Keep reading and reviewing :) ... Again... :) Still with the writer's block...

~Vi

What Preceeds Mourning

~His hands snatched back from my waist and he looked at me simply dumbfounded. His mouth gaped slightly and a small blush creeped into his cheeks as I smiled again and nuzzled into his chest and looked up at him through my right eye. "What is it, Blondie?" I giggled at my own pet name to him and felt my heart warm under his every touch.

~"Urm..." was his only reply as he scooped me up again and pressed his hot cheek to mine.

~He pinned me in his arms and my heart sped up even more than it had before. In barely more than a whisper, Gill nearly mouthed, "I've always loved you, Kit."

~Blood pounded in my ears and my senses hightened to the extreme to the point where I felt nearly every individual fiber in mine and his clothes. My breathing kicked up a notch after getting stuck in my throat and a firey chill ran down my spine. He freed one part of my waist and pulled his hand to my cheek and barely touched the bridge of his nose to my other cheekbone. I barely caught his soulful blue eyes before his pale eyelids covered them and I smelled his breath, so sweet and exilerating. (Then, I wondered what in the hell my breath smelled like this early in the morning.) I closed my own eyes in fear, in excitement, in hope and every nerve stood on end as I heard him take in a deep breath. Barely touching my own lips he brushed them and felt like he was getting more comfortable when, suddenly and much to my despair, a loud knock came from the other side of my front door.

~"Damnit," he muttered still so close I felt his lips brush against mine.

~I giggled in response and he laid me back down in the bed; he held his index finger to his mouth and said, "Shh..." He smiled and tip-toed to the door. "Yeesss?"

~He winked at me and waited. "Who is this?" came the muffled reply.

~His eyes grew wide and dazed like he just remembered something traumatizing. He just looked at me in question of how to respond, and I smiled and mouthed 'boyfriend.' A grin, a ginuine grin, spread across his face nearly from ear to ear. "This is Kiera's new boyfriend."

~There was no response from the other side until several ticks of the clock later. "GILL!"

~A unanimous gulp came from Gill and me as we knew all too well the voice of Mayor Hamilton.

~"Yessir?" Gill replied slowly.

~"Open. The. Door." The response was curt and chilling.

~I swung out of the bed and tried to fix my bed-head to which I nearly collapsed on the floor from the residual effects of the tainted and tampered tea. Feeling so useless, I flopped back on the bed and groaned as the door slowly swung inward revealing a beet-faced, portly mayor. Suddenly, this gurgurtural sound rose from my throat and I had just enough time to react and flee to the bathroom and throw up my guts. Over the disgusting sound of pure hydrochloric acid hitting the bottom of a bucket, I heard Hamilton demand, "Get outside now, Gill. No. I need to talk to you both..."

~"Dad! It's not what you think!"

~"I know."

~"Dad...?" I could tell by the sudden concern in his voice that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

~"Go help Kiera get lucid... I need to talk to you both..."

~I groaned and wiped my mouth again before dragging myself up groggily and washing my face off and my mouth out. I couldn't help but give a labored sigh as I trudged back onto the main floor where Gill rushed over and shoveled me up like I was merely a sack of potatoes. He sat down with me in his lap when he reached a dining room chair and looked up fearfully at his short father.

~"Sir...?" My question was slurred and showed my obvious lack of sleep.

~"Kiera... Gill... What happened last night?"

~I began to speak but Gill shot me a leathal glare and I silenced. "Kiera was poisoned."

~"But... It was supposed to be... I heard..." The mayor trailed off with a gaping stare and bloodshot eyes.

~"She switched our drinks becasue she was suspicious of what was going to happen if I did drink it..." Gill looked down at me with a softer stare. "If I had been the one to do it, then it wouldn't be so bad..."

~"That's... That's what I thought happened..." The rotund little man pulled out a hankerchief from his vest and wiped his eyes. "Kiera, you're a good woman; take good care of Gill..." He turned his grey eyes to his son who looked at his father very confused. "Gill, oh Gill... Your eyes are the same color as your mother's and your hair does that funny little thing like hers did... You take good, good care of Kiera... There's not a woman like her on the planet... Oh, Gill, she's so much like your mother..."

~Strong, stone-faced Gill wavered at the mention of his long gone mother and he looked at me with hurt apparent in his eyes. "Dad... What are you talking about...?" It was nearly a plea for him to quit.

~"I'm not going to live very much longer, Gill. You are the heir to my mayorhood and this girl is the savior of the island. Keep her, Gill."

~"No..." It was a gasp more than a saying, and suddenly, I was airborn and then felt a sharp pain in my back as I hit the floor. One second, I was sitting on what seemed to be my fiancee's lap and the next I was scraping myself up off the floor and watching my blonde angel run out the door.

~"Gill! Wait!" My voice was clear and strong and I stood without difficulty and ran, leaving poor Hamilton to sob in our wake.

~I heard my chickens cluck in protest and my calf moo in distaste as I saw Gill jump off the ledge of my farm and onto the path below where I sprinted after him without a second thought. He ran past my usual fishing spot and over the Carmel River's sole bridge. I began panting from residual fatigue of the poisoning and my vision blurred like the night before, but I shoved on in the bright, spring sunlight. I called out to him in a wheezing voice but no response came from the fleeing individual, so I continued to run after him and into the foothills of Waffle Town's only mountain. I usually would take the time to harvest the mushrooms and bamboo sprouts there, but I found Gill to be too much more important than any profit I made. I slowed to a stop and my vision fuzzed in and out to the point where I was so dizzy, I couldn't stand. I paused a minute or two and pushed myself to sprint all the way up the crooked path to Ganache Mountain Mine and across the tree root connecting one part of the path to the lead in to the Harvest Spring where the Mother Tree stood. I whimpered involuntarily as I dragged one foot in front of the other and my heart fluttered faintly in my chest like a trapped bird.

~"G-Gi-Gill..." I could barely sputter out that much to say.

~My whole body convulsed so violently at this point, I collapsed on the mossy ground, and the musty scent of dirt filled my nostrils. My eyes closed and I faintly heard a call out to me that didn't sound like Gill but like a female in distress. I fought to keep my eyes open but another lead wall closed over my mind and shut everything out.