Day 9 - Meadow

eyyy
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A hush falls over the hall as the lights dim out. Cecil cuts off mid-sentence, his mouth still hanging a bit open as he turns to look up. I blink, taken slightly aback by the sudden change in atmosphere and look over to Leea. But she's already looking up, and so I turn as well. The glass wall is facing North, but the ceiling gives us a good view in all directions. I'm not entirely sure which way I should be looking though, and at this point I'm too scared to ask. Everyone else is so focused and the hall is so silent.

Slowly, a light starts to appear in the Northern horizon. At first I think I'm imagining it, but it keeps getting clearer and clearer until I don't have to strain my eyes to see it. It's a light streak of green across the dark, dark sky.

There's some hushed murmurs and a few gasps. The light grows brighter and shifts to a pale blue, then to white. I've seen northern lights a few times before, and as Cecil told me earlier, these are quite reminiscent of those, if clearly stronger and brighter. Speaking of Cecil, I can feel him next to me, almost vibrating with excitement in his seat. I smile. It's endearing how enthusiastic he gets about stuff like this.

I make the mistake of glancing over.

My breath is caught in my throat. He is smiling widely, his eyes sparkling with wonder as he looks up into the shifting sky. The light show above us colours his face with soft hues of green, of red, of blue. He is so beautiful, and I can feel my heart melt my chest as I look at him, completely engrossed with the sky, completely unaware of how stunning he is, of how he makes me feel.

"It's beautiful," he whispers.

"Yeah," I breathe out, and smile.

Flame pokes my chin and purrs softly. I look down at her in my lap, let out a small breathy laugh, and look back up again, where the colours have picked up, engulfing the whole sky in their display.

~x~

It is past three before we get back to our hotel and I am more than ready to just fall face first into bed. I open the door as Cecil chatters excitedly behind me and walk in, only to stop dead in my tracks. Cecil nearly walks into me.

"What's wrong?" he asks. Flame in his hands lets out a sleepy chirp before falling asleep again.

"I..." I pause and swallow. My face is burning up. How did I not notice this during the day?? "There's only one bed."

"Uh," says Cecil, stepping around me into the room proper. He looks between me and the bed. No wonder it was so big. "Yeah? Did... did you not notice earlier?"

"I... guess I didn't," I say.

"Is it a problem?"

"No!"

My voice is very loud in the quiet hotel and I cringe. I hope I didn't wake any of the other patrons up.

"I mean," I try again, at a much more appropriate volume. "No, it's not a problem. Why, why would it be?" I laugh, a lot forced. I finally start to move again and make my way quickly towards the bathroom.

"I'm sorry I didn't ask you beforehand," Cecil says. I don't look back at him. "Personal space is important, of course."

"Nah, man, it's fine," I say, waving my hand and pull the bathroom door open a bit more forcefully than it needs. "I'm just gonna wash up real quick!"

I don't hear his response as I slam the door closed.

Shit.

I stare at my reflection in the mirror for a moment. My face it beet red.

Shit.

There's nothing I can do about this, I tell myself. It's a big bed, I can manage two nights next to him. I'll be fine.

Ah, shit.

I wash my face with cold water to calm myself. Then I brush my teeth and slowly exit the bathroom.

Cecil has already changed into his pajama, and is in the process of hanging his suit up when he hears me open the door. He smiles and my heart does a somersault. I try not to let it show on my face though and just walk over to my suitcase, pulling out my own pajama as he walks to the bathroom. I change quickly and hang my own garment bag next to his.

I trail my fingers down them before shaking myself out of my thoughts and climb into bed.

I'm curled on my side facing the wall when Cecil comes out. I hear him shuffling around with his stuff for a moment, before he turns off the light and then. Then the mattress dips and I feel him climb into the bed next to me. There's a silence. I'm pretty sure my heartbeat is audible in the next room.

"Good night," he says softly.

"G'night," I say. There's another dip in the mattress, closer to me this time and my heart jumps out of my throat before I realise it's Flame, climbing over Cecil to cuddle me. I let out a soft laugh, mentally thanking the little elemental for being there. She curls into a ball next to me and I focus on her familiar heat instead of the one behind me.

Or the one growing in the pit of my stomach.

~x~

I am standing in the middle of a vast meadow, one spanning away and away further than my eyes can see. This is a dream space, I recognize the feeling now, but it's not the one we created. Maybe it's just a regular lucid dream? I don't know. It doesn't really matter either.

I start to walk. A wind blows through the knee high grass, sending little seeds and flower petals in the air where they start to dance. It's quite a beautiful place. A peaceful one.

I continue to walk. The direction doesn't matter, there is nothing in any direction, just the meadow, but I like walking and so I walk. The wind keeps humming in my ears, bringing with it soft music, the sound of laughter, of singing. I pause for a moment to listen, and then continue. I start to sing with it.

I sing softly at first. I start with the songs we're working on in choir at the moment, songs about spring, and then I move on to my favourite songs. I'm singing louder now and the world is singing with me. I sing the carol of the elementals. I sing about nothing at all. I sing about everything.

