Title: Diamonds, Prologue.
Rating: PG, I guess.
Warnings: a little harmless skinny-dipping, lol.
Characters/Pairings: Sheridan Crane, mentions of Alistair Crane, and an as-yet unnamed admirer.
Summary (for chapter): He found himself captivated, completely mesmerized by a spirit whose beauty was more rare than diamonds.
Prologue
The stars shone in the midnight sky like brilliant diamonds, and Sheridan wondered…if she closed her eyes tightly and made a wish…would it come true? Clasping her hands lightly around her knees, she decided to indulge herself. She had nothing to lose, after all, and everything to gain. With odds like that, what would it hurt?
So Sheridan did it; she made a wish upon a star. She knew her father would be in a rage if he were witness to such childish behavior, but she didn't care. She made her wish with a smile playing upon her lips. Was it really such a crime to believe in magic? To want to? She was seventeen years old, nearly eighteen, and she longed to know love, to be loved.
The death of her mother was a physical ache that never left Sheridan. She could barely remember her mother's face or what she looked like, but she could remember the warmth she felt around her as a tiny child, the feeling of comfort that came with being held within her arms. It was a feeling of comfort, Sheridan realized, that she hadn't felt or experienced since her mother's death. Sighing, she kicked the sand at her feet and tossed a seashell out to sea.
Sheridan didn't know why her father had sent for her; it wasn't like he really wanted her home. Boarding school almost sounded like an escape, almost. But boarding school didn't have the ocean. She didn't have that feeling of freedom just within her grasp or the possibility of more.
The waves lulled Sheridan into a state of calm. The warm summer breeze ruffled her short blond curls against her face. Closing her eyes, she breathed in the salty air and smiled as an idea came to her. Why not, she thought. Opening her blue eyes and looking around the beach, she found it deserted, at least to her untrained eye.
Her thin cotton sundress soon fell to the sand below, and her tan skin gleamed in the starlight as she ran out into the waves. Her silvery laughter floated in the night as she splashed in the ocean's spray with childlike abandon, none the wiser to the set of brown eyes watching her.
(He found himself captivated, completely mesmerized by a spirit whose beauty was more rare than diamonds.)
So...it's no secret by now that I've been struggling with some pretty nasty writer's block.
Prompts aren't helping, revisiting old fics that I haven't updated in a while and rereading them isn't helping, really nothing seems to be helping.
And it's long past time that I cleaned this fic up a little bit. ;)
Once upon a time, I'd hoped to completely revamp this fic, make it a little juicier, add some detail, etc., but I quickly gave up on that idea as my free time dwindled with added responsibilities in RL.
Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, I was perusing old fics in the hopes of rediscovering some of my missing inspiration, and I decided, what the heck.
Now, it's not the rewrite I'd hoped for, but I hope it's easier to read and not as choppy.
Enjoy! And let me know what you think of this blast from the past.
:)
I'll replace each chapter with the new version as I manage to polish them up.