Story: Empress
Pairing(s): Kouen|Asta
Word Count: 250
Rating: T?
Author's Comment: POV is suspect, but I'm thinking I'll come back after the 30 days are over to give them a better edit since I'm posting them as I finish them. Enjoy.
If you want to see any couple or character in certain situations from this story, let me know. I'm taking suggestions! If I feel inspired by a suggestion or feel that I can make it work, I'll write them!
Originally posted on November 21, 2017 for 30 Days of Short Fiction. For more information on 30DoSF, please refer to the pinned entry on at my wordpress, linked available in my profile, or read the vague explanation under the announcements header on my profile page.
Sometimes, he hears her sadness.
Asta never heard Kouen enter. She sat silent in the window's alcove, tears dried on her cheeks, watching the rain soak and rattle the windowpane. She shivered as if she held the freezing rainwater in her bloodstream, dressed in little else but a shift that hung loose around her shoulders.
Kouen draped a woolen blanket on her and her eyes finally met his. She jumped into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist, and she kissed him hard. He tasted the salted loneliness on her lips and wished he could offer her the security she needed to endure the distance between them.
She couldn't leave Ione and he could not stay. She waited for signs of his arrival and he counted down days. Time together slipped between his fingers like sand, ever second counted. Six hundred four thousand eight hundred seconds were never enough, but he accepted them. He would never hold his hand out to her and ask her to journey with him.
"Let me be with you," Asta whispered, breath warm against his lips. Fresh tears sprung into her eyes as he hoisted her up, elevating her so she looked down at him, and felt the first of her tears land on his chin, drawing a trail down his neck. "Take me with you when you go."
The hand he placed on the small of her back crumpled the flimsy shift covering her tremulous body and he felt the promise on his tongue. "Ione needs you here."