I'm just singing now, not any specific song, just singing, making it up as I go. I sing about my thoughts, my feelings. I sing about my friends, of Flame. Of Cecil.

I sing long of Cecil and the world sings with me.

Another voice. Flame.

She is here, somewhere, which doesn't surprise me at this point, but it does give me a direction. I turn a bit to the left and continue that way, singing as I walk. I see her finally, singing as she sits there and we sing together for a moment as I walk to her.

She stops her singing when I get to her and looks up. I follow her gaze up and the words die on my lips.

"Oh," I say as Cecil smiles to me.

~x~

I wake up slowly. The bed is cold.

I blink my eyes open, sit up and stretch and yawn. Flame jumps into my lap and I am immediately much warmer. I scratch her behind the ear.

"Good morning," says Cecil and I look up at him. He's already dressed and reading a paper at the small table in the corner of our room.

"Morning," I say and smile. "What time is it?"

He checks his pocket watch. My pocket watch. "Five to noon."

"Huh, so it is still morning," I say. He laughs a little.

"For five more minutes, sure," he says and folds the paper and puts it on the table. He reaches down and picks up a paper bag from the floor. "Sadly, the hotel breakfast isn't open anymore, but I went out and got you this." He hands the bag to me.

"You didn't need to do that," I say as I open it, but I'm glad he did. I am starving. Inside is a delicious looking bagel. It looks like chicken caesar. "But thank you. I appreciate it a lot."

He smiles. "Once you're done, I was thinking we could look around Dublin for a bit, visit the Dublin Castle or some of the museums. A lot of them are free, like the National Museums." I hum, my mouth full of bagel, indicating for him to go on. He does. "We have the whole day today, I've arranged us to meet Lucas tomorrow."

"Lucas?" I ask around the bagel. A few crumbs and pieces of lettuce drop to my lap but Flame picks them up and eats them so that's fine.

"Yes, that colleague I mentioned," he explains. "The guy who for HUT."

"Right, the dream thing," I say, nodding. I'm not going to lie, I had almost forgotten that was the reason we'd come here. I lick some cream cheese from my fingers and then present them to Flame for thorough cleaning. "Well, I don't know much about Dublin, so I'm fine with whatever you think would be good."

"I... okay!" He smiles, excitement in his eyes again. My heart feels warm. "Well, get dressed, we have some sights to see!"

~x~

Cecil has devised a full on tourist tour for us, starting with the Dublin Castle. There's a circular lawn in the back, where the city got it's start, apparently. Cecil explained it in detail, but I didn't really get it properly. For some reason or another, there used to be a tidal pool there, known as the black pool or "Dubh Lind" which the city got its name from.

Next is the National Natural History Museum, which features taxidermied animals and a few mythical creatures. Needless to say, it is right up Cecil's alley. In fact, he gets so swept up that he forgets to watch the time and we only realize we've spent a couple of hours there when my stomach protests its lack of food. Cecil keeps apologizing as we set off to find a place for lunch (or rather, early dinner at this point) but I tell him it's fine. Which it is, I was so mesmerized by his explanation that I didn't realize anything either. He has a way of making anything sound interesting.

After managing to get food in us, we continue our tour. We visit a few more museums, a couple galleries and parks. We walk a lot, which is fine, I like walking, but it is also tiring. Especially after our long day yesterday. Cecil seems to sense my tiredness and suggest we call it in early today so we do. We pick up some take out on our way back to the hotel, where Flame greets us happily when we return. She had opted to not come with us when we left and had spent her day doing... something or other at the hotel room. Sleeping, probably.

We spend the rest of the day just chatting in the room and playing with Flame, and go to sleep early, so that we won't be tired when meeting Lucas tomorrow. I am equally looking forward and dreading what tomorrow brings, but Cecil assures me that Lucas is nice and that it will be great. I decide to believe him, and fall asleep much more easily than last night.
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Hey hey hey! Sorry this is late, I totally forgot it was Friday lol!

But hey, here's a blast from the past! Who remembers Carol? Okay, now who remembers the little after-story I decided to write to it the following spring? Well, in case you need a refresher, I linked the first part of that in the beginning (the link to the first of Carol is in the right side with all the other stories if you wanna reread that too)

Yeah, so basically I was thinking, what should I write this week? And I remembered that I never finished this thing and since they're in Dublin and I was in Dublin... Now's as good a time as any to write it! I'll post the final part tomorrow as an apology for being late with this one (I was gonna write it next week but oh well)

This was really interesting to write tbh, because it's been literally 3 years since I wrote the first 8 parts, but as I started writing I got these... I mean not flashbacks, but like I had the things planned back then and as I wrote it kinda came back to me in pieces. Oh man when I remembered they only had one bed I was about ready to stop right there like holy shit that's some fanfic shit right there lol

But yeah, here's this, next one will be tomorrow and after next week, I'll probably move these back to be chronologically after the other parts and make a little bookmark post here to link to that. Anyway, see ya tomorrow!

Pie out.