Fall.
After such an oppressively hot summer, she is glad it is starting to finally cool down, even though she hates the cold. It is a welcome relief from the heat, and in a way, she feels it represents the new stage she's heading towards.
She is more sure of herself and how she's faring as a ruler. She's making less mistskes, earning more respect, and in general, just getting things done. She's settling into herself.
She wishes her personal life were going so well. Oh, she can't really complain; she did see him twice more over the summer — both times ending just as frenzied as the first one. In a way, it felt like he was making up for the long gap between spring and summer, by coming to her thrice, and one of those times, even staying for three days, doing who knows what during the days while she was busy with her duties.
Not that she was complaining, it was a delightful change and she felt like this is what life could be like, if he stayed. Those nights, after their torrid affairs, she'd lain in his arms, satiated, while they talked. They'd talked all night, trading stories about their days and lives. Discussing their mutual friends. Teasing and laughing at each other. And as always, the witty banter.
Occasionally they'd argue too — both had such strong and stubborn personalities. And, both loved to be right. However, the arguments never lasted long, and led to passionate interludes that they both loved even more than being right.
But it was fall now, and she knew he planned on going away soon, so she hadn't expected to see him there. She had stepped into her office, prepared to look at whatever important, but likely boring, documents her advisors had left for her on her desk. She had hoped they would distract her from her thoughts of where he was going, and how much she wished she could go with.
The documents were sadly doomed to be forgotten, because he was sitting there in her chair behind her desk, legs crossed, and feet up on the desk. He was reading those oh so important — and likely confidential — documents.
"What are you doing?" She tried to grab the papers from him, but he held them over her head. Smirking, taunting.
"I came to see you."
"Didn't you say you would be traveling? I believe your exact words were that you were looking for a long hidden and unknown treasure you are seeking to find that you simply cannot live without?"
"Yes, but I delayed my trip so I could see you before I left."
"That's sweet," she says archly, "but as you can see, I have much work to do."
"You are begging to be stolen." He says, before throwing her over his shoulder and striding from the room. She shrieks and pounds her fist on his back, demanding he let her go, but he does not.
Where is her guard? Oh right, she only allows one to follow her, as she has taken to carrying her sword with her — she is a warrior, after all. She finds out shortly he's cast a sleep spell on the guard as she sees him slumped against the wall, and they walk through the empty halls in her palace. Her office is in a quiet corridor, after all.
He sets her down and they steal out of the palace through one of the many secret passages it boasts. She is not surprised he knows it. She fleetingly wonders if he has a map of the old place, as he seems to know his way around pretty well and always turns up somewhere unexpected.
They fly away on his ship. Some small town where the leaves are changing and full of color. Some are yellow, others are orange and red, some are brown, and still others remain green. It is beautiful to behold and so different from her desert. Nevertheless, she enjoys the crunch crunch crunch her bootS make as she steps over them.
He buys her a warm drink as they look on at the harvest activities taking place. There is to be a harvest ball that night for the citizens. She had not planned on attending, and she is not dressed for a ball, but she allows him to drag her in anyway.
She is curious as to what he's doing over there, talking to the musicians, when he holds out his hand to her and asks if he may have this dance. With pleasure, she accepts.
It is their first dance together. There was no time for it on their adventures with the group (no privacy either), and after they saved the day, well, she thought he was dead. For a year. A stab of pain strikes her heart as she remembers the terrible sadness she felt. The loneliness after daring to hope that maybe after it was all over, they could make it work. Different lives bedamned. She remembers shouting his name and watching horrified from the window as the Bahamut crashed below, and she saw no sign he had escaped.
But she pushed that aside because that is in the past and in the present he is waiting for her answer. She puts her hand in his and discovers it is a waltz.
He is a delightful dancer. She muses that he must have learned as part of his noble upbringing, and is a little surprised he has not forgotten the steps. Then again though, neither has she.
She enjoys the dance. She enjoys the closeness between them, and the warmth of his hand on her back. She enjoys being Amalia, a simple country girl dancing with her handsome lover.
They dance and mingle, and even drink some punch. Somehow, she has ended up with wildflowers behind her ear, like one of the local girls. She does not know where he found them, but she will press them later, in a book.
At one point, he pulls her out onto a terrace for some air. He kisses her and she tastes the punch on his lips and drowns in his scent of leather and a hint of spice. His hands roam as they kiss, a prelude for what will come later, perhaps. Life as Amalia is simpler than her own. She is happy, incandescently happy, and she does not want this night to end.
Alas, all too soon, it does.
But not before he returns her to her study, and takes her over her desk.
She will never be able to look at it quite the same again.