Full Summary: This is another drabble that I wrote for my English class. The prompt was to write about a the best gift that someone has ever given us, why it was so special and how it reminds us of the person. I hate talking about myself and I've received far too many wonderful gifts from the people that I love to just single out one of them. So I got permission to write a story instead with the same prompt but using different characters. I hope you enjoy.
Her eyes lit up in awe. Arthur. He was down on one knee. An indigo velvet box was in his open palm. Time seemed to slow as he reached with his free hand to the top of the little box, his delicate porcelain fingers drawing back the lid of the box until the top rested, fully opened on its hinge.
And in this moment, time stood still. The only acknowledgement of the world around them was the quiet, collective gasps of the fellow female dinner guests. For inside that little box, cushioned between a small pillow made of navy silk, was the most beautiful diamond ring that Amelia ever did lay her eyes on. The band was pure silver and gleamed its radiance when the lights above struck the surface just right. There were a total of three lozenges on the band. Two sparkling 1kt diamonds rested on either side of the center piece. And the pièce de résistance, the most dazzling feature of the whole ensemble, was the pear shaped, 2.0 corundum, six-ray starred Persian blue sapphire.
The sheer beauty of the ring alone could bring a woman to tears. Amelia could only now feel the tears of joy well up until they overflowed and made long but steady strides downwards, staining her flushed and star-spangled cheeks, because not only did such a rare beauty grace her presence, but it was all for her as well.
"Amelia, my love," Arthur began. "I apologize my love. I'm aware that the beryl red ruby is your birth stone. However, when I laid my eyes upon this sapphire, I saw your eyes in this stone. As deep and blue as the oceans are mysterious but dazzling with a never ending feeling of freedom, like God's blue sky above. This gem, like your eyes, made me fall in love upon the first glance.
Amelia Freedom Jones, I kneel before you now not as a man, but as a half. A half of a soul who's longed to find his destined mate. Amelia, my world, my sun, my moon, and my stars, would you do me the honour of making me the happiest man in existence and become my bride? My friend, my lover, my mate, my wife, my other half. Would you take my missing half and make me whole, would you accept my hand in marriage?"
Death got a chill from the silence that followed. No words. There were no words to possibly justify how Amelia felt after listening to Arthur's touching speech.
The dinner guests around them contributed to the silence, having become spectators and waiting with baited breath for her response.
When none came, Arthur began to grow worried. He knitted his large eyebrows in concern as he watched the girl he loved shiver and quiver her throat, the words stuck inside. "Darling?"
The sweet name broke the dam and Amelia came crumbling down, throwing herself at Arthur and sobbing loudly into his chest.
Taken aback by the display, Arthur very nearly toppled over and dropped the precious ring. He shook off his initial shock and looked down at Amelia with fearful eyes. "A-amelia…?"
"ssss…." Was the only thing he could make out of her broken blubbering. "I'm sorry love; I didn't hear what you said?"
"I said yes you British idiot!" She suddenly shouted. She reached up and brought the man into a bruising kiss before separating to rest her forehead against his and wrap her arms around his middle, holding him close enough almost to the point of choking the man. "I said yes…yes yes, a million-kajillion times yes Arthur!"
Arthur felt himself stiffen and then relax into her crushing touch. He returned the embrace as best he could but he knew he'd never have the same brute strength that his smaller lover-now-fiancée had.
"Thank you Amelia, you've just made me the happiest man in the world! This is the happiest I've ever been I-"
His sentence was cut off by Amelia slanting her own plump pink lips over Arthur's smaller, paler ones.
"Shut up, dude. If you say anymore of that deep, heart-felt stuff I think I'm gonna die." They chuckled in unison. It was true though, in a sense. After Arthur's proposal, Amelia was so overcome with emotion that she couldn't show any at first. She wasn't sure if it was just a British thing or an 'Arthur' thing, but the blonde-haired Brit had always been able to take her breath away just with a sentence. He'd never been a man to wear his heart on his sleeves, but he spoke his heart when he spoke his word.
Arthur smiled back at Amelia and gently took her delicate but calloused hand in his own and slipped the ring onto her finger, where it rested forever more. Not one day in the rest of her natural life did Amelia dare take the precious ring off of her finger. The ring was a symbol of their love, of their lives together. And two years later, it became a symbol of the day that Arthur and Amelia joined in holy matrimony and became as one.
Amelia would later write in her memoirs that it was the best present she had received in her entire life. She would always look to her ring when she thought of Arthur. It always brought her comfort and reminded her of the man she loved. Even after his untimely demise, which he unfortunately met eight years before Amelia's own passing, Amelia could feel him in that ring. She could feel his energy, his presence, his love.
It reminded her of that faithful, magical night what now seemed like a lifetime away. When she and Arthur were still young and able, naïve and slightly irresponsible in their prime. The beautiful words that he'd spoken to her in front of an entire restaurant of patrons.
She smiled, and kissed the hardened face of the jewel. It was clearly worn with age and had lost most of its luster. But to Amelia, the ring was just as sparkling and beautiful as the day Arthur placed it on her finger and forever entwined himself to her. The day they became man and wife. The day she became one with her other half.