a/n: Lucian is supposedly able to read an entire book in just moments. I don't own Pokémon.
Her eyes were shut, her form bowed slightly, her lithe arms outstretched; she presented her creation to him, and she caught her breath as she felt minutes and hours and days of revision leave her fingertips.
"I-I'm sorry, I haven't had it bound, y-you're reading the first draft..." she stammered. What's a white lie, now and again?
His nimble fingers flicked through the stack of papers, tenderly leafing across the vials of ink she had spattered onto each page. She only hoped he could discern each word, that her penmanship hadn't suffered too greatly in her frenzy to complete what could become her magnum opus...
Yet, she used that term loosely; for a woman who so often skimmed along the boundary that lay between connotation and denotation, she couldn't decide where to place her own definition of magnum opus. Was a magnum opus a work that was tremendously popular, lauded by critics and masters of language, translated into a hundred different tongues to be shared with every member of the human race? Perhaps to someone who stressed accuracy in diction.
Any work that made him smile was a magnum opus, to her.
"This is truly a masterpiece," he marveled, his mauve irises locked onto one particularly blackened sheet. "You've really outdone yourself, Shauntal. 'For one moment, his austere glare eased, a stunningly alluring flame flickering in his eyes as he uttered each dulcet syllable; his voice echoed out into the hall...' Such a beautiful line."
And he grinned; that coy little trick that played with his lips. She was instantly disarmed.
A masterpiece indeed.
"That really means so much from you, Lucian... Th-Thank you, so very much."
His index and middle fingers pressed against his dark oval frames, pushing them up along the bridge of his nose. He held the piece out to her, and she took it, gently, from his equable grasp.
And there was a brief moment, as she curved her digits underneath the bottom page, where her trembling fingers met his.
"It's my pleasure."