A/N: This is just a test sample. I saw that a lot of people liked my other stories Just Plain Dirty and My Angel about Lissa and Rose, so I want to see what you think of this. If enough people like it, I plan to continue it as a multi-chapter story.
Summary: What if there was more to Rose and Lissa's two year absence than what everyone else knows? What if Rose had a crazy supernatural experience that landed her in a parallel world very similar to her own? What if she lost something precious there and returned to her best friend empty and depressed? And what if her secret past returns and wreaks chaos and harmony on her current life? Takes place in Frostbite. Dimitri and Rose are friends and have no deeper feelings for each other. Rose and Lissa will be a couple in this story, but probably not the way you think.
Disclaimer: Richelle Mead (cough, goddess, cough) owns Vampire Academy and Within Temptation (cough, totally amazing, cough) owns the song Memories.
Rose
"All of my memories keep you near.
In silent moments, imagine you here.
All of my memories keep you near.
In silent whispers, silent tears."
I opened the locket. I never took it off anymore, not it or the rings. The durable silver chain never weakened, couldn't, so I never feared losing these most precious belongings of mine. Lissa, the first one anyway, and a number of other people occasionally asked me why I had the rings and what was in the locket, but of course I couldn't tell them. And I didn't want to; there was too much of me connected to these things, too much even for me to show my best friend, Lissa 1, to reveal.
I looked at the picture inside, as clear as it had been the day She graced me with it, and allowed myself to sink into the memories.
It was a nice one. It was the day we went to the little local arts festival going on just outside of Royal Court. We lived there then, since She was queen and I was Her official guardian. It was a month before I had proposed to Her. She loved artsy things like this and would drag me and Dimitri, Her second main guardian, along all the time. I liked Dimitri; he was a great guardian and fighter and was a real decent guy.
On this day, She went nuts over a lady who made the most beautiful glass roses you've ever seen in her home. They were lovely. I was certain they would be worth several hundred bucks a pop on a professional market, but this little old lady wasn't charging anything over eighty dollars. My love bought three: a red for me, a yellow for Herself, and a smaller red one for Dimitri to give to his girlfriend Tasha Ozera. She loved to buy me rose things; I put on a good show of being annoyed, but really I loved it. She insisted on giving the lady three hundred, a good hundred a rose, taking her surprisingly steady hands gently in her own and giving her a heartfelt speech until the lady, like all of us, succumbed to her charm and accepted the money. She was amazing, and She proved it on a regular basis. When we walked away, I pulled Her to me and kissed Her with all the passion I was feeling. Her jade green eyes were smoldering and heavy when we pulled apart.
"What was that for?" She asked breathlessly.
"That was because you're too incredible for words to do justice to you," I said, and I knew the look on my face was 100% W.H.I.P.P.E.D. She blushed and looked down shyly, playing with the yellow rose in Her slender fingers. I lifted her chin, tapping my rose to her cheek. "By the gods, Lissa Dragomir, do you have any idea how clinically insane I am about you?"
She grinned even more shyly, blushing an enticing dark pink. I kissed her again, long and sweet. Dimitri was conveniently absent; I had thanked him later. "I love you, you know," I said.
"I love you too, my Rose," she said before leaning in again to claim what was already hers….