A/N: I am back! This is the Lacesco Series. This collection of fics is based off the Fanfic50 challenge on LJ. For a list of all the word prompts I'm following, you can follow the link to my LJ. It's the only entry you will see so you won't miss it. For any update information, please refer to my Profile, since I still update it as often as I can. These prompts may refer to the Noctum/Eclipse Series, Adventum Aduro or as stand alones. It depends on how I feel, but I will always give you a heads up in my A/N for each. They will not all be fluffy but they will be centered around Noctis and Stella. Enjoy!
Summary: Sometimes the validity of touch is what you need to believe.
Disclaimer: For entertainment purposes only.
Prompt: #5 Spirit
Additional Notes: Stand Alone
Spiritus is Latin for "spirit" and Lacesco is Latin for "challenge".
Spiritus
Amid the dreary and exhaustive nights, when they had to reluctantly stop on their journey for some much needed rest, she would find herself feeling quite alone. Being the lone female in their party of five was at times, distressing. She had never considered herself a social butterfly, but being a Princess had allowed her to experience the interactions amongst various types of people. This though, was an entirely different circumstance entirely. Social gatherings at the castle only lasted so long but here, she was to stay with her companions on a twenty-four hour basis for an insurmountable time. Even her vast experiences with different diplomats and visiting dignitaries could not have prepared her psychologically for trailing both day and night with a band of friends, let alone all men. Men who had been friends since childhood whereas they were still relatively strangers to her.
Two of her companions were by far the most vocal, boisterous and downright loud men that she had ever met. One especially, spoke with little abandon and even less decorum. Still, there was a loveable aspect to their shameless, perhaps raunchy comments. As long as they were never directed at her person, she found herself actually ghosting a smile now when she heard them. It was refreshing to know exactly how another was feeling after a lifetime of having to read carefully between the lines. Against all odds, she found herself becoming very comfortable in their company. It was just that, as close as she felt she was becoming to them, they could not help her with this particular one puzzlement. This thing that had been happening with surprising regularity that she was surprised that none of the other three had noticed them happening at all. It was this very predicament that had her craving for another female companion, simply to have another woman's opinion on the matter!
True, the occurrences did not happen every day. The first couple of times it had happened, it had happened so fast that she was not even sure it had actually occurred. Then, it had happened again. With each passing time, the moment began to linger. It lingered longer and longer until finally, she decided that perhaps action needed to be taken. Which is why she needed another woman's opinion. None of her companions could offer her insights that only feminine intuition could provide. So she was left her own devices. She just needed to figure out how she was going to be handling the next time it happened. As the days went by and it did not happen again, she grew more resolved to prepare herself for the inevitability of its coming. She knew it would be coming soon. She just needed to take a deep breath and remember that she needed to have her wits about her. So, as she settled into her small makeshift bed by the camp fire, she resolved to do just that. Closing her eyes, she took a deep, cleansing breath of the refreshing night air and fell asleep, hoping that she would in fact have her wits about her when next her eyes opened.
A small groan escapes her lips as she becomes aware of various things. With eyes still closed with the last vestiges of sleep, she can hear the familiar sounds of morning. Through closed lids, she can see the brightness of the soon to fully dawn sun. It was not quite up yet, but the rays of warmth that touched her face, signaled its impending rise. She inhales the scents of a misty morning and the small hints of smoke from their dead fire. There was a slight chill in the air that caused a shiver to run through her spine. Something else though, something that did not quite fit in with the natural scents of a new morning but her foggy mind is too busy waking up to think more on it. She slowly opens her blue eyes to welcome the new day.
The sight that greets her, stuns her into immobility when she sees that there are two dark blue eyes gazing intensely at her face. They are so close that she cannot see more than the eyes that captivate her. She watches, unable to do more than blink, as those entrancing eyes follow every line of her face. They move along the curves of her cheeks to the lines of her eyes to the arches of her lips. It is her lips that interest them the most, she notices not for the first time. There is a temptation there, in the depths of those eyes. She finds she wishes that they would give in.
"Are you real?" she asks softly, amazed that she could sound so soothing within this tension laced moment.
Blue eyes look startled as they fly to hers in surprise and she wants to smile at catching him off guard for once. They then turn pensive as they look intently at her lips again. He does not say anything for so long that she does not believe that he will answer her. She does not really expect an answer anyway.
"I often wonder if you are truly flesh," he responds finally. His eyes are hesitant as they reach up to meet hers.
"What else would I be?" she asks curiously.
"A spirit," he answers.
She is not sure how she should be taking this, but if he meant offense, she is sure he would have said something completely different. Somehow, she understands what he means. Sometimes she found herself watching him on their journey and wonder, like he seems to, if he was real too. It comforts her to know that he feels the same. So, with a sure hand, she reaches up and touches his lips with the tips of her fingers.
The contact startles him and she can see the vulnerability in his eyes. It is then that she knows what power is. The power that she has over him. It was a parallel power that he held over her. He was not a creature that was touched very often, nor did he welcome touch from must anyone. The smile that graces her lips with this thought lights up her face and has him tilting his head at an angle to stare inquisitively at her in return.
"Spirits cannot touch," she reasons, looking up into his eyes. Her fingers lightly trace along the lines of his lips. "For they are not flesh but I can touch you."
Under the tips of her fingers, she can feel the curve of a smile on his lips and she can see the twinkle that has appeared in his eyes. A black gloved hand reaches up and carefully brushes back some of her golden hair before coming to linger over her own mouth.
"And I can touch you," he replies, with that smirk of his that had the ability of making her heart race. The hand lingers over her lips but he does not fully make contact with the tender skin. Then he reaches to take the hand that is still touching his own lips and holds it away. There is a silent moment and she can feel the tension between them solidify as if it were a living thing between them as they share a look. "Can lips do what hands do?"
Her eyes go to their joined hands and then back up into his amused eyes. She tilts her own head to the side as she pretends to ponder her answer. At just this angle, the sun is shining just behind his spiky, midnight hair, casting a black halo around his head. Her own dark, avenging angel that monsters and men feared to cross. Yet with her, he has always been something else entirely. He was not an angel. He was a man and for some inexplicable reason, he had chosen to bring her with him. To realize that he had been gazing at her all these mornings because he found her to be ethereal was beyond comprehension. Not when it was he who would be legend. He was the one who was otherworldly. He was the one stronger than spirit.
"You mean, pray?" she asks coyly and there are actual wrinkles beside his eyes as a real smile crosses his lips.
He is just about to answer when they both hear a groan from one of their companions, signaling their inevitable rise.
"Perhaps one day," he says mischievously. "They will do more than pray."
She smiles back at him before he rises easily to his feet and disappears just as his ruffle haired friend sits up with a large yawn escaping his mouth.
End Notes: