gaze fell on the small pavilion near the garden path. With the next lightning strike he could barely make out a small blue haired figure sitting close to one of the ornate columns. He forced himself to look away; he was aided by the rain pounding harder against the thick paned window. Turning away from the view, the summoner decided to go back to the library. He did still have a few more days’ worth of work left to do in there. Ascot paused in the doorway of the dreary room. The heavy, musky scent of the scrolls and books rushed to meet him. He never really cared for the smell. It was beyond his comprehension why the damn mage would spend so much time in here. No matter how he tried to ignore it, he couldn’t help but think of Umi. It didn’t help that she was currently outside endangering her health. Presea’s words came back to him. “She loves you. You are a dear friend to her. And she misses talking to you.” Why did that blasted water knight do such stupid things at times? He turned on heel and stormed down the corridor. If he couldn’t do anything else, he would at least try to get her to come back indoors.

The rain hadn’t eased any by the time he made it to the ground floor. Ascot could almost swear that it was pouring down even stronger. He gazed across to the pavilion. It seemed an impossible distance away. The summoner took a step back. Maybe she wouldn’t want to talk to him. He had been the one who snubbed her, after all. Taking a deep breath he ran out into the rain. The icy water stung his skin. What was in her head, to be out here?

Ascot was gasping for breath when he reached the pavilion. He could hardly hold his head up; his waterlogged hat must have weighed a ton. Ripping the stupid thing off, he wrung it out in his hands.

“Ascot?”

Umi looked up him questioningly. Her hand rested lightly on her round belly. The cloak she was wearing looked vaguely like one of Clef’s.

The summoner swallowed hard. What the hell was he supposed to say? “It’s um… Well… It’s raining…” Oh great job, idiot. State the obvious.

The water knight smiled. “I know.” She moved over on the bench and motioned for him to sit down.

“Why are out here? It can’t be good for you or the…” He still couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“I couldn’t sleep.” She stared out at the rain soaked flowers. Her fingers absentmindedly running over the distended line of her stomach.

“But to come out here?”

“I like the rain. I can always fall asleep listening to it. Besides, she sleeps to the sound too.” Umi ran both hands lovingly over her belly and smiled up at him.

“She? How do you know?”

“I just do.” She pulled the cloak closer around herself. “I don’t know how, but I do.”

Both sat silently for a moment. The rain was beginning to let up, and small tendrils of light were peeking through the cloud cover. Umi sighed and gazed up at the sky. “How have you been?”

He wasn’t sure how to tell the person you love that you cannot come to terms with the child growing in her womb. That every second you have lived since the day that you found out, has been agony. So he said the same thing he had used two days ago when Presea asked him a similar question. “I’m organizing the library.”

“Presea told me that much, but how are you, Ascot?” She looked him straight in the eye as she asked this.

“I’ll survive.”

Umi nodded.

Ascot turned away from her. Seconds ticked by lie days in the silence. There were so many things he wanted to say, but none of them seemed right. This was a bad idea. He shouldn’t have come out here. But he did say he would at least get her back indoors.

“We should be getting you back up to the castle… That mage might be worried about you.”

She smiled again. “He’s not there to worry. He…”

So Clef had left her alone, again. Why did he treat her like that? What did she see in him? Any man that would leave his wife alone when she came to visit him…especially if she were…

“…and Ferio…Ascot?” Umi looked up at him. Worry was etched on her face. “Are you alright?”

He nodded dumbly.

“Alright.” She watched him questioningly as she continued. “Both he and Ferio are at the Council. They won’t be around until this afternoon. But you are right, we should head back to the castle; it is almost time for breakfast.” She reached out and touched his hand. The familiar electric shock ran through the summoner’s veins. Why couldn’t he just forget how much he loved her? He tried to calm his pounding heart. His cheeks burned. Why did she still do this to him?

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Umi was now standing before him holding his hand between hers.

“Yes….Yes, I’m fine.” He muttered as he stood to follow her up the muddy pathway.

**

“So, you finally found the dirty books, eh?”

The shattering of the silence startled Ascot so badly he nearly dropped the book he had been reading. He turned to the owner of the cocky voice in the doorway. Caldina just grinned at him, ruffled his hair and took the book from him. She flipped through the pages and let out a sound of disgust.

“This thing is beyond out of date. What are you reading it for?”

“No reason in particular.”

“Uh Huh…right… and I am Pillar of Cephiro.”

“Seriously.”

“Come on. Nobody reads Saldir’s The Female Body without reason. The thing is terribly graphic and grossly inaccurate.” She glanced at the page Ascot had been studying quite intensely. “The Calendar of Child bearing…honestly.”

“I was just wondering.”

Caldina gave him a pained look.

“I have nothing to talk about with her. I thought that if I could…Well if I…”

“You have almost all the same friends in common. You have known her for two years. It’s not like she is an entirely different person now that she is going to have that geezer’s kid.”

“But…”

She made an impatient gesture. “No. I don’t want any excuses. You were the one who wanted to grow up so soon. You’re not a child any longer. Be a man. You’re not too bad looking, even if that hat is a bit silly looking and that hair…”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Just shut up and take advice when it’s given to you.” She shoved the book back into his hands. “You need a new girl to obsess over.” Caldina scratched her head paced over to the book shelf. A text on weapons making caught her eye. Hmm… Why hadn’t she thought of that before? “Maybe you and Presea…”

“Are you drunk or something?”

“Well, both of you need someone new to focus you energies on…” The dancer wandered to another set of shelves she picked up a worn copy of Pleasure Positions, and began to thumb through it. “If you two just…hm...I never thought of that one” She turned the book sideways and looked more closely at the picture.

Ascot turned scarlet as he realized what Caldina was reading. Her words slowly clicked into the little used circuits of his brain. “I am not going to wed with her.”

“I wasn’t suggesting for you to.” She snapped the book shut. “This is for my own personal use, but if you change your mind…”

If it was at all possible, the summoner turned a darker shade of red. “I really don’t think that it would…”

The dancer smacked him across the back of the head. “What did I say about listening to advise? I said nothing about following it. Just listening to it. Now listen. If you and Presea tried to work out a relationship…and say it did alright. You both might be happier, yeah?”

She pranced out of the room with her thickly bound book under one arm.

Ascot sighed. The world must just fall apart differently with the pillar system destroyed. At the very least his world had fallen upside down since the day has found Umi crying in her bedroom.


To be continued…..


Author’s Note:

Sorry for the shortness. I am still trying to figure this story out. Caldina just appeared as I was writing. On another note, I haven’t completely edited this because I’m lazy. I will double check it on Tue, so forgive any errors

Shameless Plug: There is now a forum on my website. I would love to gain more members to bring more life to it. The URL is cephiro[dot]psynos[dot]net. (FFN is touchy about URL’s so I worked with the problem)
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milieva: Purple flowers in a glass on a purple table. (Default)
Milieva (Mils)

December 2020

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