029. Elope.

"Avril, it's so kind of you to visit me again." Her grandmother cooed holding out her arms and waiting for Avril to step into the embrace.

Avril smiled a bit hesitantly even though she didn't have any reason to feel so anxious. It was wrong to not want to have come, just because Kujo had decided last minute to come with her didn't mean that she had to be so disappointed to be with her grand-mere now. She let her grand-mere wrap her in a tight embrace.

Avril breathed in her grand-mere's familiar scent, something rather like peppermint, and tried to forget about Kujo.

"Is something wrong, my dear?" Grand-mere asked, leading Avril into her seaside cottage.

Abruptly Avril felt daring and almost willing to talk about Kujo, so she found a roundabout manner to get going on the subject. "What was it like to be in love with Grand-pere?" She questioned. Her Grand-pere had died several years ago of heart failure but it seemed like it could be a good way to weasling slowly into talking about her growing attachment to Kujo.

Her grand-mere smiled brightly. "He was a wonderful man. It was like nothing I'd ever experienced to know him, and to love him? I've never felt so strongly for a single person before or after him. Yes, I love the rest of my family of course, but the love I had for was a special thing, more unique and stronger than what I can truly describe." Grand-mere's eyes took on a misty nostalgic cast. "We eloped, you know."

Avril was surprised and truly interested now instead of merely wanting to guide the conversation. "Really? You never told me that."

"Oh yes, we did. It wasn't so much that our parents disapproved the match; we simply didn't want to wait. So we went to Paris and got married."

"At the Eiffel Tower?" Avril asked excitedly, eager to think of her grandparents as part of the structures history.

"Goodness, no, didn't you know that was only built in 1889?"

"Oh," Avril flushed embarrassed.

"We were married in a simple court ceremony, but it was enough. Or love decorated it with all the furnishing that young people seem so eager to toss up at a wedding's notice. We didn't need it. The simplicity suited us and the exploratory lifestyle we engaged in for the next few years."

Avril nodded eagerly. "Grand-pere was always an adventurer wasn't he?" It was after him that Avril had designed her own visions of exploring the world and adventuring through it.

"Always. To the very end." Grand-mere agreed softly. "To the very end."


Having not much homework due tomorrow, here's an extra chapter I jotted down, for your enjoyment. Thank you for your patience as I write these. :)