Bachelor (Kel/Dom)
Kel was standing on a balcony at the Palace. It was the Midwinter Ball and she was wearing a light green silk dress that she hated – because she thought it was too revealing and too tight in the wrong places for a girl who didn't want attention from men. And it was snowing.
She loved the snow. She wished she could go outside and sit and listen to soft waltz there.
Dom, who, for the moment, was without any admirers, saw Kel and walked up behind her.
"Hey stranger," He said to her softly.
She smiled. "Hey Dom."
"Want to take a walk?"
Kel looked at Dom, who wearing shiny dress mail and a deep blue tunic that matched his eyes. She could see how he was the court bachelor – now that Roual had Buri. She could see how every lady – single or not, couldn't help but flirt with him, with his natural charm and obvious good looks.
But for this moment, he was just Dom. And, for that moment, she was just Kel. And Kel nodded.
"I think I'd like that."
Dom led her down a small path to a small courtyard, where the lights from the party upstairs could be seen, and the music still be heard.
Dom, winking at her, twirled her around, making her laugh a little.
"If you wanted to ask me to dance, you could have asked me upstairs." She told him as she sat on a bench, looking up at the sky and the snow.
Dom smiled. "I could have. But, being the new Court Bachelor, I have a reputation to uphold. Once I dance with one, I have to dance with everyone. And fiancés and husbands don't like that."
"You can see why Roual didn't like parties."
He smiled, and took her hands and twirled her again, dancing with her in the snow to his favourite waltz.
He decided, then and there, that if he could dance with Kel, in the snow at Midwinter, for the rest of his life, he would give up his title of Bachelor. Heck, he would give up bachelorhood just to see Kel smile the way she did that night, dancing with him. He wished he could make her smile that way every time he saw her, bachelor or not.
And he wished that Kel wouldn't see him as a bachelor – for he wasn't. He was already taken.
Kel just didn't know it was her.
Yet,