Prompt: Accent
Rose Hathaway does not like reading—and she really has made an effort to change that. She's tried for Dimitri's sake—because it is one of his favorite past times—accompanying him to bookstore after bookstore and scouring the shelves for anything that might hold her interest, but in the end, he always ends up with an armful of books while she remains empty handed. The entire problem is that reading… just bores her. For her, it's an effort that almost seems like work—and that's the last thing she wants to do with her free time.
Having said that, she's discovered that she actually doesn't mind books if she's not the one doing the actual reading. One of her favorite things to do on their joint days off is to pack a lunch and go for a picnic in one of the many formal gardens that are located throughout the court grounds. They always go when the sun is high in the sky, and as soon as their lunch is finished, Dimitri pulls out one of his battered paperbacks and stretches out on the blanket, waiting patiently for her to assume her favorite position—snuggled up against him with her eyes closed, basking in the warm sunlight.
As soon as he begins reading, she loses herself—not in the story, of course; if you were to ask her whether the hero of the tale was Hop-along Cassidy or Wyatt Earp she'd have absolutely no idea—but rather in the soft rise and fall of his beautiful, musical accent and the low, husky sound of his voice. Slitting her eyes open, she watches as his normally somber face fills with excitement over the things happening in the story, and slowly she finds herself falling into the world his words weave, her brain twisting them into her own fantasy of the old west. Surprisingly enough, she never imagines herself as the heroine saving the day, but instead she sees herself as the damsel in distress, waiting for her handsome Russian cowboy to ride in and save the day.
On those sunny, lazy days, listening to the man she loves, watching the childlike joy that fills him as he shares his westerns with her, Rose Hathaway actually does enjoy reading—even though she would never, ever admit it in a million years.